TOUR RIDERS STRIKE OVER DRUG-SCANDAL CRITICISM

LE CAP D'AGDE, France---The Tour de France nearly unraveled Friday when the
150 remaing riders went on strike for two hours to protest what they called
media hounding and criticism in the drug scandal surrounding the world's
greatest bicycle race.

"If the stage had been canceled, it might have been the end of the 1998
Tour," said Jean-Marie Leblanc, the race director.

"The riders showed they're fed up," he added in a news conference after the
daily stage was held. Leblanc especially cited a French television segment
Thursday night that examined the garbage of the Asics team from Italy and
displayed medical paraphernalia.

Hours before the riders refused to start, three members of the expelled
Festina team from France---Laurent Brochard, the world road race champion,
Christophe Moreau and Annin Meier---admitted to the police in the central
French city of Lyon that they had used drugs. Two other members, Alex Zulle
and Laurent Dufaux, of the nineman team confessed late Friday.

In a parallel case, the police continued to hold two officials of the TVM
team from the Netherlands. A magistrate said a search of the team's hotel
had revealed "a large quantity" of "doping products" and masking agents.

Leblanc warned in a statement before his news conference that-he and the
International Cycling Union, which Qoverns the sport, were "extremely
attentive to developrnents in the TVM investigation."

" If it is revealed that this team has not respected the rules and the
ethics of the Tour de France and International Cycling Union, the team will
be immediately expelled."

In a climate of innuendo, rumor and anger, widespread doping practices lonF
suspected in the sport were surfaclng in its showpiece. The Tour which
began in 1903 and has been held every year since except during the two
world wars, is not only the richest and most prestigious race but also an
integral part of French culture, watched by hundreds of thousands of fans
at the side of the road every day and by millions on television.

Leblanc told how he talked the riders into starting: "We negotiated with
the riders, we explained our position. We cited the multitude of fans who
were awaiting them. In the end, they understood."

Whether the riders will hold a demonstration again Saturday morning was not
certain. Leblanc said he would attend a meeting beforehand with an official
of the French Cycling Federation and a rider from each of the 21 teams.

The three Spanish teams---Banesto, ONCE and Vitalicio---and the Mercatone
Uno team from Italy were reported to have led the strike.

"There's been some pretty harsh stuff in the Spanish media, and a lot of
the riders were hurt by it," said Stuart O'Grady, an Australian with Gan
who wore the overall leader's yellow jersey for three days. ''It cut deep.
A lot of teams didn't want to take part in the race today."

In Lyon, all nine members of the Festina team plus three of its officials
who had been in custody were released. Apart from the five riders who
were-said to have confessed, Richard Virenque, the leader and the
second-place finisher in the last Tour, his French compatriots Pascal Herve
and Didier Rous and Neil Stephens, an Australian, were believed to be
continuing to deny that they had been involved in a systemadc program of
doping.

Citing media attention to the case and the Festina riders' objections that
they had been treated harshly by the police the riders who gathered Friday
morning in the town of Tarascon-sur-Ariege in the Pyrenees decided they had
had enough.

They slowly rolled 3.2 kilometers (2 miles) from the ceremonial start to
the real one and then stopped, dismounting from their bicycles.

Laurent Jalabert, the Frenchman who is rankedNo. 1 in the world, approached
Leblanc in his lead car and spoke with him.

"Since the start of this Tour we have talked only about scandal and not
sport," he said. "The riders are disgusted. We have been treated like
cattle and we will act like cattle.

"Nobody is interested in the sport side of the race. We won't, ride. It's
finished."

Standing and sprawled on the road, the riders conferred among themselves
and with their coaches.

"I'm so sick and tired of everybody being blamed for what Festina did" said
Frankie Andreu, an American with the U.S. Postal Service. He favored not
racing. Eric Zabel, a Getman with Telekom and the wearer of the
points leader's green jersey, said: "When Ben Johnson was caught in the '88
Olympics only Johnson was thrown out. People didn't think all the other
ruriners were guilty the way they think all the cyclists are."

After an hour, the riders were persuaded to start but they rolled so slowly
that they covered only 16 kilometers in the nexthour. Then the racing
started in earnest with bursts of accelerations. Jalabert went on a long
attack with two other riders, and was later said to have done so because he
was so angry that the pack had agreed to start that he wanted it to suffer
at high speed in the sultry heat.

This was not the first strike by riders. In 1978, they refused to cross a
finish line to protest long transfers between daily stages, and in 1991
they refused to start a stage to protest the mandatory wearing of helmets.
In both instances the Tour softened its rules.

In another legal development, Judge Patrtck Kiel, who has been leading the
Festma investigation in the northern city of Lille, released "under strict
conditions" Willy Vogt, the team masseur whose arrest unleashed the drug
scandal.