Tour de France | Team withdraws after Vinokourov has positive test

PAU, France — Cycling and its premier event, the Tour de France, were reeling Tuesday from yet another blow that threatened what was left of the race's credibility: a failed doping test by one of its biggest stars.

Alexandre Vinokourov of Kazakhstan tested positive for a banned blood transfusion after winning Saturday's time trial, prompting his Astana team to pull out of the Tour and sending police on a raid of the team hotel.

Tour director Christian Prudhomme said that although the 20-stage race would go on, the latest drug case showed cycling's testing system doesn't work.

"It's an absolute failure of the system," Prudhomme said. "It is a system which does not defend the biggest race in the world. This is a system which can't last."

Before Tuesday's bombshell, Tour leader Michael Rasmussen of the Rabobank team was battling doping suspicions because he skipped drug controls before the Tour start.

The Danish rider is favored to claim victory in Paris on Sunday.

All this on top of the lingering scandal involving 2006 champion Floyd Landis, an American who was unable to defend his title because he tested positive during last year's Tour.

"It's almost impossible to be at the front of the pack these days without doping," said Dick Pound, president of the World Anti-Doping Agency and a frequent critic of the way cycling is managed.

Vinokourov, who placed third in the 2003 Tour, is a fan favorite, admired for his grit, determination and string of stage wins at this and previous Tours.

He had been considered a prerace favorite, but crashed in the first week of the event. With stitches in both knees, he struggled for a few days but recovered to win stages Saturday and Monday — a turnaround that, in retrospect, seems too good to be true.

His positive test was announced by his team, whose manager, Marc Biver, said Vinokourov was sent home. The backup B-sample test results are expected by the end of the week.

"Alexandre denies having manipulated his blood," Biver said, adding that the rider believed his crash may have resulted in "blood anomalies in his body."

Many of cycling's recent standouts have been tainted by drug allegations.

Jan Ullrich, the 1997 winner, retired after he was linked to a doping ring in Spain.

Italian Ivan Basso, once seen as the next big thing after American Lance Armstrong, is serving a doping ban.

And Armstrong's seven consecutive wins are viewed by many in France with suspicion.

The Astana team was disqualified from the Tour on the eve of last year's race after five of its riders were implicated in a vast Spanish doping probe known as Operation Puerto.

Doping expert Michel Audran, of the University of Montpellier in France, said he was stunned a rider would resort to a blood transfusion — a technique that has been detectable since 2004. That was when American rider Tyler Hamilton was caught and suspended for two years.

Blood transfusions work by increasing an athlete's count of red blood cells, which carry oxygen to the muscles.

"Performance can increase between 5 and 20 percent," depending on how much is injected, Audran said.

Patrice Clerc, head of Amaury Sport Organization, which owns the Tour, said, "Everyone will feel betrayed. The public wants to see a credible winner."

Note

• Armstrong, who is retired, wasn't planning to attend this year's event but said, "The [Discovery Channel] team at the Tour is doing so much better than we thought. I may have to go to the final days in France."