PARIS — From the very start to the very finish, doping was along for the ride on the Tour de France.
The final act Sunday was supposed to be a champagne-sipping, idyllic run to the Champs-Elysees for winner Carlos Sastre of Spain. Instead, it was yet another announcement of a positive drug test.
That the bust involved a Kazakh rider who was never in contention didn’t matter. Once again, drugs left their mark at cycling’s premier event.
Until Sunday’s finale, the race had gone 10 days without a doping scandal — three others had already marred the three-week race.
This time, Dmitriy Fofonov tested positive for a “very heavy dose” of heptaminol after Thursday’s 18th stage, said Pierre Bordry, the head of France’s anti-doping agency. Fofonov was immediately fired by his Credit Agricole team. French police said he was detained for questioning.
“These guys are crazy, and the sooner they start learning, the better,” International Cycling Union chief Pat McQuaid said by phone. “You can never rule out at the Tour de France — the biggest event of the year — that these guys are going to take risks.”
Sunday’s doping episode gave the Tour a certain symmetry: Veteran Spanish rider Manuel Beltran tested positive after the first stage.
Bordry said Fofonov was asked whether he had a medical exemption for heptaminol, and he did not provide one. The stimulant is used as a vasodilator that helps relieve bronchial spasms.
“Fofonov said he bought the product on the Internet,” said Roger Legeay, sporting director of Credit Agricole. “He says that it was for cramps, but that he forgot to tell the team doctor.”
Fofonov, known mainly as a strong climber, finished in 19th place in the Tour, 28 minutes, 31 seconds after Sastre.
Word of Fofonov’s failed test came as some teams were still riding farewell laps in the French capital. The announcement compounded the damage of positive tests for the banned blood booster EPO — cycling’s designer drug — by Italy’s Riccardo Ricco and Spaniards Beltran and Moises Duenas Nevado.
Ricco’s Saunier Duval team quit the race and fired him, and the sponsor said it was ending its relationship with pro cycling. Barloworld, a South African conglomerate behind Duenas Nevado’s team, said it would do so as well.
Ricco won the sixth and ninth stages. After his positive test was announced before Stage 12, it looked as if the cheats had been chastened if not deterred.
Tour officials seemed relieved to see cyclists suffer after each day’s ride. It was as if that was a telltale sign they hadn’t relied on pick-me-ups to withstand the ordeal of a trek covering more than 2,175 miles.
Christian Prudhomme, the head of the Tour, insisted there were “a lot of good things” this year: “The faces of the riders, burnt out, exhausted, mouths wide open at the end. … The fight against doping has made enormous progress.”
“The difference between those who cheat and those who chase after them has considerably narrowed,” he said.
Better yet for organizers, the race was intensifying after the Ricco bust. As racers began three climbs through the Alps by riding into Italy in the 15th stage, five racers were within 49 seconds of then-leader Frank Schleck of Luxembourg — the last of them Sastre.
That’s when the 33-year-old Spaniard, who now has six top-10 Tour finishes, took over. The climax for him came in the last and most punishing day in the Alps. He won Stage 17 and took the prized yellow jersey from Schleck, his CSC teammate.
Sastre had one final big hurdle: Saturday’s time trial. Australia’s Cadel Evans, known as an ace in the discipline, was seen as a favorite to recover the yellow jersey that he seized in the Pyrenees but had lost to Schleck.
Sastre knew he needed the time trial of his life to hold to a 1:34 lead against the Australian, and he got it. Evans made up only 29 seconds against the Spaniard, paving the way for his victory cruise — champagne in hand — into Paris.
By the finish on the Champs-Elysees, Sastre finished seven seconds behind Evans, giving him a 58-second margin of victory. Bernhard Kohl of Austria finished 1:13 back in third, the second-tightest podium finish in the 105-year-old race.
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