TOUR MUST EXORCISE DRUGS OR BE DAMNED

WITH the arrests following the discovery of steroids in the luggage of
the Dutch team, TVM, and the admission by three of the "Festina nine"
that they took the banned drug EPO, speculation increased that the
remaining stages of this year's Tour de France would be cancelled.

Angry scenes between riders and race organisers and an organised go
slow by the 'peleton' on the Tarascon-Le Cap d'Agle stage of the race
showed the growing sense of anger and frustration.

The Societe du Tour de France and cycling's governing body, the Union
Cycliste Internationale (UCI), are paying the price for failing to
address the growth of the doping culture that now appears to be
inextricably linked with the professional circuit.

Few in the Tour de France convoy would directly blame the riders
themselves for the recent turn of events. Many of them, paid only
modest salaries, suffer relentlessly throughout the long and gruelling
season and are expected to forgo any personal ambition and chance of
success for the sake of the sponsors' exposure.

Despite these sacrifices, it is only the sport's biggest names who are
guaranteed a sponsorship contract for the following year. With the
competition for backers intensified by a hostile economic climate,
many riders are prepared to risk their long-term health in order to
guarantee their livelihood.

At the heart of the current scandal lies the cosy and complacent
relationship between the UCI, the Tour organisation and the pervasive
doping culture that has been tacitly endorsed by the sport itself.

For all its modernising qualities and awareness of marketing, the Tour
orgaisation, fronted by race director and former professional
Jean-Marie Leblanc, an eloquent and intelligent man, has been lagging
behind events and the public mood as the French police forced the pace
of change.

"Jean-Marie Leblanc - hypocrite!" reads one roadside banner as the
Tour headed east from the Pyrenees towards the Alps. Another placard
was more direct. "The Tour of Doping", it said bluntly as Tour stars
Jan Ullrich and Marco Pantani rode past.

With the Tour itself now exposed to public derision and with so many
former riders willing to tell their stories of drug abuse, the tired
arguments of Hein Verbruggen, UCI president, that only one per cent of
all dope tests are positive, have been thrown out with the used
syringes. Cycling may finally be coming to terms with the truth.

Verbruggen, who until now has appeared happy to blame all claims of
drug use on embittered or failed riders seeking publicity or revenge,
has finally acknowledged that traditional testing methods have failed.
He can no longer deny that the sport is in crisis. "Cycling is a
tough, very professional sport," said Verbruggen after the Tour stage
to Pau, "and I'm willing to admit that there are a lot more drugs
taken than we currently know about through the one per cent of positive
tests that are recorded. But I don't believe, as some doctors have
suggested, that 99 per cent of professional cyclists are doped."

Verbruggen said that if he thought that such an overwhelming majority
of riders were chemically enhanced, he would give up his job.

"I would not want to be president of such an organisation," he said.
"The problem is that we don't know whether it's 10 per cent of riders,
20 percent of riders or 40 per cent of riders using drugs because we
don't have tests to detect many of these substances. It is terrible,
it is cheating, but it is reality."

Doping is widely believed to have become endemic in professional
cycling in the 30 years since the amphetamine-related death of the

British rider, Tom Simpson, during the 1967 Tour. But in a sport in
which retired riders take up administrative and management roles, the
conspiracy of silence and tacit consent surrounding the use of doping
has become an open secret.

EPO, the blood booster linked to both the Festina and TVM teams, is
only one of several prohibited but undetectable performance-enhancing
products that are said to be in wide use in this year's Tour.

Lille police, currently questioning the Festina team, said that nobody
is above the law. Yet for a sporting institution that is now as much a
part of French cultural life as Bastille Day, the tidal wave of police
investigation has come as a crippling shock.

The Tour hierarchy blessed with the tradition of an event that fires
the imaginations of spectators and fans around the world, must now
take action to save a race increasingly mired in controversy and scandal.

Checked-by: "Rich O'Grady"