Sport - Cycling

It won’t be a smooth ride for Lance Armstrong

PARIS: Tour de France organisers are hardly thrilled at the prospect of Lance Armstrong returning for a shot at an eighth title in cycling’s showcase event.

Race director Christian Prudhomme said on Wednesday that the door is open for Armstrong to compete in the 2009 Tour, but he was cool on the idea and stressed that the American must meet stringent new anti-doping standards to clear suspicions that have dogged him throughout his career.

Armstrong, who won the Tour a record seven straight times from 1999-2005, announced that was ending a three-year retirement and aiming for another Tour victory in 2009. It is not yet clear which team he will ride for.

Prudhomme said Armstrong and his team will have to follow all the drug-testing rules “that are much more strict than they were before.”

“If Lance Armstrong is at the start of the Tour de France, it will be the same thing for him and for his team, of course,” he said. “I can’t say anything else. There won’t be any exceptions.”

Many things still need to happen for Armstrong to actually make it to the starting line next July, Prudhomme said.

“You have to remember we are in mid-September and that much water will run under the bridge until the Tour de France departure in Monaco,” he said.

The Tour director noted the doping speculation that dogged Armstrong when he was at the top of his sport. “Suspicion has followed Lance since 1999, everyone knows that,” he said.

Armstrong never tested positive and has always maintained he was clean, having passed hundreds of drug tests during his career. Since his retirement, rules and anti-doping measures have been further tightened in France and in cycling.

Noting that four of Armstrong’s former teammates later “got caught” for using banned substances, Prudhomme said, “it means that the anti-doping fight has really made progress.”

“We are not afraid of keeping out one rider or another,” he said at the headquarters of the Amaury Sports Organisation, which runs the race.

This year, blood tests were carried out on all riders just days before the start in Brest. “All the Tour riders, and Lance Armstrong if that is the case, will have to submit to rules that were harder than they were before,” Prudhomme said.

The Tour has been plagued by doping scandals since Armstrong retired.

Floyd Landis — a former teammate of Armstrong — was stripped of his 2006 Tour crown after testing positive for testosterone.

In 2007, Alexandre Vinokourov was caught using a banned blood transfusion. Race leader Michael Rasmussen was expelled before the finish for allegedly lying about his whereabouts when he missed pre-Tour anti-doping checks.

This year, Italian rider Riccardo Ricco was kicked out for using EPO after winning two stages. — AP

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