Drugs in sports

Golfers do it (and the PGA is talking about testing. So do baseball players, college football players, swimmers, runners, skiers, and now, apparently, even pro cyclists!.

The German Cycling Federation (BDR) announced on Wednesday that T-Mobile rider Patrik Sinkewitz 's A sample, taken on June 8, had a raised testosterone level. The up and coming rider has been suspended by his team who say that if the B sample confirms the first test then he will be sacked.

That news sent shockwaves through the German media, with national TV networks ARD and ZDF suspending their coverage of the Tour de France.

It has been a bad week for Sinkewitz who collided with a spectator on Sunday immediately after the end of the eighth stage in Tignes suffering a broken nose and a head injury.

But the latest development is more bad new for T-Mobile who have seen several former riders confess to taking banned blood-booster Erythropoietin in the last few months.

Seven former Telekom cyclists, including 1996 Tour de France winner Bjarne Riis and top sprinter Erik Zabel, admitted they took EPO in the 1990s. And Sinkewitz's failed drugs test comes almost exactly one year after T-Mobile sacked 1997 Tour de France winner Jan Ullrich for being linked to a doping scandal in Spain.