Sporting Digest: Cycling

Blood tests are to be analysed more thoroughly with the use of improved technology in this year's Tour de France it was announced yesterday. Hein Verbruggen, president of the world governing body, said that the normal tests based on the percentage of red blood cells will be kept, however. "We will maintain the method of a ceiling of 50 per cent red blood cells," he said.

Italy's Francesco Casagrande won the the Tour of Switzerland yesterday, finishing a comfortable 64 seconds clear of the world No 1 Frenchman Laurent Jalabert.