Cloud of suspicion over Tour, says Millar

Cycling/Tour de France:The British cyclist David Millar yesterday bitterly attacked the Tour de France leader. Michael Rasmussen, for failing to make the anti-doping authorities aware of his whereabouts for out-of-competition testing.

"He's now shrouded in suspicion, and rightfully so," said Millar. "It is unacceptable of a rider of his stature and responsibilities to not have his whereabouts supplied to the right authorities. For sure, it is possible for it to slip through the system due to slow Mexican mail, or whatever, but it is up to him to confirm that it has been received so as not to have this situation arise."

Rasmussen retained his race lead yesterday, but his credibility has been called into question, said Millar, who has become an anti-doping campaigner since serving a two-year ban for using the blood booster erythropoietin.

"Now it screws us all," he said. "Because of the current situation he will be doubted. Regardless, it's s*** for him . . . for the Tour de France, and . . . for us, the riders and the fans."

The pressure on Rasmussen and other top cyclists in the race went up a notch yesterday when French customs officers raided vehicles belonging to four teams, including the Dane's Rabobank squad, in an episode that brought back memories of the Festina drugs bust in 1998.

The other teams involved were Discovery Channel, the team of the rider in second place, Alberto Contador, CSC, and Astana, whose leader Alexandr Vinokourov won yesterday's stage to Loudenvielle-Le-Louron in the Pyrenees.

Brian Nygaard of CSC described it as a "routine check. They asked to see the papers and the contents of the bus and what we had in our fridge. It took less than 15 minutes."

Since Festina, customs authorities in France have frequently raided vehicles linked to the race. They have not found drugs in official team cars, but have twice found banned substances in cars belonging to cyclists' wives.

More than a year since the Spanish blood doping inquiry Operation Puerto shook the Tour, fall-out from the police investigation continues, and yesterday there was a new twist in the case of Jan Ullrich, the 1997 Tour de France winner.

Magistrates in the German city of Bonn investigating a fraud claim against Ullrich were given permission by Swiss authorities to examine his bank accounts, to assess if he made payments to the doctor at the centre of Operation Puerto, Eufemiano Fuentes. Ullrich has always denied doing so.

As for Vinokourov, he took his second stage win in three days here, dominating this massive mountain stage as convincingly as he had won Saturday's time-trial at Albi.

This was vintage Vino. He first infiltrated an early breakaway of some 20 riders, a classic "morning escape" without any threat to Rasmussen's overall lead. Then he refused to panic when two of the 20, Kim Kirchen and Johann Tschopp, escaped on the penultimate ascent, the Port de Bales, and finally he put in the coup de grace on the Col de Peyresourde to race alone down the descent to the finish.

Sadly for the Kazakh, however, his losses - the best part of half an hour - on Sunday's tough leg to the Plateau-de-Beille have ruined his chances of overall victory.

The high point of the stage was the Bales, which had never been climbed by the Tour and is accessible only because a new road has been built over the top to accommodate the race. After a lengthy pull up a pinewooded ravine, amid trees hanging with ancient lichens, the road turned into ramp after ramp of steep hairpins across high meadows where the Basque fans formed a corridor of orange T-shirts.

"Welcome to the Bales hell," read one sign, but in fact, like all the great Pyrenean stages, this 200km trek was a sensual delight without the intimidating grandeur of the Alps. Kites circled above apple orchards and fields of great round haybales. Houses stuck out at improbable angles over gushing rivers running through little stone villages.

There was a strong smell of wild mint at the foot of the Bales, where the local farmers were protesting about the reintroduction of wild bears, as they do every time the race visits.

There is much grizzly feeling about bears, but they are no more endangered than "Chicken" was. After a week in the yellow jersey, the race leader Michael Rasmussen controlled most of the stage but was eventually pushed to his limit by his principal challenger, the Spaniard Alberto Contador. Their dogfight in the final kilometres suggests there may be fireworks in tomorrow's final mountain stage, which finishes near the top of the Col d'Aubisque.

Contador, wearing the white jersey of best young rider, finally decided to take the fight to Rasmussen close to the top of the final ascent, the Col de Peyresourde. Not far from the summit, Rasmussen looked in trouble, giving a few yards. He caught up eventually but at the foot of the descent, on a small rise before the finish, Contador again shook him, like a terrier taking on a rat.

Almost incidentally, but more importantly, the pair's duel shook off the rest of the riders who figure in the upper reaches of the standings and with Cadel Evans now four minutes back in third place, the Tour will rest in Pau today in the knowledge that this is now a two-horse race between Contador and Rasmussen.