Tour de France loses a third leading cyclist to drug charges
July 18, 2008
Cycling crown jewel loses its luster as doping continues to compromise the sport in France and around the world.
On the Tour de France, gendarmes are becoming almost as numerous as competitors. An Italian rider who has already won two stages this year, Riccardo Riccò was led away from the start of the 12th stage by French police. He was the third cyclist this year alone to have tested positive for the banned blood-boosting drug EPO. The team he represented in the Tour de France, Saunier Duval-Scott, immediately withdrew from the race. This marks the third year that the Tour de France and cycling as a sport has been marred by doping scandals. And it comes on the heels of another leading cyclist leaving the Tour de France after his team fired him. Michael Rasmussen, the Dane who had been leading the Tour de France in the yellow jersey, was fired by his team. Rasmussen won last Wednesday’s stage and had looked set to win the race, which ends Sunday. He was taken out of the Tour de France by the Rabobank team after questions arose about his whereabouts when he was unavailable for doping exams earlier this year.
As unfavorable as the evidence against him appeared, Rasmussen’s withdrawal came under a mere cloud of suspicion, while Riccò’s disqualification was a result of a real failed drug test. Riccò continues to protest his innocence, saying that the elevated levels of the blood ingredient EPO is meant to boost have been naturally high for him since he was a child. Even if this is true, this does nothing to explain the presence of synthetic EPO markers in the test that knocked him out of the Tour de France midrace.
Riccò’s disqualification marked a grim anniversary for the tour de France. It came on the 10th anniversary of the Festina scandal, when routine doping among cycling teams came to light with the arrest at the 1998 Tour of Festina’s team leader, who was driving a car that was a vertiable pharmacy performance-enhancing drugs.
Desperate to do damage control on the reputation of the Tour de France and the sport of competitive cycling, Christian Prudhomme, the director of the Tour, also warned against condemning cycling as a whole in the wake of the repeated drug scandals. “The enemy is not sports, it is not cycling,” he said. “It is doping.”
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