Doping problem quantified by major withdrawals

STRASBOURG, France, July 1 (Reuters) Following the expulsion of Tour de France favourites Jan Ullrich and Ivan Basso on the eve of the sport's leading stage race, it would appear cycling has finally admitted that it has a major doping problem.

Italy's Basso, the Giro d'Italia champion, and Germany's Ullrich, Tour de France victor in 1997, were expected to battle for the honour of succeeding seven-times winner Lance Armstrong after the American retired following last year's Tour.

However, both riders were suspended by their teams a day before today's prologue in Strasbourg because of their involvement in an investigation on a doping scandal in Spain.

''It is a huge blow for everybody,'' CSC team manager Bjarne Riis said after announcing Basso's suspension.

''I think this is normal. I think it is a brave move. Today, we can do only one thing: be brave,'' Tour de France director Jean-Marie Leblanc added.

The affair is reminiscent of the Festina case in 1998, which brought to light the use of the blood-boosting drug erythropoietin (EPO) among riders.

Seven-times polka dot jersey (King of the Mountains) winner Richard Virenque was handed a nine-month ban after admitting to doping offences.

The following year, Armstrong, who survived testicular cancer in 1996, opened the longest winning streak in the race's history when he reached Paris wearing the first of his many yellow jerseys.

Despite his brilliant run, the Texan's honesty has been questioned, with French daily Le Monde reporting earlier this month that at the time he was being treated for cancer, Armstrong admitted he was taking banned drugs.

STERN DENIAL The former Discovery Channel leader issued a stern denial, just as he had after sports daily L'Equipe claimed last August that it had access to laboratory documents and six of Armstrong's urine samples collected on the 1999 Tour showed ''indisputable'' traces of EPO.

Armstrong was cleared of any wrongdoing last month by Emile Vrijman, a lawyer appointed by the International Cycling Union (UCI) last October to investigate the allegations.

However, the spectre of doping continues to haunt the sport and with last year's Tour of Spain winner Roberto Heras banned for two years after testing positive for EPO last November, cycling is now without three former major stage race winners.

This year's scandal echoes that of 1998, when French customs officers seized a large supply of drugs in a car driven by Festina's physiotherapist Willy Voet.

Last month, the Spanish Civil Guard raided a number of addresses to find large quantities of anabolic steroids, laboratory equipment used for blood transfusions and more than 100 packs of frozen blood.

Five riders from Kazakh Alexander Vinokourov's Astana-Wuerth team were implicated in the Spanish operation and they were dropped from the Tour late on Friday.

The team's retirement means that the Tour prologue will start without the top five riders from 2005 after Francisco Mancebo was also withdrawn.

However, AG2R team manager Vincent Lavenu, who opted to take Mancebo out of the race, believes the sport is far from clean.

''Some cheaters have been caught but there are certainly other networks which have not been broken up yet,'' he said.

''Even if such crackdowns are scary, the problem is far from being solved.'' REUTERS PM BD1550