UNITED KINGDOM/SWITZERLAND: CYCLING - Tour de France director plans new stage in London while dispute threatens Paris-Nice race

Record ID: 593215

  • Title: UNITED KINGDOM/SWITZERLAND: CYCLING - Tour de France director plans new stage in London while dispute threatens Paris-Nice race
  • Date: 6th March 2008
  • Summary: LONDON, ENGLAND, UNITED KINGDOM (MARCH 5 2008) (REUTERS) (SOUNDBITE) (FRENCH) TOUR DE FRANCE DIRECTOR CHRISTIAN PRUDHOMME SAYS: "Listen, I hope one day that there will be a solution, we have always wanted a solution. I repeat, in the last four years we have signed two protocols, we have had sponsors as mediators, it didn't work, they were rejected. The UCI's representatives have sometimes agreed but when they went back to Switzerland it was over. We shall work on an agreement. It's true that today we are saddened by the fact that the French Sports Minister's efforts have been rejected like that."
  • Embargoed: 21st March 2008 12:00
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  • Topics: Sports
  • Reuters ID: LVA6L3Z2G606DMI0WAUWI9XJZ09Y
  • Story Text: Tour de France director Christian Prudhomme said on Wednesday (March 5) the Tour de France "would have to be crazy not to come back one day or another" to London.
    Prudhomme was in London to have talks with the capital's mayor Ken Livingstone about plans to run a stage of the race through London in the years leading up to the 2012 Olympic Games.

    "A year ago I said we will do a stage from London and it will be just the one time," said Prudhomme after Livingstone had announced the city was looking to host another stage of the race.

    "But you would have to be crazy after the success of England and London not to do it again. Thanks to London we have got more candidates applying this time around. I don't know when we will come again but as I said, you would have to be crazy not to come back one day or another."
    The Tour de France director was visiting London while a growing dispute in France threatens to disrupt the traditional cycle race season including this year's Tour de France.
    The Paris-Nice race, nicknamed "The Race to the Sun", is due to start on Sunday (March 9). Just as last year, the race has become embroiled in a dispute between the International Cycling Union (UCI) and the Tour organisers ASO over who administers races, what anti-doping measures to take and who takes part in races. The ASO wants to exclude teams associated with doping in the past and run a programme of anti-doping tests that it says is more rigorous than before.
    Currently the ASO has not registered the Paris-Nice race with the UCI, and the UCI president Pat McQuaid has been outspoken in his condemnation of the ASO and team managers' association.

    "That decision unfortunately is not a sporting decision, it is made purely for commercial reasons," McQuaid said on Tuesday (March 4) in Switzerland.

    "I am very disappointed likewise with the attitude of the president of the teams' association because he immediately sided with ASO and said that the teams would ride without even consulting the UCI or indeed consulting a lot of the teams. So as we stand here today this race could currently take place outside of the UCI jurisdiction, which means that the UCI won't be sending commissaires, we won't be sending anti-doping inspectors, the race will carry no points for world or Olympic qualification and it is, as such, a pirate race," McQuaid said.
    Prudhomme said that the ASO had attempted to make an agreement with the UCI but nothing had happened.

    "I hope one day that there will be a solution, we have always wanted a solution. I repeat, in the last four years we have signed two protocols, we have had sponsors as mediators, it didn't work, they were rejected. The UCI's representatives have sometimes agreed but when they went back to Switzerland it was over. We shall work on an agreement. It's true that today we are saddened by the fact that the French Sports Minister's efforts have been rejected like that," he said.
    The ASO will run the Paris-Nice with its own anti-doping system, which is says will include random testing and other measures that are far more stringent than those instituted by the UCI.
    UCI's McQuaid has warned that such a breakaway by organisers might lead to the authority to hold races being taken away from the ASO, fines for teams and other unspecified sanctions against riders, which could extend to participation in the Tour de France and the Olympic Games.
    Prudhomme also explained on Wednesday why ASO had not invited the Astana team to take part in the 2008 Tour de France while inviting another, French, team Cofidis to participate. Both teams withdrew from the 2007 race after some of its riders failed a doping test.
    For 2008 the Astana team has a new director, new riders including 2007 Tour winner Alberto Contador and third-placed Levi Leipheimer, and a new determination to be a drug-free team but they have been excluded from the Paris-Nice, the Tour de France and the Giro d'Italia.

    "We put our faith in them," said Prudhomme. "This year we are reading that it is a new team with a new, new organisation and we should put our faith in them, but we have already done that. I hope that the new team will work well and race well, and that in the future we can have them in our races. But this re-occurring manner, it's not about 2006 and 2007. Last year we put our faith in them although there was lots of criticism, notably from the press, which I can understand, and they tell us "it's a new team", but we put our faith in them and we paid for it, we paid dearly, and we don't want to do that again," he added.
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