Second Edition News for November 14, 1996


Fondriest to Cofidis

Former cycling world champion Maurizio Fondriest of Italy joined the new Cofidis team on Wednesday, the team's sponsor said.

Fondriest, 31 and formerly with Roslotto, won the road race at the world championships in 1988 and twice finished first in the overall World Cup standings, in 1991 and 1993.

Cofidis, whose sporting director is Frenchman Cyrille Guimard, will start racing next year.

They have already signed former world hour record holder Tony Rominger of Switzerland and have also reached an agreement with American Lance Armstrong, who revealed last month that he had testicular and abdominal cancer.

The French team said they would still welcome Armstrong, currently undergoing treatment, if he was fit enough to join them.

Michael Andersson to TVM

The Swedish rider Michael Andersson (28) will ride the coming season for TVM. He has taken a one-year contract with an option for another season. He is being signed for the Classics. He won the Tour of China last week and rode for the German Telekom team.

Italians look serious about doping

Italy is considering using civil law to crack down on the use of drugs in sport by taking responsibility for doping controls away from Olympic officials.

Senator Severino Lavagnini, a member of the People's Party in Italy's ruling left-wing coalition, announced draft legislation here that would mean fines and even jail terms for offenders.

Along with making doping an offence, it would also hand over responsibility for the war on drugs to a network of specialised centres, taking it away from the national Olympic committee (CONI).

The backdrop to Lavagnini's move is a series of doping allegations, confessions and counter-claims in the Italian sports press in recent weeks, all of them pointing to the CONI's lack of success.

A popular fear here is that doping is widespread in Italian sport, both at amateur and professional level, with all the implied health hazards.

Lavagnini, a member of the Senate health commitee, said he did not want anti-doping "to be a means to deter cheating by professionals, but a service capable of safeguarding the health of all sportspeople, including amateurs."

In his introduction to the bill, Lavagnini said the current system had failed to provide safeguards for people involved in sport.

"The methods and the criteria used to deal with the problem must be completely changed," he argued. "Responsibility for controls should be given to the Health Ministry and no longer to the CONI.

"The controls should be carried by a network of specialised centres which should monitor not only the pharmaceutical substances used by athletes before events, but also those used during training and preparation."

The bill also calls for all medicines which could lead to a positive dope test to be clearly marked as such.

An athlete who fails or refuses a dope test would be liable to a fine ranging from 10 million to 100 million lire (6,300 dollars to 63,000 dollars) and twice that for a doctor who prescribes the drugs -- who may also face a suspension ranging from two months to two years.

A 'dealer' in sports drugs would face even heavier fines, ranging from 50 million lire to 500 million lire (31,500 dollars to 315,000 dollars).

The bill also calls for the setting up of a national healthcare committee for sport, composed of doctors, chemists and sports medicine experts.

One CONI member and two representatives of Italy's major national sports federations would be invited to committee meetings.

Lavagnini's bill will have to fight for time to be debated and then voted on by the Senate, and only then pass to the lower house for a further reading.