CYCLING: A French magistrate has rejected a request to release from jail the wife of the Lithuanian cyclist Raimondas Rumsas, who is at the centre of a Tour de France doping scandal.
"Our request has been rejected but we are going to appeal against the decision," her lawyer Alexandre Varaut said yesterday after a hearing held behind closed doors in Bonneville, near Grenoble.
A local magistrate ruled Edita Rumsas had not given a convincing explanation why she was carrying doping substances when she was arrested near the Mont Blanc tunnel leading to Italy on July 28th, the last day of the Tour.
The hotel rooms of Rumsas's Lampre-Daikin team were raided by French police and customs officers on the same day but the rider himself had already flown home to Italy. He has since tested negative for drugs, it was announced earlier yesterday.
Rumsas finished third in the Tour behind four-time winner Lance Armstrong.
Edita Rumsas, who has been held in custody since her arrest, told police she planned to bring back her large stock of testosterone, corticoids, EPO, growth hormones and anabolic steroids for her ailing mother.
Rumsas denied that his wife ever obtained doping products for him and that he ever took any. He has refused to return to France for questioning and his lawyer has said he suspected French police of holding his wife "as a kind of bait" to lure him back.
"Our client wants to help his wife, avoid going to prison himself and continue his cycling career all at the same time," he said.
In Belgium, Frank Vandenbroucke's appeal against a six-month drugs ban has been rejected by the Flemish Community's disciplinary commission. The ban follows the discovery in a police raid on Vandenbroucke's home of quantities of EPO, clenbuterol, morphine, and the hard-to-detect Nesp, EPO's newly-arrived chemical cousin.
Meanwhile, Jan Ullrich, a former Tour de France winner, has been handed a fine of around €74,000 by a German court after he admitted taking amphetamines.
The German, who was already suspended from cycling for six months by the UCI for the offence, took the stimulant in two pills at a disco while he was recovering from a knee injury.
The 28-year-old, who was unable to compete or train while injured, insists that he took the drug for recreational purposes only.
Eugene Moriarty (Cycleways Lee Strand) had the first win for Team Ireland's Belgian-based initiative when he outsprinted his breakaway companion at the end of the Grand Prix Theo Heyem at Kotem, near the Dutch-Belgian border. The two riders had gone clear 24 kilometres from the end of the 112 kilometre kermesse (circuit race) and build a solid lead.
A mix-up by the race organisers meant that the duo had to do an extra lap at the end of the race, resulting in a farcical situation where the riders ended up sprinting twice for the win. Moriarty was faster than his Belgian rival on the first occasion and also, crucially, the second.
"This is the first win for us out here and so the whole squad are delighted," he said. "We had got close with some high placings - Simon Kelly was second in a race at the weekend, for example - but we hadn't yet managed to take a victory. It is a great boost for the morale of everyone out here. Hopefully more wins are on the way."
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