The 1998 Tour de France, also called the Tour du Dopage (Tour of Doping), was marred by doping scandals throughout known as the Festina affair, starting with the arrest of Willy Voet, a soigneur in the French Festina team. Voet was traveling into France when he was arrested and found with large quantities of doping products. As a result, repeated police raids found drugs in the rooms of the TVM team, and the riders staged a sit-down protest during stage 17 as a reaction to the treatment. Tour directors later nullified the results of the stage. The Spanish teams pulled out of the race at the urging of the ONCE-Eroski team, led by Laurent Jalabert, the French National Champion.
This 1998 edition of Tour de France was won by Marco Pantani, with podium placing of Jan Ullrich, the defending champion, and American Bobby Julich. Erik Zabel won his third consecutive green jersey in the points classification. Christophe Rinero claimed the polka dot jersey as the winner of the mountains classification.
Read more about 1998 Tour De France: Teams and Riders, Stages, Results
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