Source: International Herald-Tribune Pubdate: 30, July 1998 Contact: http://www.iht.com/ Author: Samuel Abt TOUR PROTEST FORCES POLICE TO ALTER INQUIRY TACTICS Angry Over Hotel Raid, Riders Stage Slowdown A1X-LES-BAINS, France --- The Tour de France, plagued by drug scandals, was stopped twice Wednesday by rider protests and faced a premature end for the first time in its 95-year history. The riders agreed to start Thursday only if the French police modify their tactics in a spreading investigation of some of the 21 teams in the world's greatest bicycle race. Not until Jean-Marie Leblanc, the director of the race consulted with government officials and promised a change in police methods---including questioning in team hotels rather than police stations---did the riders call off their second sit-down. But they ripped off their numbers, making the stage unofficial, and then rode at a moderate speed without competition, reaching the finish line nearly three hburs late. Three teams quit en route in protest, as did a handful of individual riders. A fourth team quit later. The turmoil was unprecedented. Six teams are now under suspicion; the riders are divided in their response to the investigation, and Tour officials spent the day trying to keep the race going to its scheduled end in Paris on Sunday. They had been successful Friday, when the riders refused to start to protest media treatment of the drug scandal, which began before the race started in Dublin on July 11. The focus of the protest Wednesday was a police raid on a hotel in which four riders from the TVM team were taken to a hospital Tuesday night and tested for drugs in their urine, blood and hair. A TVM car was seized by French police in March and found to contain what was described as a huge quantity of illegal performance-enhancing drugs. "They treated us like criminals, like animals," said one of the Dutch team's members, Jeroen Blijlevens. "They took Bart out of the shower, made us sign some papers and took us away," he continued, referring to his roommate, Bart Voskamp. The riders were held more than four hours for the tests and released half an hour after midnight. Word of their treatment did not reach the full 140-man pack until it was rolling Wednesday in the 17th of 21 daily stages, 149 kilometers (92 rniles) from Albertville in the Alps to Aix-lesBains. The riders also learned then that the police would visit the hotels of three more teams, Casino, which is based in France; Polti, based in Italy, and ONCE, based in Spain. Three officials of the Festina team based in France, had previously been arrested, and two officials of the TVM team are being held in a French jail. Another French team, Big Mat-Auber, came under suspicion Tuesday when one of its vans was stopped by the police and found to contain medication that was sent to a laboratory for analysis. As the news of the TVM treatment and the police investigation at the three team hotels Wednesday night filtered among the riders, they stopped for 25 minutes after 32 kilometers. "I'm fed up," said their spokesman, Laurent Jalabert, the French national champion and the world's top-ranked racer. "I can't continue under these conditions, being treated like a criminal." He entered a team car, quitting the race, and was followed shortly by the other ONCE riders. His directeur sportif, or coach, Manolo Saiz, a Spaniard, said: "We may never come to race in France again. This may be the end of cycling. It's the biggest crisis we've ever had and we're a family heading for divorce." Leblanc, the Tour director, pleaded with the riders and their coaches. "I ask you, directeurs sportif my friends, I ask you, the riders, my friends, to continue the race," he said on the radio that links the race. "We were as astonished as the riders about the way TVM was treated," he said on television later. "We are discussing with the authorities how further investigation of the Tour de France riders can be handled with the utmost dignity." With that promise, the race resumed, but only for a dozen more kilometers. Since Jalabert was gone, Leblanc met with the riders' new spokesman, Bjarne Riis, a Dane with Telekom and the winner of the 1996 Tour. "If the riders caa be assured that the investigation will be held with a certain dignity, they will continue with the Tour de France tomorrow," Riis said. The riders then resumed the journey at a speed about half their usual 40 kilometers an hour. At the feeding zone, the Banesto team, like ONCE from Spain, and the Riso Scotti team from Italy dropped out. So did individual riders, including two TVM riders. After the stage, the Vitalicio team, also from Spain, withdrew. By the end of the day, the field was down to 111 riders. Although representatives of teams with riders among the leaders were not threatening further disruption, team officials and riders condemned police tactics. The police, who are under the orders of an investigating magistrate in Lille, far to the north, had no official spokesman and could not present their side. "I understand the riders' unhappiness," said Alain Bondue, a former racer and now manager of the Cofidis team from France. "You have to let them do their job. The TVM riders left the hospital at 12:30 without eating and without being massaged. That's not right. "That the police want to investigate is logical but why not wait till Monday, a day after the race ends?" Asked if Cofidis expected a visit from the police, Bondue said, "Who knows? They don't telephone ahead." The police were waiting at the hotels of ONCE, Polti and Casino when the race pulled into Aix-les-Bains. The four TVM riders remaining, including some of those taken to the hospital Tuesday night, led, the pack across the line and were applauded by a large crowd of fans who had remained for that moment. "If the French police want to ruin their national race, they're doing it," said Bobby Julich, an American with Cofidis who is in second place behind Marco Pantani, an Italian with Mercatone Uno. "We haven't been treated like human beings," he added. "Which TVM wasn't last night. That's what we're protesting against. That's why the stage was ruined today." If the treatment continues, he said, "It was the understanding of the riders that it wauld have pretty dire consequences. That's pretty much what everyone said. "Leblanc and Riis spoke, Leblanc said he spoke to the minister in charge of the police, he gave his handshake, he gave his word that nothing like last night would happen again." Other riders, who preferred not to be identified, said they had been cool to the stoppages but felt they had to concur in the mass action. - --- Checked-by: "Rich O'Grady"