Tour diary

Dope hopes dashed

Article published on the 2008-07-18 Latest update 2008-07-18 11:53 TU

Riccardo Ricco on the road to being caught doping
(Photo: Reuters)

Hopes that this was going to be a clean Tour have been dashed. Two doping scandals had already hit this year’s race, those of Spaniards Manuel Beltran and Moises Duenas Nevado. Now Italian champion Riccardo Ricco has been caught cheating.

Ricco, who won two stages of this year’s race, was kicked out on Thursday after he tested positive for the performance-enhancing drug EPO.

There are two reasons why this latest disqualification is more serious than the others.

Firstly, Ricco was ninth in the overall table, as well as being Italian champion.

Secondly, he is only 24 and one of a younger generation of professional cyclists who, the Tour organisers hoped, had come to terms with the fact that there is no future in doping.

But the message that those using illegal substances will be caught appears not to have got through to the man described as the “cobra”, who models himself on the former champion Marco Pantani.

The announcement of Ricco’s disqualification was followed by his team sponsor Saunier Duval declaring that it was pulling the plug on the Tour and that as a result the whole team was to leave.

So where does that leave the Tour?

At a hastily arranged press conference on Thursday following the arrival of stage 12 in Narbonne, Tour de France CEO Patrice Clerc and Director General Christian Prudhomme said Ricco’s disqualification was the sign that the clampdown against doping was continuing. The fight to weed out the cheats would continue, he promised, for the sake of the honest riders who do not use performance-enhancing drugs.

Ricco, who is now in police custody, was booed by the public as police took him away at the start of Thursday’s stage in Lavanalet. He faces a minimum two-year suspension from professional cycling, plus being sacked by his team and losing his salary.

The news of Ricco’s disqualification has dampened the atmosphere of the Tour de France and, although management is attempting to put a brave face on it, there is a growing feeling that the Italian will probably not be the last to be caught before the end on 27 July.

As for Thursday’s race, it was won by Britain’s Mark Cavendish, the self-styled “fastest man in the world” who has achieved his third stage win in this year’s Tour.

The overall leader’s yellow jersey is still on the shoulders of Australia’s Cadel Evans who remains only one second ahead of CSC’s Frank Schlek of Australia.

The race continues on Friday with another flat stage from Narbonne to Nimes.