Background: Cycling's biggest doping scandals

Jul 27, 2006, 18:16 GMT

Hamburg - The scourge of doping has cast a long shadow over the Tour de France, and cycling in general, over the years and the 2006 edition was no different.

A day before this year's race began, Tour favourites Jan Ullrich, Ivan Basso, Oscar Sevilla, Francisco Mancebo and Joseba Beloki were among the cyclists barred from competing following a probe into a doping scheme run by Madrid doctor Eufemiano Fuentes.

Before the scandal involving 2006 winner Floyd Landis, who could be stripped of his title if his B-sample tests positive for testosterone/epitestosterone, the issue reached its zenith at the 85th Tour in 1998 when the entire Festina team was kicked out for doping.

But American Landis is the first Tour winner who could lose his title because of a doping offence after testing positive following his spectacular victory on the 17th stage to Morzine.

Cycling has had to deal with the problem of riders taking performance-enhancing substances on many occasions.

At the 1960 Olympics in Rome, road race gold medal winner Knud Jenssen collapsed and later died after reaching the finish while the Tour's first doping fatality was Tom Simpson.

The Englishman collapsed while climbing Mont Ventoux on July 13, 1967 and amphetamines were later found in the pocket of his jersey.

In 1969, German rider Rudi Altig was caught for doping on the 14th stage of the Tour while in the same year five-time Tour winner Eddy Merckx was caught during the Giro d'Italia.

Dietrich Thurau had to withdraw from the 1980 Tour after a third positive test while Pedro Delgado won the 1988 edition despite being caught using masking agents during the race.

The Spaniard got away with it because the substances were listed by the International Olympic Committee but not the international cycling federation UCI, which only added them two weeks after that Tour.

In the same year, Denmark's Kim Anderson became the first cyclist to receive a life ban after testing positive for the third time.

The UCI introduced blood tests on January 1, 1997 and a year later the Tour experienced its biggest doping scandal to date when Festina masseuse Willy Voet was caught with 400 EPO ampules in his possession.

The Spanish team was subsequently kicked out of the Tour. During the 1999 Giro d'Italia defending champion Marco Pantani was excluded because of blood doping. Pantani was banned for eight months in June 2002 and in February 2004 the Italian died of a cocaine overdose.

The 2002 Giro was filled with scandal when former winner Stefano Garzelli, Gilberto Simoni, as well as fellow Italian Roberto Sgambelluri and Russia's Faat Zakirov tested positive.

In the same year, all 141 doping tests at the Tour came back negative.

In 2003, Spain's Javier Pascual Llorente was caught for blood doping. His Kelme team was barred from racing in the 2004 Tour, which saw time-trial world champion David Millar caught before the race began.

Italy's Dario Frigo was caught for doping during the 2005 Tour.