This Tour has no place for an anti-doping crusader

This is a Tour of mixed messages, summed up perfectly by a vignette on the final hill of yesterday's sumptuous stage through the Massif Central. On one side of the road stood a mad German dressed as the devil, on the other a lunatic Frenchman got up as an angel. The peloton passed between the two: it is impossible to tell which of the riders are on which side in this race.

Yesterday the race started without the one man who should have been welcomed here, the young Frenchman Christophe Bassons, who is the one rider in the peloton to have taken a high-profile stand against doping.

Bassons, who rides for the La Francaise des Jeux team, was, according to a team-mate, made to leave the race on Thursday night by his manager, Marc Madiot, after the two had an argument when the rider was late for dinner due to media interviews. Madiot appears to have felt that Bassons was not focused on the race and was spending too much time with journalists.

Madiot has spent a total of five days being questioned by police over drugs, while a former member of the team's management company, Bertrand Lavelot, is under formal investigation by the authorities over the alleged running of a drug supply ring.

"For a Tour without doping, come back Bassons", read a plaintive placard at the roadside. It was, of course, outnumbered by posters in support of Richard Virenque, the cyclist who was said by the Tour organiser Jean-Marie Leblanc to "crystallise the doping problem", and whom the organisers did not want in the race, but who was awarded entry by the Union Cycliste Internationale, the world governing body.

Bassons went to ground yesterday: Virenque was prominent on the podium, putting on the King of the Mountains jersey, which he is likely to wear to the finish in Paris.

Yesterday morning, the UCI's inspectors carried out blood tests intended to restrict the use of the red-cell booster erythropoietin. Samples were taken from 40 riders, including the man in the yellow jersey, Lance Armstrong. All were passed as "fit for work".

The first climb of the day, aptly named the Cross of the Dead Man, had a large number of the field in trouble; among those who quit were the Swedish giant Magnus Backstedt, a stage winner last year, and the Tour of Italy winner Ivan Gotti.

As they had the previous day, Armstrong's US Postal Service team sat back as a substantial group of riders who were no threat to the Texan's yellow jersey set off to fight out the stage win. The main beneficiaries were Bassons's erstwhile leader Stephane Heulot, who moved up to sixth overall, and the diminutive Spaniard David Extebarria, who gave the ONCE team their first stage win since 1996.

The past two days have seen a bitter battle for the green points jersey between the Australian Stuart O'Grady, winner last year of the round Britain PruTour, and the three-time jersey winner Erik Zabel of Germany. Zabel had a poor first week but gained ground on Thursday and yesterday took the jersey from the Australian by just three points in the hilltop finish.