Tour de France 2022: one day of departure, Bahrain Victorious team searched again

A few days after searches carried out at the homes of several of its members, the hotel and vehicles of the Bahrain cycling training were the subject of a search on Thursday, in Denmark.

Le Monde

The runners of the Tour de France are preparing to see their daily life punctuated by the kilometers swallowed along the big loop, but the cycling team Bahrain Victorious is accustomed – against its will – to another form of rehearsal. On the eve of the departure of the 109 e edition of the Tour de France, the Bahrainian training announced that it has been the subject of a new search, Thursday, June 30, at its hotel in the suburbs of Copenhagen (Denmark), from where the race will go. This a few days after the homes of several team members were searched at the start of the week.

At the request of the French investigators, “the [Danish] police rummaged out the team’s cars, as well as the rooms of the supervisory staff and cyclists,” said the Slovenian Matej Mohoric team (Double winner step in 2021) in A press release , ensuring having” cooperated completely “and that” no object was seized “during this search, started at 5:30 am.

Since Tour 2021, the Bahrain Victorious team has been under investigation by the Marseille prosecution for “acquisition, transport, detention, import of a substance or prohibited method for the purpose of use by a sportsman without Medical justification “. During the last week of racing, in 2021, the Bahrainian training had been searched in Pau. In the fall, leaks had revealed that traces of tizanidine, powerful muscular relaxing used against multiple sclerosis, but not prohibited by anti -doping regulations, had been found in the hair analyzes of several runners. The team had denied having been informed and the laboratory had not confirmed the identities of the athletes concerned.

searches at the request of French investigators

“To date, the team has not been informed of the progress of the results or has not received a return on the survey from the Marseille prosecution,” said Bahrain Victorious, in Beginning of the week, after the first salvo of searches carried out in different countries against its members, regretting “the attack on the reputation of people and the team” generated by these police operations.

Thursday, Danish police confirmed that they had acted at the request of the French authorities. “Following a request from the French police as part of an ongoing investigation in France, we carried out a search in a hotel in Brondby [in the suburbs of Copenhagen],” said a spokesperson, referring to French investigators for more details.

The Bahrain Victorious training, including one of the leaders, the Italian Sonny Colbrelli, was the victim, in March, of a cardiorepiratory arrest, is led by Milan Erzen, to the position of Manageur General. Slovenian was suspected, in 2020, as part of the Aderlass blood doping case; He then described the accusations as “totally false”.

These searches and the suspicions of doping that they entail do not prevent Bahrain Victorious from approaching the 109 e edition of the big loop with ambition. “Our objective is to win the first podium of the team at the Tour de France, which we have barely missed with [Mikel] Landa in 2020”, warned the sports director and former Slovenian runner Gorazd Stangelj, this week. With Slovenian Matej Mohoric, Belgian Dylan Teuns, Australian Jack Haig or Italian Damiano Caruso (second in Giro 2021) as headliners, the team will also target stage victories as during the last edition , where his runners had raised his arms three times.

Ensuring that he no longer wanted to comment on the searches, the team expressed Thursday that he “can’t wait to focus on the largest cycling race in the world”. But from the big departure, Friday in Copenhagen, his results will be particularly scrutinized.