dirtylitterboxofferingstospammers wrote:
See

http://www.reuters.co.uk/newsPackage...sNews&storyID=
539966&section=news

or

http://tinyurl.com/237md


"Millar faces French inquiry
Thu 1 July, 2004 19:36

PARIS (Reuters) - A French magistrate has placed cycling time-trial world
champion David Millar under official judicial inquiry on suspicion of
"acquiring and possessing toxic substances", a judicial source has said.

The Briton had already been banned from the Tour de France starting on Saturday
as his Cofidis team is under investigation in a doping probe. Several other
riders have also been barred from the race while they remain under scrutiny.

Millar was released after questioning in Nanterre, north of Paris, by
magistrate Richard Pallain.

Magistrates decide first whether there are grounds for opening official
inquiries into suspected offences and later whether there is a case to be
answered in court. Official investigation is a step short of pressing charges
in France.

During police questioning last week, Millar admitted taking the banned drug
erythropoietin (EPO), an endurance booster, in 2001 and 2003, his lawyer
Paul-Albert Iweins told reporters as he left the Nanterre hearings.

Iweins said empty syringes were found during a search of Millar's home and
traces of banned substances detected.

Millar now looks likely to miss the Athens Olympics next month after the
British Cycling Federation announced on Thursday that he had been suspended
pending the investigation. Millar was favourite for the individual time-trial.

"I'm greatly saddened by the whole affair but I can confirm that David Millar
is suspended with immediate effect pending further investigation and a
disciplinary hearing," federation acting chief executive David Brailsford told
Reuters.

Three Cofidis riders have already been charged, including 1992 Olympic bronze
medallist Philippe Gaumont, who was sacked by Cofidis after admitting taking
and dealing in drugs.

The team withdrew from competition for a month before starting to race again on
May 5.

The affair is the biggest judicial investigation into cycling since the Festina
scandal that erupted during the 1998 Tour de France.

In May, eight cyclists in the Giro d'Italia received early morning visits as
part of a nationwide probe into doping in sport though investigators said they
found no illegal substances.

Millar, a Scot, won the penultimate stage of the 2003 Tour de France, a 49-km
time-trial, to go with a prologue success in 2000 and a stage victory in 2002.

Also on Thursday, a French appeal court ruled the ban on another Cofidis rider
Cedric Vasseur on competing in the Tour after being charged in a doping
investigation would stand.

"I tried to assert my rights. I failed but never mind. The Tour is not the only
race. I shall carry on racing and my team will help me," Vasseur said after the
hearing.

Vasseur has not been retained for the Tour by his team.

Five-times Tour winner Lance Armstrong will hear on Friday the outcome of his
appeal against publishers of a book containing doping allegations about him.

Armstrong has appealed against the June 21 decision of a Paris court, which
rejected his request that a denial he took any performance-enhancing product be
inserted in the book "L.A. confidential, the secrets of Lance Armstrong",
written by journalists Pierre Ballester and David Walsh.

He was ordered to pay legal costs and fined for faulty procedure."

If he's guilty, I have no sympathy for him. Unfortunately the nature of
the sport (raw aerobic power, and/or power to weight ratio, generally
wins) means that non-superhuman riders feel obliged to do this kind of
thing to keep up.