Tour head says cycling faces threat from a "mafia"

ZURICH, July 1 (Reuters) The director of the Tour de France today said that cycling was threatened by a ''mafia'' and called for support from the police.

''We are facing an entire criminal organisation,'' Tour director Jean-Marie Leblanc said in an interview in Geneva daily Le Temps.

''We need the police and additional scientific means.

''I have the feeling we are dealing with a true mafia that's looking to make money, that fakes races. We are on the edge of criminality here.'' Yesterday, the Tour de France was stripped of three of its biggest names after Jan Ullrich, Ivan Basso and Francisco Mancebo were implicated in a doping investigation in Spain.

The Astana-Wuerth team, formerly known as Liberty Seguros, also announced their withdrawal from the race. Five of their riders were on a list of nine Tour competitors provided by the Spanish police to an investigating magistrate.

Leblanc told the newspaper that the affair had plunged him into ''infinite sadness''.

''I don't know which races these people have faked. How am I supposed to know? I'm not supposed to answer this question, rather law enforcement is,'' he said.

REUTERS PM BD1757