May 13, 2007	Sunday	Rabi-us-Sani 25, 1428

PARIS, May 12: French sports minister Jean-Francois Lamour plans to take legal action over recent stories that he'd doped during his fencing career.

Lamour called the stories “a gross attempt” at destabilising the World Anti-Doping Agency.

“Information published recently in certain media outlets is wrong and dishonest,” Lamour said. “These media outlets, the authors, as well as all those who repeat these lies will be subject to legal action.”

WADA vice-president Lamour, who hopes to be elected the agency's new chief in November when current leader Dick Pound steps down, said the timing of the articles was suspicious since they came days before WADA's executive committee meeting this weekend.“It is evident that this consists of a gross attempt at destabilization which is aiming at, not just me, but everyone involved in the fight against doping at a time when considerable progress is being made,” Lamour said in a statement sent to The Associated Press late Friday. “I am not prepared to be intimidated by the adversaries of the fight against doping and will pursue the same fight lead by WADA.”

The Danish newspaper Ekstrabladet this week cited former anti-doping officials Jean Pierre de Mondenard and Gerhard Treutlein as saying two-time Olympic fencing champion Lamour twice tested positive _ for caffeine in 1987 and for pholcodine, a cold cure, in a urine sample in 1989.

Two more online publications, in Canada and Denmark, then ran similar stories.

Lamour _ who was never charged _ says he never doped.

“In 1987, a counter analysis completely cleared me,” Lamour said. “As for the so-called affair of 1989, it is not based on any reality. The substance it refers to did not figure, and still does not, on the list of banned substances.”—AP