Fight Against Doping

Patrice Clerc, the head of the organization which runs the Tour de France, on Saturday called for the leadership of the world governing cycling body, the International Cycling Union (UCI), to resign.

"The UCI has displayed a lack of lucidity, of professionalism, a total unawareness," Clerc said. "Either it is incompetence or they wanted to do damage ... The management has no other choice but to resign," Clerc told journalists before the start of the next-to-last stage of the Tour, in the city of Cognac.

However, UCI president Pat McQuaid told Reuters: "It's ridiculous. It is not up to him to ask for that. Only the UCI Congress can."

Clerc, who heads the Amaury Sport Organization, and Tour director Christian Prudhomme have accused the UCI of having intentionally neglected to inform them of a positive doping test of German cyclist Patrik Sinkewitz and of Danish rider Micheal Rasmussen missing at least one doping test and lying about his whereabouts to avoid the tests.

Both situations were revealed during the running of the Tour, leading German public television stations ARD and ZDF to stop live broadcasts of the race and Rasmussen being forced out of the race when he was leading it.

Clerc and Prudhomme have charged that the UCI withheld the information in order to destabilize the race.

"The UCI is not able to lead the reconstruction of the (anti-doping) system," Clerc said. "We will attempt to unite all people of good will, riders, teams ... We don't want to exclude the sports authorities, but we want a sports authority that is ethical, neutral, independent and responsible."

End of cooperation

Prudhomme said that he felt "betrayed" by the UCI.

"The result of the (Sinkewitz) positive test took a month and a week to be made public," he said. That's a very surprising delay."

Clerc said the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) "is certainly the most competent body to lead the fight that touches every sport."

Earlier Saturday, Prudhomme was quoted as saying that the Tour de France would no longer cooperate with the UCI.

"We will no longer work together with the UCI, there will be special rules for the Tour de France," Prudhomme told the German daily Süddeutsche Zeitung on Saturday. "It (the UCI) is good for nothing. The UCI never wanted a clean Tour."

Prudhomme said that he was ready to attend an anti-doping summit proposed by WADA and that "we will next year co-operate with WADA and the French Anti-Doping Agency" instead of the UCI.

"Things will be better without the UCI, they must become better," he said.

UCI gives support to Germany

But German cycling officials appear to believe the UCI is doing a satisfactory job. They announced on Thursday that they had received the organization's signature on an anti-doping declaration for the road racing world championships to be held in Stuttgart in late September.

Under the agreement, the UCI, German sports authorities, local organizers and Germany's anti-doping agency will conduct a multitude of tests ahead of the championships, including pre-event random testing and requiring all cyclists to provide blood samples prior to racing.

"The measures announced at the beginning of July are intended to send a strong signal, namely that cycling has taken a new stance," said Wolfgang Schneider, the general secretary of the event's steering committee.