Piil wins Paris-Tours race

TOURS, France (Reuters) -- Danish rider Jakob Piil outsprinted Frenchman Jacky Durand at the end of 251-km breakaway to win the 96th Paris-Tours cycling race on Sunday.

Piil, who rides for the TSC-Tiscali team, and Durand (FDJEUX.Com) were part of a five-man group that broke away six kilometers into the 257-km race.

The two riders then went clear of Frenchman Samuel Demoulin (Jean Delatour), Spaniard Francesco Mancebo (Ibanesto.com) and Belgian Glenn d'Hollander (Lotto-Adecco) after 26 kms.

The 29-year-old Piil pipped Durand at the line. Demoulin, Mancebo and d'Hollander were caught by the peloton and German Erik Zabel (Telekom) won the mass sprint for third place.

"I did my best but I knew Piil was a stronger finisher," said the 35-year-old Durand who won Paris-Tours in 1998.

Despite a fall in the last 10 kilometers, Italian Paolo Bettini finished in the middle of the peloton on 19th place and maintained his grip on the World Cup series.

After nine of the season's 10 rounds, the Mapei-Quick Step rider leads with 279 points, nine clear of Belgian Johan Museeuw (Domo-Farm Frites).

The last World Cup race, the Tour of Lombardy, will be run on October 19 after the world road race championships in Belgium next week.

After Sunday's race, French police detained four cyclists from the Italian Lampre-Daikin outfit.

The four are team mates of Lithuanian Raimondas Rumsas who was third in the Tour de France and whose wife was found trying to leave France with performance-enhancing drugs in her car.

French police detain Lampre-Daikin cyclists

TOURS, France (Reuters) -- French police detained four cyclists from the Italian Lampre-Daikin team on Sunday after the Paris-Tours race and sent them to Lyon for questioning about a drugs incident at this year's Tour de France.

The four were team mates of Raimondas Rumsas, the Lithuanian cyclist who placed third in the Tour de France on July 28. His wife Edita was found trying to leave the country for Italy with an array of performance-enhancing drugs in her car boot.

Two police cars blocked the exit from showers set up after the race on Sunday and confronted cyclists Rubens Bertogliati, Marco Serpellini, Alessandro Cortinovis and Ludo Dierckxsens with warrants to detain them.

Only team members who competed in the Tour de France were detained, police said. Others were allowed to go free.

Some team staff members and its sports director, Pietro Algeri, were also ordered to go with the police to Lyon.

Edita Rumsas was arrested near the Mont Blanc tunnel leading to Italy after French police found the substances during a routine customs check.

The hotel rooms of her husband's Lampre-Daikin team were raided by French police and customs officers on the same day in Paris but the rider himself had already flown home to Italy.

Edita Rumsas, who has been in custody in Bonneville, near Grenoble, since her arrest, told police she was taking the large stock of testosterone, corticoids, EPO, growth hormones and anabolic steroids found in her car to her ailing mother.

Rumsas denied his wife had ever obtained doping products for him or that he had ever taken any.

He has refused to return to France for questioning and his lawyer has said he suspected French police of holding his wife "as a kind of bait" to lure him back.

Rumsas has been suspended by his team pending investigation and faces the sack if found guilty of doping.

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