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Police question Italian rider after drugs find

Posted on: Wednesday, 13 July 2005, 04:50 CDT

By Etienne Ballerini

COURCHEVEL, France (Reuters) - French police have taken Italian rider Dario Frigo in for questioning after finding performance-enhancing drugs in a car driven by his wife at the Tour de France, his team said on Wednesday.

A police source said Frigo, 31, had been detained before Wednesday's stage of the race in the French Alps but gave no further details.

A spokesman for his Fassa Bortolo team confirmed the arrest, saying: "The gendarmes came at 0730 (0530 GMT), arrested him and held him for questioning. It is a case which concerns only Dario Frigo and not the team."

Frigo was excluded from the Giro D'Italia and banned for nine months in 2001 after drugs were found in his hotel room during a police raid.

Wednesday's incident recalls the events of 2002 when the wife of Lithuanian rider Raimondas Rumsas was arrested by French customs officers with drugs in her car on the day her husband finished third in Tour de France.

Rumsas and his wife will go on trial in November in France.

"This is not the same as the Rumsas case," a source close to the Frigo investigation said. "We haven't found as much drugs."

Tour de France executive director Jean-Marie Leblanc said police had arrested Frigo's wife on Wednesday near the French Alps resort of Chambery.

He said he did not know which drugs were found, nor how many.

"We deeply regret this case which concerns a rider who has already had brushes with the police and the sport's authorities," said Leblanc.

"He belongs to a generation of riders who just won't learn. That generation has to leave as soon as possible to be replaced by a generation of riders who respect the rules."

Cycling has been marred by doping for many years. The situation has improved recently after more tests and tougher sanctions were introduced.

Tour race director Christian Prudhomme said Fassa Bortolo team boss Bruno Cenghialta had assured him it was an isolated incident.

"They are at loss to explain what happened and they insist the team has nothing to do with it," he said.

"Those who cheat must be excluded from the race," he added. "Those people have nothing to look for in the Tour de France."

(Additional reporting by Francois Thomazeau)

Source: REUTERS

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