SPA, Belgium (AP) — French Sports Minister Roselyne Bachelot is not passing judgment on Lance Armstrong following Floyd Landis' recent allegations that the seven-time Tour de France champion doped during his career.
Armstrong, who is competing in his last Tour this year, denied the accusations and compared them to a "carton of sour milk."
Landis, stripped of the 2006 Tour de France title for doping, gave the Wall Street Journal new details about his use of banned doping products in a story published last week, and accused Armstrong of receiving blood transfusions during the 2004 Tour.
Landis also said that some of the bikes provided to Armstrong's team were sold in order to help the former U.S. Postal Service team fund his doping program.
"I'm not a sports minister who condemns before having received serious evidence," Bachelot said Monday before the Tour's second stage.
"There is an inquiry in the United States and the people who are conducting it are not known for being lax. They've gotten some high-profile sportsmen on their list of conquests.
"I trust the American authorities."
Landis' allegations have reportedly drawn the attention of U.S. Food and Drug Administration agent Jeff Novitzky, the lead investigator in the BALCO doping case. Armstrong said Novitzky had not contacted him or his lawyers.
Bachelot said Tour organizers have made eradicating doping their priority and pointed out that cycling is on the forefront of the fight against it.
"If we speak a lot about doping, it's maybe because cycling is doing more than other sports," she said. "The Tour de France is the competition where you have the biggest number of tests."
The World Anti-Doping Agency refused to allow French anti-doping agency AFLD to perform tests during this year's race.
The International Cycling Union is performing the controls while WADA has sent observers to the three-week race.
WADA said it did not allow AFLD to do the controls itself because the tests would fall under the French law, "which is not, to date, fully compliant" with the world anti-doping code.
"I'm extremely vigilant," Bachelot said. "We'll have a meeting on July 9 with representatives of the UCI, AFLD and WADA to end the lack of juridical understanding. But the AFLD is in the race and will ask the competent authorities to intervene if it sees that things are deteriorating."
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MERCKX BELIEVES IN ARMSTRONG
Five-time Tour de France winner Eddy Merckx was impressed by Lance Armstrong's prologue and believes the Texan's aging legs can still carry him to an eighth Tour win.
Speaking to The Associated Press late Sunday, Merckx said the 38-year-old Armstrong is not too old to win the race and rated him among the favorites behind defending champion Alberto Contador.
"Too old? No, not at all," said Merckx. "Look at his prologue, he showed he is in a great condition and can achieve great things here."
Armstrong finished fourth in the weekend's prologue and beat his rival Contador by five seconds.
"But this result doesn't mean Armstrong will win the race," Merckx said. "We have to wait until the first mountain stage to say if Armstrong will be able to win this year."
Merckx declined to say that Armstrong was the greatest Tour de France rider ever. "Well, he won it seven times," Merckx said. "But there are other races in cycling that are important too."
Armstrong and Merckx are long-time friends and the American often praises the 65-year-old Belgian.
"It's incredible. If you look at just his career — he's the king of cycling and the greatest that ever lived," Armstrong said Monday.
"I've been fortunate to get to know him for the past 17 years."
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HORNER GETS FURIOUS
American rider Chris Horner, one of Lance Armstrong's teammates, slammed Tour de France organizers after more than half of the peloton crashed during Monday's rain-affected second stage of the race.
Horner said it was not only the tension within the bunched riders that caused so many falls on slippery and wet roads.
"It's not nervous, it's dangerous," Horner said after the race. "We are in a dangerous course. It's dangerous in the dry, more dangerous in the wet and it's extremely dangerous when you do it on the Tour de France."
Tuesday's third stage, which features seven treacherous cobblestone sectors, is also expected to cause havoc.
"There is too much on the line," Horner said. "You have stages like today and like tomorrow in the Tour de France. It adds way too much stress and suddenly the riders are here for a test. One or two days they gonna get what they want, they gonna get an exciting stage, gonna get a climax. The climax of today's stage was watching everybody crash on the descent."
