SCOTLAND’S Olympic cycling hope, David Millar, was last night banned from competing in this year’s Tour de France after it was reported that the world champion had admitted taking performance-enhancing drugs.

According to judicial sources in France, the 27-year-old, who wore the famous yellow jersey in 2000, has also been questioned about allegations that he distributed doping products during last year’s race.

Organisers of the Tour de France at first said they “could not accept the participation of any rider involved in a judicial procedure or implicated in a police inquiry”.

But last night Jean-Marie Leblanc, the event’s director- general, went further, saying he barred the Scot from competing because he did not “want to pollute the Tour”.

He continued: “We want a peloton (the French word for a pack of riders) that is as transparent as possible. We want the race to run serenely.”

Millar was arrested on Tuesday night while he was dining at a restaurant in Biarritz. A French police source said he had admitted taking the banned substance EPO, which works by boosting oxygen-carrying red blood cells, during his career.

The source added that the admission came after police found two used syringes labelled Eprex 4000 in a search of Millar’s Biarritz home.

Under cycling rules, such an admission is equivalent to testing positive for drugs and can bring a suspension, throwing the Scot’s participation at this summer’s Olympics into doubt.

Millar’s sister Fran, who acts as his press officer, could not confirm or deny the reports, saying that until her brother met the judge next week, she could not comment on the allegations.

“Unfortunately this has to be dealt with by the French legal system, and they have recommended we do not say anything until they have got a handle on the situation,” she said.

“At the moment the matter is the hands of David’s French lawyers, and until he meets with the judge, and the lawyers have properly clarified the situation, there is nothing more I can say.”

Millar, who is the world time-trial champion and a member of the British Olympic team, has strongly denied the allegations and has never failed a drugs test.

He was released from police custody on Thursday evening after being detained by three plain-clothes officers, apparently from the Paris drugs squad, on Tuesday. He is the first British cyclist to be questioned in the French drugs investigations in the wake of the Festina scandal of 1998.

The news will come as a huge blow to Millar’s team, Cofidis, which is one of France’s most high-profile cycling teams. As the senior rider, he was expected to win at least one stage of this year’s Tour de France.

Cofidis, in a statement on its website, said it would ask Millar to explain himself and would apply “appropriate sanctions” if he did tell police that he used banned substances.

The allegations first surfaced when Millar’s French team-mate Philippe Gaumont admitted taking EPO. Gaumont also accused Millar and other Cofidis team-mates of having taken banned substances.

The police began an investigation into Cofidis’s affairs and seven of their riders, including Gaumont, were charged with doping offences. All have either left or been sacked.

The team’s manager, Alain Bondue, and the team doctor, Jean Jacques Menuet, who was named in leaked transcripts of police interviews, resigned in May.