CYCLING: The Tour de France's third-placed rider, Lithuania's Raimondas Rumsas, under suspicion of using banned drugs, will not decide until today whether to return from Italy to face French police, his lawyer said yesterday.

Lyon police had expected Rumsas to turn up in the city yesterday to explain about a massive quantity of drugs, some on the banned list, that was found by customs men in a car driven by his wife Edita, who was stopped at the entrance to the Mont Blanc tunnel on Sunday.

Lithuania's ambassador to France, Asta Liauskienne, was due to visit the prison in Bonneville late yesterday to meet Rumsas's wife Edita, who was arrested on Sunday with a large quantity of doping substances as she tried to leave France.

"He will wait to hear the ambassador's opinion before returning to France," lawyer Pierre-Louis Piloix said. "He will not take a decision before Friday."

Meanwhile, judiciary sources told journalists that Edita, who has said the drugs were meant for her ailing mother, told police her husband had given her some of the products found in her car during a routine police search.

Piloix defended the ambassador's visit and said she would not try to encroach on the prerogatives of French justice.

But prosecutor Vincent Le Pennerer said the doping case "was not a diplomatic issue", and said his office was conducting several other probes in addition to questioning Edita Rumsas.

Rumsas, who left for Italy after finishing third in the Tour on Sunday, was suspended by his Italian team Lampre-Daikin after his wife was found with doping substances during a routine road check in the French Alpine town of Chamonix.

Piloix said on Wednesday that Rumsas wanted to present himself to police in Lyon to clear up the scandal but missed a flight from Italy to France.

Rumsas risks having a warrant issued for his arrest if he decides not to come to France to help clarify the case.

"If he doesn't come in the coming days, other things will have to be thought of to summon him," Le Pennerer said on Wednesday.

Edita Rumsas had not given a convincing explanation as to why she had stocks of testosterone, corticoids, EPO, growth hormones and anabolic steroids in her car.

The cyclist's wife has said the products were for her family and Rumsas, who lives near Pisa, has insisted the whole affair must be a misunderstanding.

"I have ridden this Tour in a completely honest and legal manner," he told Spanish daily El Mundo on Tuesday. "She has never hidden anything from me. If it is true that she was carrying all that in the car, then she will have to explain it to me when she is released from custody."

Rumsas faces dismissal from his team if found guilty of doping, although Tour de France deputy-director Daniel Baal said on Monday that he had been tested twice during the race and the results were negative.

Rumsas, who won the Tour of Lombardy in 2000, was taking part in his first Tour de France, which was won for the fourth time in succession by American Lance Armstrong.

French Sports Minister Jean-Francois Lamour said on Wednesday the government planned measures to encourage customs officers, police, sports officials and others to co-operate more in cracking down on doping.

Meanwhile, the French press has cast scorn on Rumsas's explanation that the drugs being conveyed by his wife were intended for his mother-in-law in Lithuania. "This is clearly not for individual use, but intended for a group of cyclists," the daily France-Soir quoted one prosecutor as saying.

"If my mother-in-law had taken all this stuff, she might have had a chance to make it to the winners' podium on the Tour de France as well."