Rumsas: Drugs Were for My Mother-in-law

The Lithuanian Raimondas Rumsas, who is under suspicion of using banned drugs en route to third place in the Tour de France, yesterday claimed that the large store of medicines found in his wife Edita's possession by French customs on Sunday was destined for his mother-in-law.

As an explanation it bears a striking resemblance to that initially offered to police by Willy Voet, the masseur found carrying drugs for the Festina team in cycling's biggest drug scandal in 1998. He claimed that the team's drugs were "for his own personal use".

Rumsas said: "I have ridden this Tour in a completely honest and legal manner. I think it must all be a misunderstanding. She was carrying them from Lithuania to my mother-in-law."

Edita Rumsas, 28, was yesterday placed under formal investigation on charges of "administering, purveying, retaining and assisting in the use of doping products" and was held in a women's jail in Bonneville, in the French Alps.

Customs officers stopped her car for a routine check at the Mont Blanc tunnel on Sunday morning and found a large temperature-controlled suitcase in the boot, containing "corticosteroids, testosterone, erythropoietin" - the blood-booster widely used in cycling in the 1990s - "growth hormones and anabolic steroids," a police spokesman said yesterday. There were apparently a further 35 medicines in the suitcase, some of which were unknown to the police and are still being analysed.

Her husband maintains that the entire affair is a mystery to him. "She has never hidden anything from me and if it is true that she was carrying all that in the car then she will have to explain it to me when she is released from custody."