Tour still dogged by drugs scandal

Lance Armstrong and his fellow riders will be subjected to tough new anti-doping measures.

By CNN's Peter Humi

PARIS, France -- Didier Rous is the captain of France's Bonjour racing team and the French national champion.

A professional cyclist for nine years, Rous is not a favourite to win the Tour de France, which starts on Saturday in Dunkirk, but the 31-year-old can expect to be among the frontrunners.

For his younger sidekicks, however, just making the team for the toughest, and most prestigious, cycling event in the world is the ultimate goal.

"Only the best of the best will take part in the Tour," says Rous. " It's an elite within an elite of cyclists."

But it is an elite and a sport in crisis.

Rous himself was implicated in the 1998 Tour doping scandal and was suspended from racing for six months.

He was then a member of the Festina squad which was expelled from the race after police raided the team hotel and found evidence of illegal performance-enhancing drugs.

Festina's team leader Richard Virenque subsequently admitted using drugs and was barred from competing for nine months, but he was cleared by a French court on charges of actively organising doping among his teammates.

But former Festina head coach Bruno Roussel, who spent 11 days in jail after the police drugs bust, received a one-year suspended prison sentence when he was convicted of helping to supply riders with drugs.

In his book "Tour de Vices" Roussel describes a virtually institutionalised system of prescription drug abuse.

"In 1998 with the Festina team, it was approximately 80 or 90 per cent of the top level cyclists using drugs," he reveals.

The team's doctor, he writes, would prescribe a series of drugs to enhance riders' performance, based on team tactics and the nature of the day's race.

"Every rider has his objectives," says Roussel. "He has one or two objectives in the year and the rider, he knows that. He prepares himself psychologically and also with the medicaments, with the drugs and with the doctors.

"Everyone has his training programme, his racing programme and his drugs programme. It's really scientific."

Roussel may no longer be involved in racing but the activities he describes are apparently not a thing of the past.

The image of the sport was again dragged through the mud during this year's Giro d'Italia which was also marred by police raids and evidence of widespread drug-taking.

Among the prescription drugs police found was Erythropoietin, or EPO, which is used to treat anaemia but is also considered a performance-enhancing drug.

Police questioned 86 riders and Dario Frigo, a leading race contender, was dismissed by his Fasso Bortolo team after doping substances were discovered in his room.

The sport's tarnished reputation has damaged the confidence of sponsors.

Bonjour was able to secure a three and a half million dollar package to compete in this year's Tour but team sponsor Alain Barelle warns that cycling must shape up or face the commercial consequences.

"If we have any more disasters sponsors, including us, would seriously question our participation in cycling," says Alain Barelle.

"We are reaching the point of no return. This year's Tour de France will be crucial."

The pressure is now on the Tour's organisers and the International Cycling Union to crack down on doping. To appease and attract investors a series of tough new measures have been introduced.

All competitors will have to sign forms stating they understand the new anti-doping rules and there will be mandatory blood testing for all stage winners.

"I agree with the sponsors when they say if this identification between doping and cycling remains, they will reconsider their decision about investment," says Tour chairman Patrice Clerc.

"Now the image is there and together we have to fight to rebuild a new cycling. I think it is very unfortunate. But the athletes are responsible for that, they have gone too far."

Still, team coaches say cycling is already the most scrutinized sport for prescription drug abuse. In France alone, 80 per cent of all doping tests were performed on cyclists.

"The riders are not to blame, they are the victims," says Bonjour head coach Jean Rene Beraudeau. "They didn't invent the new American products that are out there on the market. It's the doctors and people who make money from it. Heads should roll.

"What is drug abuse?" asks Didier Rous. "Where does it end, or begin? It's an everyday problem. People who don't feel happy take anti-depressants. It's a social phenomenon. Drugs are everywhere."

But not, organisers insist, on this year's Tour de France.