5 Cyclists Admit to Using Drugs

PARIS — The Tour de France drug scandal widened Monday, with five cyclists admitting they took banned substances and two leaders of a Dutch team facing legal questioning.

Officials remained steadfast in rejecting calls for canceling the event. “There is no question of stopping the Tour,” Tour director Jean-Marie Leblanc told the French newspaper Liberation.

Among the cyclists who have admitted taking EPO--a hormone that increases the supply of red blood cells--are Swiss riders Laurent Dufaux, Alex Zuelle and Armin Meier, and Frenchmen Laurent Brochard and Christophe Moreau.

“Yes I took EPO,” Dufaux was quoted Monday as saying in the Swiss newspaper Le Matin. “Caught up in the whole business, I took it for three years under strict medical supervision. But I never abused it.”

By the end of Monday’s stage, in Les deux Alpes, France, the race had a new leader: Marco Pantani of Italy. He gained nearly nine minutes in the overall standings on defending champion Jan Ullrich of Germany, who dropped to fourth.