Tour Chief Warns Armstrong Over Stringent Testing

The organizers of the Tour de France have welcomed Lance Armstrong's plans to return to the event next season, but have warned the seven-time champion that he will need to adhere to stricter drug-testing regulations in 2009.

Armstrong, who retired from professional cycling after winning seven consecutive Tour de France titles between 1999 and 2005, has decided to attempt to become the oldest winner of the event at the age of 37 in order to "raise awareness of the global cancer burden".

However, Tour de France director Christian Prudhomme underlined on Tuesday that should Armstrong return to the event he would have to undergo the same stringent drug-testing procedures as any other cyclist. "He must follow all the rules today, that are much more strict than they were before," Prudhomme told the Associated Press news agency.

After recovering from testicular cancer, Armstrong became an inspiration for cancer sufferers the world over, as he became a dominant force in cycling at the end of the 1990s and the first half of the current decade. However, his career was never far from controversy.

Armstrong enjoyed a close working relationship with Michele Ferrari, the Italian doctor who was convicted, and subsequently acquitted on appeal, of malpractice, although the charges did not involve Armstrong, while in 1999 traces of a cortisone-based substance were found in a urine sample provided by the American but he was cleared on the grounds that the drug had been used to treat a skin complaint.

In 2005 an investigation by the French newspaper l'Equipe revealed that the banned blood booster erythropoietin had been found in urine samples provided by the American during his first Tour win in 1999 but no sanctions were taken because an inquiry commissioned by the International Cycling Union ruled that the testing had been carried out on an unofficial basis, for research purposes.

For his part Armstrong has said that returning to the Tour will go a long way to ending suspicions that he cheated on his way to becoming a multiple Tour winner. "Many of the guys that got second through 10th, a lot of them are gone," he said. "Out. Caught. Positive tests. Suspended. Whatever. And so I can understand why people look at that and go, 'Well, [they] were caught - and you weren't?' So there is a nice element here where I can come with really a completely comprehensive program and there will be no way to cheat."