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: (Joel W. Johnson)