CYCLING: Blood doping through transfusions, a practice which went out of fashion 20 years ago, has returned to cycling, according to the latest revelations from the police investigation into a suspected drug-dealing ring centred on the Cofidis team.

A French magazine, Le Point, yesterday published leaked transcripts from telephone calls tapped by police between a cyclist in the team and a Polish masseur, Bogdan Madejak, who remained in custody last night under formal investigation for supplying banned substances.

"What blood group is your brother?" Madejak allegedly asked his fellow Pole, the then Cofidis cyclist Marek Rutkiewicz, who is also under formal investigation.

"The same as me," Rutkiewicz is held to have replied.

"You know, there's a new method . . ." "Yes, I heard about it in relation to the Tour de France," the magazine quoted Rutkiewicz as saying. "You buy the guy, do the transfusion and that's it," Madejak allegedly concluded.

The reference appears to be to blood doping in which blood taken from the athlete and retained, or blood from a donor, is injected into the athlete's circulation, resulting in a rise in the number of oxygen-carrying cells.

The practice was not banned until the 1980s. The president of the French Cycling Federation, Jean Pitallier, confirmed doctors monitoring cyclists' health had seen blood abnormalities pointing to the practice. Cofidis yesterday denied the team had blood-doped.

The Tour de France stage winner Cedric Vasseur and Olympic bronze medallist Philippe Gaumont, the French cyclists detained by police on Tuesday, were released yesterday.