Source: International Herald-Tribune Contact: http://www.iht.com/ Pubdate: Sun, 26 Jul 1998 Author: Samuel Abt 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. - ---