Cycling: More Cofidis Riders Held

Two more riders from David Millar's Cofidis team, Philippe Gaumont and Cédric Vasseur, both from France, were last night detained for questioning by police investigating a suspected drug smuggling ring within the French squad.

The pair, senior and current squad members, were escorted away by police shortly after they arrived at Paris's Orly airport yesterday evening after returning with the rest of the team from a 10-day training camp in Calpe, southern Spain.

It was believed they were being questioned at the headquarters of France's anti-drug police at the Quai des Orfevres in Paris. Cofidis were not available for comment last night.

Vasseur, who together with Millar was one of the team's best performers last year, has a clean copybook where drugs are concerned. Gaumont was suspended in 1996 after testing positive for nandrolone.

In another development yesterday the former world track champion Robert Sassone, who left Cofidis at the end of last year, was placed under for- mal investigation under French anti-drug laws, for possession of banned substances. A quantity of banned drugs had been found at his house in Hyères, southern France, last week.

That took the number under investigation to three, the others being a Polish masseur who has been with Cofidis since 1997, Bogdan Madejak, and a Polish cyclist, Marek Rutkiewicz, who left the team at the end of last season. Madejak remains in custody.