French cyclist Richard Virenque is set to join the Italian team Polti just six months after the doping scandal that plagued the 1998 Tour de France and led to Virenque's expulsion from the event, it emerged yesterday. The Frenchman was on the books of the Festina team but, after the team's masseur Willy Voet was arrested in possession of a trunk-load of banned drugs, Virenque and his team-mates were thrown out of the Tour.

Virenque quit the Festina team and yesterday it was reported that Polti had won the race to land him.