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Friday's EuroFile: Tinkoff and Ullrich; Millar cleared of criminal charge; cycling's Olympic status in doubt?

By Agence France Presse
Published: Jan. 19, 2007

The on-again, off-again courtship between Russian businessman Oleg Tinkov and Jan Ullrich may be back on again, if recent press reports are to be believed.

Back in November 2006, Tinkoff Credit Systems team manager Omar Piscina told Agence France Presse that title sponsor Tinkoff was "a huge fan" and wanted to sign Ullrich, but that the former Tour de France winner didn’t seem interested.

"It has been more than a month since we spoke," Piscina said at the time.

On Friday, during a team presentation in Moscow, Tinkov confirmed reports that he had tried to sign Ullrich and said the major stumbling block was the German’s lack of a racing license.

"It's not a question of money. We simply couldn't sign Ullrich because he doesn't have a license," Tinkov told Reuters. "If he gets back his license we can talk about money and how much it would cost us to sign him."

Ullrich, who was linked to a doping investigation in Spain before the 2006, holds a Swiss license. He will be unable to take out another until an inquiry into the allegations is concluded.

The disciplinary chamber of the Swiss Olympic Committee's anti-doping commission had intended to start proceedings against Ullrich this month. But in late December 2006, Swiss cycling chief Lorenz Schlaefli said he was likely to halt the proceedings unless new evidence comes through.

Ullrich has repeatedly denied being involved in doping. —Staff and wire reports

Court drops Millar charges
A French court on Friday dismissed criminal charges against Saunier Duval’s David Millar.

The Scot has already admitted that he took illegal drugs while riding for the Cofidis team between 2000 and 2003. Millar won the world time trial title in 2003, but was later arrested by French authorities and confessed to using EPO. He was subsequently stripped of his world title and banned from the sport for two years.

The court in Nanterre on Friday ruled that there was insufficient evidence to distinguish whether Millar took the drugs on French or Spanish soil. As a result, the presiding judge noted, criminal charges could not be pursued, since French courts only have jurisdiction for offences committed on French soil.

McQuaid: Dope scandals threaten cycling’s Olympic status
The status of cycling as an Olympic discipline could be under threat because of doping issues, the head of the Union Cycliste Internationale warned Friday.

"If we continue like this, we run the risk in four or eight years' time of no longer being an Olympic sport," UCI president Pat McQuaid said in an interview with the German magazine Die Welt. "If the International Olympic Committee had to comment on our Olympic status after the Floyd Landis and Fuentes affairs, I don't even want to think what it would have decided."

McQuaid, an Irishman, also warned that the patience of sponsors of cycling teams had reached breaking point.

"I don't think they'll again accept another similar crisis," he said in reference to the positive doping test provided by Landis, the winner of the 2006 Tour de France, and the dismantling of the blood doping network organized by Spanish doctor Eufemiano Fuentes.