Police raid Bahrain Victorious team again on eve of Tour de France

  • Danish police search team’s hotel at French prosecutors’ behest
  • Team say investigation is trying to damage their reputation

The Tour de France starts in Copenhagen on Friday with a cloud hanging over it after the Bahrain Victorious team, winners of three stages in last year’s race, was subjected to a second police raid in a week.

The team’s hotel in Brøndby was searched at dawn on Thursday morning by Danish police officers as part of an investigation by French prosecutors. It was the second search of the team’s riders and staff in a week and follows an initial search and investigation that began during the latter stages of last year’s race.

The team’s official pre-race press conference on Thursday lunchtime lasted only eight minutes after riders and staff refused to answer questions about the police investigation.

However, in a statement issued on Thursday the team said: “Following the police search into some staff and riders’ homes on Monday, the Team Bahrain Victorious hotel was searched by Danish police at the request of the French prosecutors this morning (Thursday) at 5:30 am.

“The officers searched all team vehicles, staff and riders’ rooms. The team fully cooperated with all the officers’ requests, and the search was completed within two hours. No items were seized from the team.”

Since the first police raids in Pau during the 2021 Tour, the team have maintained their innocence. Raids on team hotels in the modern Tour are not unprecedented and there has been intermittent police involvement over the past two decades or so, the most renowned being the tsunami of searches and detentions during the 1998 Tour’s infamous Festina affair.

The latest dawn raid was at the same hotel as the Groupama-FDJ team and their rider Stefan Küng responded angrily to the police presence. “It gives an image that we are all cheaters, and that’s not very nice,” Küng told Cyclingnews.com.

“I just hope that if there is something, that they are prosecuted. But I also hope that if there is nothing there is a public apology,” he added. “It’s good that there are prosecutions because I’m the first one to support any measure that helps to give our sport credibility and make sure that we, as clean riders, are not penalised. But in the same way I always ask for fair play, from everyone, from the authorities.

“If they make their prosecutions, good. If they don’t find anything, there should also be a statement about that.”

The police searches last Monday, prior to teams gathering in Copenhagen, were led by Europol, who searched properties of riders and team staff in three different countries. The team described this as part of a campaign to “damage the reputation of individuals” and added that “the timing of this investigation is aimed at intentionally damaging the team’s reputation”.

After the raids earlier this week, Vladimir Miholjevic, the Bahrain Victorious performance manager, said that his team was “sleeping like babies and working like horses”. “We’d like to know why they are doing this,” Miholjevic told VeloNews of the spate of police searches.

“Someone who is interested to see how we are working can join our team for a period of time and maybe these people will understand the effort that staff and riders are putting in their jobs to achieve their results.”

Meanwhile, the Grand Départ Danish organisers have focused on accentuating the positives of cycling’s younger generation, and both Bjarne Riis, disgraced winner of the 1996 Tour, and Michael Rasmussen, expelled from the 2007 Tour while leading the race, are persona non grata during the opening weekend’s celebrations.

But as the race gets under way on Friday, another cloud is looming after a spate of withdrawals of riders due to positive tests for Covid-19. The French rider Bryan Coquard (Cofidis) and the South African Daryl Impey (Israel – Premier Tech) were pulled on the eve of the race start.

Yet there was a twist when Bob Jungels, the Luxembourg rider for the AG2R team, tested positive, but was declared “not contagious” by the International Cycling Union’s (UCI) medical team and was allowed to start the race.

According to the UCI rules, at the discretion of the UCI medical director, riders who are positive may be allowed to start if the Covid doctor at the event is satisfied that the rider is “not contagious and not likely to infect third persons”.

Contributor

Jeremy Whittle

The GuardianTramp

Related Content

Article image
Team Sky rule the Tour de France again but will remain unloved | Richard Williams
Chris Froome’s impending triumph cannot mask the unpopularity of a team tainted by the increasing bullishness of Dave Brailsford in the face of legitimate questions

Richard Williams

21, Jul, 2017 @5:00 PM

Article image
Tour de France 2017: full team-by-team guide
Introducing this year’s teams: the leaders, the heritage and the names to watch out for

Philippa York

28, Jun, 2017 @11:27 AM

Article image
Tour de France 2018: full team-by-team guide | Philippa York
Introducing this year’s teams: the leaders, the heritage and the names to watch out for in the 105th edition of the Tour

Philippa York

04, Jul, 2018 @9:23 AM

Article image
Prosecutors open investigation into doping allegations against Bahrain Victorious
French police searched the hotel and team bus of the Bahrain Victorious team after the 17th stage at the Tour de France

Jeremy Whittle in Pau

15, Jul, 2021 @3:08 PM

Article image
Tour de France team consider legal action after fan causes crash
Jumbo-Visma, the team of Tour de France leader Jonas Vingegaard, are considering pressing charges after a fan caused a massive crash during the 15th stage

Jeremy Whittle in Chamonix

17, Jul, 2023 @5:30 PM

Article image
Team Ineos: Chris Froome and Geraint Thomas dropped for Tour de France
Chris Froome will race in the Vuelta and Geraint Thomas in the Giro after being dropped from Team Ineos’s lineup for this year’s Tour de France, following poor form at Critérium du Dauphiné

Sean Ingle

19, Aug, 2020 @12:33 PM

Article image
Tour de France: Sagan wins stage five amid simmering Team Sky tension
Peter Sagan took his second stage win by winning the 204.5km fifth stage, while Luke Rowe snatched an anti-Sky banner from a fan

Jeremy Whittle in Quimper

11, Jul, 2018 @3:48 PM

Article image
Team Sky’s Gianni Moscon kicked off Tour de France for striking opponent
Team Sky’s Gianni Moscon has been thrown out of the Tour de France after an altercation during stage 15, while Magnus Cort Nielsen sprinted to the stage win in Carcassonne

Jeremy Whittle in Carcassonne

22, Jul, 2018 @3:54 PM

Article image
Tour de France: calls for salary cap to curb Team Sky's dominance
Geraint Thomas’s Team Sky have twice the budget of second-placed Tom Dumoulin’s Sunweb and the French daily Libération said fans and public view the Tour with ‘disillusioned anger’

Sean Ingle

30, Jul, 2018 @6:10 PM

Article image
Chris Froome to stay with Team Ineos for Tour de France, claims teammate
Chris Froome intends to ride the Tour de France with Team Ineos despite failing to agree a contract extension for next season, according to a teammate, Dylan van Baarle

Guardian sport

21, Jun, 2020 @5:05 PM