A second team was ejected from the 1999 Tour de France yesterday as three other outfits threatened legal action against Tour organisers as they continued their crackdown on doping in the wake of the drugs scandal that turned last year's race into a farce.
Italian team Vini Caldirola was thrown out of the Tour just 24 hours after their Ukrainian rider Sergei Honchar was expelled from the Tour of Switzerland after failing a blood test.
A level of more than 50 per cent of red blood corpuscles is seen as an indicator - although not proof - that the banned substance EPO has been taken.
Under the rules of the sport's governing body, the International Cycling Union (UCI), any rider who tests above 50 per cent must be rested for 15 days as he or she runs an increased risk of heart attacks or coronary thrombosis.
Another Italian team, Cantina Tollo, has been called up as a replacement for Vini Caldirola in the Tour which begins on July 3rd in the Vendee region of France.
They join Dutch team TVM on the sidelines. TVM announced yesterday that they were suing the Tour after they were the only entire team banned from the Tour when the original entry list was announced by Tour organisers on Wednesday.
Italian team Polti's boss Franco Polti also said that he would appeal the decision to ban his lead rider Richard Virenque, the former golden boy of French cycling.
TVM's team leader Jeroen Blijlevens explained the reasons for TVM's action in a communique to the press on behalf of the whole team. He said: "The decision of the Tour de France director JeanMarie Leblanc not to invite the TVM-Farm Frites team to the next Tour de France has provoked a particular disappointment among the team's riders.
"They cannot in any case accept the arguments by Leblanc and will try through a legal action to force themselves to be allowed to compete in the event."
Polti, meanwhile, said if the appeal failed he would refer the matter to the Sports Arbitration Tribunal in Lausanne and Spanish team ONCE's director Manolo Saiz also said he was consulting lawyers over the decision to exclude him because of the way he pulled the team out in the last week of last year's race, although his team has been invited.
