WHEEL TURNS ON DIRTY BUSINESS JEFF CONNOR

says the Tour's drug scandal is no surprise to the press

The Tour de France has its familiar noises; car horns, the whistles of
officials, the klaxons of roadside fans, the high-powered motorcycles and
the TV helicopters chopping overhead.

It has its smells, too, ranging from roasting coffee beans in boulevard
cafes at stage starts to liniment on bizarrely bulging thighs; from the
sunflowers of midsummer France to the carbon monoxide of a thousand vehicles
in the publicity caravan.

But the Tour of 1998 has been insinuated by a new sound and a new smell in
the wake of the Festina/TVM doping revelations - the clatter of cleated
shoes rushing to the confessional and an overwhelming whiff of cant.

For the 88 years of its history, the Tour's Mafia-like blood brotherhood has
managed to dissuade riders from revealing the sport's endemic chicanery,
while in its directors, publicists and press it has washers of dirty linen
fit to rank with anything in Nixon's White House. But it was no cycling
Bernstein or Woodward that exposed Festinagate this year - simply the
appalling fluke that saw the Festina team's masseur Willy Voet and his
phials caught at customs on the France/Belgium border.

The knock-on effect has been remarkable. The vow of silence has been
forgotten as riders have stampeded to admit culpability. Team directors have
suddenly discovered a new responsibility to the truth and even Jacques
Chirac climbed on the bandwagon with a cry of rien ne vas plus.

Which brings us to the cant.

Amid the breast-beating and self-immolation, one body has remained aloof
from responsibility: the gentlemen of the cycling press. This may be down to
vested interest - three free weeks' wining and dining around France are not
to be sniffed at - but most cycling journalists now busy holding up their
hands in horror have known about the depravity in their sport for years.

When I travelled with the ANC Halfords team on the 1987 Tour, it took less
than 48 hours to realise that something was wrong in the state of cycling.

After a week, while still marvelling at the athleticism of the riders and
the mind-boggling mechanics of the organisation, I knew for sure that this
was an inherently dirty business.

ANC were the original innocents abroad, but even they knew most of the
tricks of the trade. On an early stage, three riders abandoned and another,
Guy Gallopin, was 20 minutes behind the main bunch, and certain to miss the
time cut-off. Losing four riders out of nine in the first week would have
been a disaster, but Gallopin made it - with the inspired help of his
directeur sportif, who gave a police outrider a cycling cap (the universal
currency of the Tour) in exchange for pacing Gallopin for a few kilometres,
then had the rider hang on to the car door while he motored along at 50mph.

It says much for the naughty-boy atmosphere of the Tour that this was not
considered cheating (even by a passing commissaire, who just wagged a finger
at us) but a stroke of genius by the directeur sportif.

Those were minor infringements. On the same Tour, three riders, including a
stage winner, failed dope tests. The reaction to what I naively considered
alarming transgressions was a one-month ban (suspended), three paragraphs in
L'Equipe and a brief mention on Channel 4.

Plus ca change ... a year later, the yellow jersey Pedro Delgado was caught
with Probenacide, a masking drug for steroids, in his system. Like this
year, the very fabric of the Tour was under threat. But then someone
discovered that while Probenacide was on the International Olympic Committee
banned list, it was not due on the Union des Cyclists International list
until a month after the race. Delgado, and the Tour went on.

Like yesterday (is Jimmy Reid convenor of the cycling union?) there was also
a roadside strike by riders protesting at ... well, protesting that Delgado
had been caught, basically.

Since this almost laughable piece of disabusement I have waited hungrily for
a cycling journalist of independent mien to come forward and expose what to
any person possessing a minimum of logic must appear the obvious. But
nothing.

Even now, the cycling press has preferred to adopt the role of bemused
bystanders reluctantly hoodwinked (some of them for over 20 years!) by the
Tour's devious participants.

In this unsavoury affair, Willy Voet may be in the dock, but he isn't the
only guilty party.

Checked-by: "Rolf Ernst"