By DPA
Cognac (France) : Patrice Clerc, the head of the organisation that runs the Tour de France, Saturday called for the leadership of the world governing cycling body UCI to resign.
"The UCI has displayed a lack of lucidity, of professionalism, a total unawareness. There are two possibilities: Either it is incompetence or they wanted to do damage… The management has no other choice but to resign," Clerc told journalists before the start of the next-to-last stage of the Tour, in the city of Cognac.
Clerc, who heads the Amaury Sport Organisation, and Tour director Christian Prudhomme have accused the UCI of having intentionally neglected to inform them of a positive doping test of German cyclist Patrik Sinkewitz and of Danish rider Micheal Rasmussen missing at least one doping test and lying about his whereabouts to avoid the tests.
Both situations were revealed during the running of the Tour, leading German public television stations ARD and ZDF to stop live broadcasts of the race and Rasmussen being forced out of the race when he was leading it.
Clerc and Prudhomme have charged that the UCI withheld the information in order to destabilise the race.
"The UCI is not able to lead the reconstruction of the (anti-doping) system," Clerc said.
"We will attempt to unite all people of good will, riders, teams… We don't want to exclude the sports authorities, but we want a sports authority that is ethical, neutral, independent and responsible."
Prudhomme said that he felt "betrayed" by the UCI.
"The result of the (Sinkewitz) positive test took a month and a week to be made public. That's a very surprising delay."
Clerc said the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) "is certainly the most competent body to lead the fight that touches every sport".
Earlier Saturday, Prudhomme was quoted as saying that the Tour de France would no longer cooperate with the UCI.
"We will no longer work together with the UCI, there will be special rules for the Tour de France," Prudhomme told Saturday's edition of Germany's Sueddeutsche Zeitung daily.
"It (the UCI) is good for nothing. The UCI never wanted a clean Tour."
Prudhomme said that the UCI was aware that disgraced Dane Michael Rasmussen missed doping tests ahead of the Tour and should have taken action before the rider was pulled out of the race late Wednesday by his Rabobank team.
Prudhomme said that the UCI violated its own rules by allowing Rasmussen to race even though he allegedly wasn't tested in the final 45 days ahead of the Tour.
UCI president Pat McQuaid told Eurosport Saturday that Rasmussen had been tested twice in that period and both tests had come back negative.
Prudhomme said that he was ready to attend an anti-doping summit proposed by WADA and that "we will next year co-operate with WADA and the French Anti-Doping Agency" instead of the UCI.
"Things will be better without the UCI, they must become better. Of course, a case like Vinokourov (Kazakh rider Alexandre Vinokourov is under suspicion of blood doping) can happen again next year, unfortunately. But a Rasmussen case? Never again!" he said.