Cycling: Millar's Cofidis Team 'spent £25,000 a Year on Drugs'

The inquiry that investigated drug-taking within the Cofidis team between 2001 and 2003 discovered that the squad spent up to €37,000 (£25,000) a year on medicines, a court in Paris was told yesterday at the start of a trial involving seven cyclists, including Britain's best Tour de France rider in recent years, David Millar.

Questioning the masseur at the centre of the affair, Boguslaw Madejak, the presiding judge Ghislaine Polge said: "It's very simple. These drugs cause physical deterioration, mental decline and death."

The court in Nanterre heard that the list of banned drugs Madejak is alleged to have provided to a group of Polish professionals is so long that analysing and explaining the drugs will take an entire session, probably tomorrow. The drugs are alleged to have included anabolic steroids, hormones, amphetamines and diuretics used as masking agents.

Polge said that until the end of the second world war, French professional cyclists had a higher life expectancy than the average; since then, the trend had been reversed. "Apart from the fact that a lot of cheating is involved, there is a real public health issue," she told the court.

Millar is accused of "importing, transporting, keeping and using substances dangerous to health" under France's anti-drugs law. He has already served a two-year ban for offences uncovered by the inquiry. While the accused face prison sentences of up to five years and fines of up to €75,000 (£50,000), another key issue this week will be the court's judgment of the extent to which their team's management was complicit. The trial will last until Friday and sentences are expected within a few weeks.