The 2007 Tour de France was affected by a series of scandals and speculations related to doping. By the end of the Tour, two cyclists were dismissed for failing tests and the wearer of the yellow jersey was voluntarily retired by his team for lying about his whereabouts and missing doping tests. A fourth rider was confirmed to having used doping while in a training session prior to the 2007 Tour and a fifth rider failed tests late in the race, with his result being officially announced just after the end of the Tour. During the competition, two teams were asked to withdraw after at least one member was found to have doped.
The events generated criticism and a general distrustful attitude toward the sport of professional cycling from media and public opinion. The doping allegations also resulted in several team sponsors threatening to retire their support if events advanced further. Some media such as German TV channels ARD and ZDF left the Tour once the first scandals broke. Following the Tour's conclusion, the sport's governing bodies spoke out about ways to combat the prevalence of doping in cycling and key team sponsors elected to withdraw their support due to the reputational damage caused by the scandals. The 2007 Tour de France has been referred to as one of the most controversial Tours. After the end of the Tour, The Times of London ranked it 4th in its list of the top 50 sporting scandals.
Background
Since the introduction of doping tests in 1964, many cyclists were caught in the Tour de France. In recent years, 1996 Tour de France winner Bjarne Riis and points classification winner Erik Zabel, along with most of their Team Telekom team-mates, confessed to using erythropoietin (EPO).BBC Sports News, Zabel admits to doping at Telekom In 1997, former points classification winner Djamolidine Abdoujaparov was disqualified from the Tour de France for doping use.Cycling News, July 1997, Uzbekistan's Djamolidine Abdoujaparov, expelled from the Tour de France for doping In 1998, the Festina affair had several main contenders removed from the race. In the next years, several riders were removed from the Tour de France for doping (see List of doping cases in cycling).
In addition, several riders were not allowed to start the previous Tour, including Jan Ullrich and Ivan Basso because of their involvement in the Operación Puerto doping case, a Spanish investigation against doctor Eufemiano Fuentes and a number of accomplices accused of administering prohibited doping products to approximately two hundred professional athletes, to enhance their performance.
After the completion of the 2006 Tour, winner Floyd Landis was found to have an elevated testosterone to epitestosterone ratio on a sample taken following Stage 17 of the race, and at the time of the 2007 Tour prologue. Since the results of an independent arbitration hearing were still pending Landis was prevented from defending his title. He was stripped of his 2006 Tour title in September 2007.
Events immediately before the Tour
Alessandro Petacchi, a sprint specialist, failed a test for salbutamol at Pinerolo on 23 May in the 2007 Giro d'Italia, the same day he claimed the third of his five-stage wins in the event. As a result, Petacchi, an asthma sufferer, was suspended by Team Milram and forced to miss the Tour de France because of the charges. Though he seemed cleared of the charges at one point, he was later suspended for one year.
On May 24, riders Erik Zabel and Rolf Aldag had earlier admitted to using banned blood booster EPO in the mid-1990s.
On May 25, Bjarne Riis admitted he had won the overall competition of the 1996 edition under the effects of performance-enhancing drugs, claiming "for a time [doping] was a part of everyday life for me", and he was later stripped of the title by the Tour owner ASO. Five other former Telekom teammates were also implicated in doping. However the stripping of Riis' 1996 Tour title was later reinstated with the UCI overruling the ASO claiming Riis was protected by a 10 year statute of limitations (even though Lance Armstrong was later stripped of all his TDF wins despite some of them being more than 10 years earlier).
Other high-profile potential Tour riders were caught up in doping controversies. Giro d'Italia winner Danilo Di Luca remained under investigation and 2006 Giro winner Ivan Basso was banned for two years on 15 June for his part in events uncovered by Operación Puerto.
During the Tour Despite Petacchi's failed test result prior to the Tour prologue, the first stages were uneventful in terms of doping allegations. It was not until Stage 8 before the first doping allegations surfaced against one of the participants. German cyclist Patrik Sinkewitz failed tests for elevated levels of testosterone at a June 8, 2007 pre-Tour training camp. Immediately prior to Stage 12, reports began to surface that the then current race leader, Michael Rasmussen had been dropped by the Danish Cycling Union in the month prior to the Tour following claims he had missed three out-of-competition doping tests. Tour director Christian Prudhomme nevertheless allowed the rider to continue in the absence of a failed test result.
Days later on 24 July, pre-race favourite Alexander Vinokourov was withdrawn from the Tour after Stage 15. Vinokourov had returned a failed A test for an illegal blood transfusion from a compatible donor before the Stage 13 individual time trial on July 21, in which he placed first. In addition to Vinokourov, who was in 23rd place overall, the entire Astana Team was forced to withdraw, affecting highly placed riders such as 5th placed Andreas Klöden and 8th placed Andrey Kashechkin.
The following day, after finishing Stage 16, which had begun with a protest by riders, it emerged that Italian cyclist Cristian Moreni had failed tests for testosterone after Stage 11, in which he finished 102nd. He was immediately pulled out of the race by his team, Cofidis (who had participated in the day's protest). Team Cofidis then voluntarily retired the rest of their riders from the Tour.
On 25 July Michael Rasmussen won Stage 16; with a three-minute lead, he appeared all but certain to win the Tour the next day. However, hours after his victory, Rasmussen's team, Rabobank, abruptly pulled Rasmussen from the Tour and sacked him for a violation of the team's internal rules. The Danish rider had given incorrect information to Rabobank's sports director about his whereabouts which followed on from earlier reports that he had missed previous out-of-competition doping control tests.
With the sport reeling from the revelations, the Tour continued as allegations began to surface regarding new race leader Alberto Contador (see Alberto Contador below). While no further rider or team withdrawals occurred before the race's conclusion in Paris, it later emerged that two more riders Andrey Kashechkin and Iban Mayo had failed tests for doping during the Tour's later stages.
Reaction to events during the Tour Prior to Rasmussen's exit, the doping revelations of Sinkewitz and Vinokourov had been met with defiance by the UCI, the Tour organizers and the majority of the European press (with certain exceptions) however, with Rasmussen's sacking whilst wearing the yellow jersey (no rider had previously been withdrawn from the race while leading), the mood became more pessimistic, with the exception of Tour director Christian Prudhomme who publicly regarded the Dane's withdrawal as "the best thing that can happen to the Tour. The race will go on for the rest of the riders and we believe it would be an insult to them to stop the race. We believe the general classification is much better now than it was."
Prudhomme's reaction was in contrast to the French newspapers. France Soir ran a mock death notice declaring the Tour had died "at age 104, after a long illness." Declaring further: "The Tour is clinically dead. It is a broken toy, a burst soap bubble popped by careless kids, unaware that they are damaging themselves, their health and their childhood dreams as well...It's all the more painful as we had almost begun to believe in the Tour again... in these soap-and-water cyclists who we were so ready to love. But instead of dreams, the last 48 hours have been a living nightmare."
A similar editorial in Le Figaro announced: "It really doesn't matter who wins the Tour. The 2007 edition died on 24 July on the heights of Loudenvielle...Killed by Alexander Vinokourov, idolised by the media and cycling fans, but revealed to have the blood of another running in his veins on the finishing line. Damn Vinokourov! He sullied the infinite beauty of the Pyrenees, dirtied cycling a little more and further discredited the Tour de France."
Another French newspaper, Libération'''s editorial demanded "The Tour must be stopped", describing the procession of cyclists as a "caravan of ridicule".
The British popular media who had previously acclaimed the success of the Tour's prologue in London and the first stage through Kent, were similarly critical calling it the Tour de Farce (Daily Mirror) and declaring it a "Corrupt race populated by a cast of frauds heading straight into the gutter" (The Times). Swiss newspaper Tages-Anzeiger reduced its coverage of the race in protest to minimal reporting of results and full reporting of any doping stories.
German television broadcasters ARD and ZDF stopped covering the race (after they vowed to in the Tour prelude) when Patrik Sinkewitz was revealed to have failed tests following Stage 8; Sat 1 and Pro Sieben replaced them as the German rightsholders. Most other media decided to stay, and some even criticised the German decision.
Sponsors similarly indicated their unwillingness to continue to support a sport dogged by scandal, most noticeably Gerolsteiner and T-Mobile (the latter subsequently withdrew from sponsoring cycling later in the year). Team Rabobank's head of sponsorship Heleen Crielaard reacted to the Rasmussen dismissal stating: "We are a bank and we want to be reliable. One thing we definitely do not appreciate is lying..." although denied suggestions that they had influenced the decision to sack the rider.
Despite calls for the Tour to be cancelled mid-race, the race continued principally on the basis that the race itself and its history is bigger than individual events."It has survived over 104 years...I don't think a handful of cheats is going to stop it. But it's going to get to Paris in a very damaged state, just as it did in 1998." per William Fotheringham, journalist with The Guardian on BBC Radio 5 Live, 25 July 2007
UCI director Pat McQuaid urged team directors and the riders to take responsibility: "The teams need to have more control over their riders.."They are the ones who need to clean out the riders who are iffy, they need to ensure they can guarantee that everyone of their riders is riding clean and riding fairly. The evidence is that most of the time these riders are dealing with individuals from outside their team and the sport whether it be pseudo doctors and chemists who are promising them things. That has got to stop. More and more riders...are speaking out and it's the younger generation of riders coming in that are going to be the future of the sport. They have to come into a system that is completely ethically correct. But at the end of the day, the rider is the one who makes the decisions..We are in the process of changing that culture and it will change in time. We need to weed out the bad apples. I hope next year we have a Tour de France with no positive tests. We've had two bad Tour de Frances, we cannot afford a third."