Cycling slowly curing its disease

PARIS, Aug 6 (Reuters) After Tour de France winner Floyd Landis tested positive for testosterone, cycling might appear doomed by a problem that has marred the sport for years.

The 30-year-old American tested positive for the male sex hormone the day he produced one of the most incredible comebacks in Tour history.

The Phonak rider, who had faltered a day earlier on the ascent to La Toussuire, won the 17th stage to Morzine after an impressive solo effort.

''One of the tragic stories in sports,'' said three-times Tour winner Greg LeMond.

There is, however, a contrary view.

With 1997 Tour winner Jan Ullrich being kicked out of the world's greatest stage race along with Giro d'Italia champion Ivan Basso the day before the start of the 2006 edition, cycling authorities could argue they scored decisive points in the war against doping.

''Whilst on the one hand, such revelations make sports lovers feel understandably deceived, on a more positive note, every test that catches cheaters demonstrates that increased testing does have an impact,'' International Olympic Committee (IOC) president Jacques Rogge said last week.

The number of big names being caught suggests cycling is doing more than other sports to cure the disease.

BLOOD TESTING Blood testing, for example, has become common practice in cycling but none were conducted during the 2006 World Cup in Germany.

''We are surprised that the Football international federation, who organise the World Cup, have refused to conduct blood tests,'' Tour director Christian Prudhomme said on July 1, one day after nine riders were sent packing bacause their names appeared in an investigation over a doping scandal that erupted in Spain last May.

Ullrich, Basso, Spaniards Francisco Mancebo and Oscer Sevilla and five riders of the then Astana-Wuerth team were suspended by their teams according to the Pro Tour teams' good behaviour chart.

''Let us make it clear: you will not have a case if you do not test the athletes properly,'' Prudhomme added.

''Imagine only urine tests being conducted on the Tour de France: everybody would make fun of cycling,'' said Frenchman Richard Virenque, one of the men at the heart of the Festina doping scandal in 1998.

LeMond said the next step was for the riders to cooperate with the authorities to tackle the problem.

''I hope he has the courage to tell the truth,'' LeMond said in an interview with the French weekly Le Journal du Dimanche last weekend. ''He alone can change the face of the sport today. His example could be a symbol of change.'' LeMond added: ''I hope that he won't do what another American did: deny, deny, deny.'' That last remark is an obvious reference to seven-times winner Lance Armstrong. A year ago the French Sports daily L'Equipe reported that it had access to laboratory documents with six of Armstrong's urine samples collected on the 1999 Tour showing ''indisputable'' traces of the blood booster erythropoietin (EPO).

Armstrong was cleared after an investigation set up by the International Cycling Union stated that the antidoping authorities had violated testing rules.

REUTERS AY RAI1446