From AFP via Yahoo Perhaps Millar can ride for T-Mobile.
Cofidis affair deepens as police intensify probe Thu Jan 22, 1:50 PM ET
PARIS (AFP) - French cycling was in turmoil as the dark, dark EPO days of the 1990's were evoked
after riders with the Cofidis team admitted to doping under police questioning.
Judicial sources close to the affair said Thursday the riders being held - Frenchmen Cedric Vasseur
and Philippe Gaumont - have "more or less admitted to doping as a current practice within the
peloton". "Former and current riders with Cofidis have more or less capitulated under the weight of
evidence amassed by the police. For some it seemed a relief. Now we have other names and some new
leads," added the same source. Although comparisons with the Festina affair which almost brought
the Tour to its knees in 1998 have been dismissed - notably by team leader David Millar - the
fallout from an investigation which has been meticulously planned for the past nine months by drugs
squad officers looks set to spread far and wide. Although the 33-year-old Gaumont has admitted to
using the endurance booster EPO, a crime for which he has been charged by a French court, recent
revelations suggest that a culture of blood doping - where riders 'buy' blood from riders of their
own blood type then inject it - has come back to haunt the sport. After tapping the telephones of
the team's physio Bogdan Madejak and ex-Cofidis rider Marek Rutkiewicz - who is also from Poland -
investigators are said to have been supplied with a "rich source of information". Le Point magazine
has even published excerpts of their alleged conversation, in which Madejak asks Rutkiewicz his
blood type, and suggests to him to approach another rider with the same blood type. With such
evidence at hand, the French government - which is committed to fighting doping in sport - has
called for drastic measures to be taken against offenders. French sports minister Jean-Francois
Lamour has already called a meeting of French cycling's top brass on Friday - and it seems there
will be no punches pulled when the new rules are laid down. "At the international level we'll be
taking an initiative in the coming days," said Lamour. "We have to be able to carry out random
tests where the athletes train in France or elsewhere in Europe or throughout the world." The
president of the country's cycling federation, Jean Pitallier, admits there has been progress since
the Festina affair ominously demonstrated the extent of doping in the peloton. But he insisted that
teams had to take more responsibility. "We have to lay down the law in this case and introduce
prison sentences for those who are found guilty," Pitallier told AFP. "I want an example to be made
of these people." He added: "Teams should be getting rid of their bad apples. Since 1998 efforts
have been made, but there's still some black sheep. There are riders out there who just haven't got
the message." For the moment some of Cofidis' bigger names - such as world time trial champion
Millar and Spain's world road race champion Igor Astarloa - have been spared the police probe.
Gaumont was released on bail Thursday, while Vasseur - who wore the yellow jersey on the 1997 Tour
de France - was freed. But Francois Migraine, the head of the team's sponsor, finance company
Cofidis, is starting to realize that his dream come true of owning France's number one team could
be more contaminated than he thought. "If all this is true, then I'm surprised that the riders have
been so stupid," said Francois, adding that since 1998 all teams and managers have been forced to
sign a binding anti-doping chart. "If I decide to pull out of the sport, cycling will not
automatically get better. "But if I find out that I have a team full of 25 riders who are all
doped, then there will be no more team."