SportBusiness.com

LEBLANC PLANS TOUR GOOD CONDUCT CHARTER

Tagged in , &

Tour de France director Jean-Marie Leblanc is planning a good conduct charter for the cycling classic marred this year by a huge doping scandal.

"We'll edit a good conduct charter, of ethics to which the teams will have to adhere," Leblanc said in an interview published on Tuesday.
"From now on, we're going to reflect on the manner of selecting the teams (for the annual three-week Tour). To the sporting criteria will be added moral criteria," he told the sports daily L'Equipe.
Only half the 189-strong peloton that started the race in Dublin on July 11 were at Sunday's finish on the Champs Elysees after six teams withdrew and one was thrown out following a widespread probe into doping by the French police.
The race was won by Italian Marco Pantani.
Leblanc said suggestions that the near century-old Tour de France was too tough were wrong.
"I'm tired of repeating that for 10 years we've lowered the bar," he said.
"But you mustn't go too far or you'll distort the Tour, which by definition calls on courage, suffering and all those virtues which the crowds admire.
"The current parameters are good and we won't touch them," he said.
Two days' rest, as opposed to one, had already been planned for next year's race even before this year's.
Leblanc said he was optimistic about the future of the race.
"I get the impression that the cataclysm has been so wide that all those involved are going to examine their conscience," he said.
"I believe in a sort of consensus to fix limits and not overstep them ... If that ends up in a Tour raced at 35 kph things will go well.
"Cycling is a sport of relative and not absolute values. All you need is a first (placed rider), a second, a 100th, but there is no need for the notion of a record.
"If it has to be raced ordinarily and no longer at a super (level), that doesn't matter."
The Festina team were kicked out of the race early after one of their medical staff was caught with banned substances in a team car days before the start.
Team director Bruno Roussel then admitted to planned drug-taking by the riders.
Six teams quit later in the race in protest at what they regarded as heavy-handed police investigations and interrogations during the event.
Reuters