Tour de France green jersey champion Tom Boonen has been barred from next month’s race in the wake of a positive test for cocaine.
Race director Christian Prudhomme said on Wednesday that Boonen would not be at the Brest start line on July 5 because his positive test, while not performance-enhancing, damaged the reputation of the race.
The 2005 world champion and reigning Paris-Roubaix champion was given the support of his Quick Step team and its manager Patrick Lefevere at an earlier press conference. But hours later Prudhomme, after speaking to Boonen and Lefevere, said the six-time stage winner — one of the biggest faces in cycling — would not be welcome because he risked damaging the race’s reputation.
PHOTO: AFP
“As far as we are concerned, Tom Boonen is automatically ruled out of the Tour de France as soon as the information concerning his case has been confirmed,” Prudhomme said. “The integrity of the Tour, and of the teams participating in the Tour, could be harmed. It doesn’t help we’re only three weeks from the start.”
Boonen, the winner of last year’s green jersey for the race’s points competition, tested positive in an out of competition control by the ministry of the Flemish Community on May 26.
Because the control was not undertaken by a sports body Boonen cannot be handed a sporting sanction such as a ban, although he risks a fine of anything between 1,000 euros (US$1,546) and 100,000 euros.
The news of Boonen’s cocaine positive, which emerged just as Quick Step announced they would be given another three years of their sponsors’ money, prompted the Tour of Switzerland to withdraw Boonen from the invite list.
It was then almost inevitable that Tour officials followed suit.
The Tour has a strict code of ethics, which has been reinforced amid continuous doping affairs, and all participating teams recently signed the “good conduct” charter by which teams agree to not align, or pull out, riders whose conduct risks damaging the image of the event.
Lefevere had earlier stressed the difference between “real doping problems” in cycling and the difficulties of a “private” nature of their star.
Bayer 04 Leverkusen go into today’s match at TSG 1899 Hoffenheim stung from their first league defeat in 16 months. Leverkusen were beaten 3-2 at home by RB Leipzig before the international break, the first loss since May last year for the reigning league and cup champions. While any defeat, particularly against a likely title rival, would have disappointed coach Xabi Alonso, the way in which it happened would be most concerning. Just as they did in the Supercup against VfB Stuttgart and in the league opener to Borussia Moenchengladbach, Leverkusen scored first, but were pegged back. However, while Leverkusen rallied late to
If all goes well when the biggest marathon field ever gathered in Australia races 42km through the streets of Sydney on Sunday, World Marathon Majors (WMM) will soon add a seventh race to the elite series. The Sydney Marathon is to become the first race since Tokyo in 2013 to join long-established majors in New York, London, Boston, Berlin and Chicago if it passes the WMM assessment criteria for the second straight year. “We’re really excited for Sunday to arrive,” race director Wayne Larden told a news conference in Sydney yesterday. “We’re prepared, we’re ready. All of our plans look good on
The lights dimmed and the crowd hushed as Karoline Kristensen entered for her performance. However, this was no ordinary Dutch theater: The temperature was 80°C and the audience naked apart from a towel. Dressed in a swimsuit and to the tune of emotional music, the 21-year-old Kristensen started her routine, performed inside a large sauna, with a bed of hot rocks in the middle. For a week this month, a group of wellness practitioners, called “sauna masters,” are gathering at a picturesque health resort in the Netherlands to compete in this year’s Aufguss world sauna championships. The practice takes its name from a
When details from a scientific experiment that could have helped clear Russian figure skater Kamila Valieva landed at the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), the leader of the organization’s reaction was unequivocal: “We have to stop that urgently,” he wrote. No mention of the test ever became public and Valieva’s defense at the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) went on without it. What effect the information could have had on Valieva’s case is unclear, but without it, the skater, then 15 years old, was eventually disqualified from the 2022 Winter Olympics after testing positive for a banned heart medication that would later