TOUR PROTEST FORCES POLICE TO ALTER INQUIRY TACTICS

Angry Over Hotel Raid, Riders Stage Slowdown

A1X-LES-BAINS, France --- The Tour de France, plagued by drug
scandals, was stopped twice Wednesday by rider protests and faced a
premature end for the first time in its 95-year history.

The riders agreed to start Thursday only if the French police modify
their tactics in a spreading investigation of some of the 21 teams in
the world's greatest bicycle race. Not until Jean-Marie Leblanc, the
director of the race consulted with government officials and promised
a change in police methods---including questioning in team hotels
rather than police stations---did the riders call off their second
sit-down.

But they ripped off their numbers, making the stage unofficial, and
then rode at a moderate speed without competition, reaching the finish
line nearly three hburs late. Three teams quit en route in protest,
as did a handful of individual riders. A fourth team quit later.

The turmoil was unprecedented. Six teams are now under suspicion; the
riders are divided in their response to the investigation, and Tour
officials spent the day trying to keep the race going to its scheduled
end in Paris on Sunday. They had been successful Friday, when the
riders refused to start to protest media treatment of the drug
scandal, which began before the race started in Dublin on July 11.

The focus of the protest Wednesday was a police raid on a hotel in
which four riders from the TVM team were taken to a hospital Tuesday
night and tested for drugs in their urine, blood and hair. A TVM car
was seized by French police in March and found to contain what was
described as a huge quantity of illegal performance-enhancing drugs.

"They treated us like criminals, like animals," said one of the Dutch
team's members, Jeroen Blijlevens. "They took Bart out of the shower,
made us sign some papers and took us away," he continued, referring to
his roommate, Bart Voskamp. The riders were held more than four hours
for the tests and released half an hour after midnight.

Word of their treatment did not reach the full 140-man pack until it
was rolling Wednesday in the 17th of 21 daily stages, 149 kilometers
(92 rniles) from Albertville in the Alps to Aix-lesBains. The riders
also learned then that the police would visit the hotels of three more
teams, Casino, which is based in France; Polti, based in Italy, and
ONCE, based in Spain.

Three officials of the Festina team based in France, had previously
been arrested, and two officials of the TVM team are being held in a
French jail. Another French team, Big Mat-Auber, came under suspicion
Tuesday when one of its vans was stopped by the police and found to
contain medication that was sent to a laboratory for analysis.

As the news of the TVM treatment and the police investigation at the
three team hotels Wednesday night filtered among the riders, they
stopped for 25 minutes after 32 kilometers.

"I'm fed up," said their spokesman, Laurent Jalabert, the French
national champion and the world's top-ranked racer. "I can't continue
under these conditions, being treated like a criminal." He entered a
team car, quitting the race, and was followed shortly by the other
ONCE riders.

His directeur sportif, or coach, Manolo Saiz, a Spaniard, said: "We
may never come to race in France again. This may be the end of
cycling. It's the biggest crisis we've ever had and we're a family
heading for divorce."

Leblanc, the Tour director, pleaded with the riders and their coaches.
"I ask you, directeurs sportif my friends, I ask you, the riders, my
friends, to continue the race," he said on the radio that links the
race.

"We were as astonished as the riders about the way TVM was treated,"

he said on television later. "We are discussing with the authorities
how further investigation of the Tour de France riders can be handled
with the utmost dignity."

With that promise, the race resumed, but only for a dozen more
kilometers. Since Jalabert was gone, Leblanc met with the riders' new
spokesman, Bjarne Riis, a Dane with Telekom and the winner of the 1996
Tour.

"If the riders caa be assured that the investigation will be held with
a certain dignity, they will continue with the Tour de France
tomorrow," Riis said.

The riders then resumed the journey at a speed about half their usual
40 kilometers an hour. At the feeding zone, the Banesto team, like
ONCE from Spain, and the Riso Scotti team from Italy dropped out. So
did individual riders, including two TVM riders.

After the stage, the Vitalicio team, also from Spain,
withdrew.

By the end of the day, the field was down to 111 riders.

Although representatives of teams with riders among the leaders were
not threatening further disruption, team officials and riders
condemned police tactics. The police, who are under the orders of an
investigating magistrate in Lille, far to the north, had no official
spokesman and could not present their side.

"I understand the riders' unhappiness," said Alain Bondue, a former
racer and now manager of the Cofidis team from France. "You have to
let them do their job. The TVM riders left the hospital at 12:30
without eating and without being massaged. That's not right.

"That the police want to investigate is logical but why not wait till
Monday, a day after the race ends?" Asked if Cofidis expected a visit

from the police, Bondue said, "Who knows? They don't telephone ahead."

The police were waiting at the hotels of ONCE, Polti and Casino when
the race pulled into Aix-les-Bains. The four TVM riders remaining,
including some of those taken to the hospital Tuesday night, led, the
pack across the line and were applauded by a large crowd of fans who
had remained for that moment.

"If the French police want to ruin their national race, they're doing
it," said Bobby Julich, an American with Cofidis who is in second
place behind Marco Pantani, an Italian with Mercatone Uno.

"We haven't been treated like human beings," he added. "Which TVM
wasn't last night. That's what we're protesting against. That's why
the stage was ruined today."

If the treatment continues, he said, "It was the understanding of the
riders that it wauld have pretty dire consequences. That's pretty much
what everyone said.

"Leblanc and Riis spoke, Leblanc said he spoke to the minister in
charge of the police, he gave his handshake, he gave his word that
nothing like last night would happen again."

Other riders, who preferred not to be identified, said they had been
cool to the stoppages but felt they had to concur in the mass action.

Checked-by: "Rich O'Grady"