Italian rider Cristian Moreni woke up Wednesday just five days away from finishing the Tour de France as a member of the French Cofidis team — one of seven teams that had just announced a new rider’s organization geared towards cleaning up the sport, and kicked off its existence with an anti-doping protest at the start of stage 16.

Moreni ended his day in the back of a police car at the top of the Col d’Aubisque, charged with using testosterone and breaking France’s tough laws against using and trafficking in doping products. The 35-year-old former Italian champion admitted to administering himself with a synthetic version of the male sex hormone and did not ask for his B sample to be tested. Moreni tested positive following stage 11 in Montpellier. He’s now out of the Tour, and expected to be out of a job as well.

The contrast of Cofidis riders protesting the use of doping products at the start of the stage with the image of Moreni leaving the race in police custody seven hours later was just another unimaginable moment in a Tour de France that seems to grow more surreal by the hour.

Moreni’s positive result was the third doping story to hit this Tour. The first was that of German Patrik Sinkewitz (T-Mobile), who tested positive for testosterone at a control conducted in June. Sinkewitz started the Tour but abandoned after stage 8 when he crashed with a spectator and required oral surgery. The news of Sinkewitz’s positive result leaked out through German television several days later.

The Tour was rocked on Tuesday, its second rest day, by the news that Astana leader Alex Vinokourov had a positive result for homologous blood doping following both of his stage wins.

Unlike Astana, which was asked by Tour organizers ASO to leave the race following Vinokourov’s positive results, Cofidis team withdrew itself from the Tour by request of its sponsor, making it the second team in24 hours to leave the race.

As with the news of Vinokourov’s positive, word of Moreni’s result was first reported by French Web site for L’Equipe. Following news of the result, French police were seen carrying out searches of the Cofidis team hotel.

The news came as a heavy blow to Cofidis team manager Eric Boyer, has for years been staunchly outspoken about the evils of doping in cycling.

“Christian apologized for having hurt us and he also apologized to his family, his teammates and the organizers of the Tour de France,” Boyer told L’Equipe TV. “He did not ask for the B sample confirmation because he acknowledges having doped. He is assuming responsibility and is absolving the team, including our medical personnel, from responsibility. I blame myself and take responsibility for not having been present in the difficult moments when he gave into temptation.”

French teams have long been seen as the ProTour’s cleanest squads, largely the result of federally mandated monitoring of all riders licensed through the French national cycling federation implemented following the 1998 Festina Affair. Cofidis, however, was embroiled in its own doping problems in 2004, with a scandal that involved a series of confessions, accusations and even the arrest and suspension of David Millar. But the French team had purportedly taken steps to correct that history and Cofidis was one of seven teams that announced Tuesday the formation of the Mouvement Pour un Cyclisme Crédible (MPCC), demanding strict application of the UCI Code of Conduct, signatures of the UCI’s anti-doping pledge by all team managers, directors and doctors, and total transparency concerning riders’ Therapeutic Use Exemptions (TUEs).

The other teams include French squads AG2R, Agritubel, Bouyges-Telecom, Cofidis, Crédit Agricole and Francaise Des Jeux and German squad Gerolsteiner. The Movement’s initial press release said it is open to all teams that share its philosophy.

Faced with that philosophy, Cofidis will have no option to terminate Moreni, a rider who began the day over one hour behind controversial race leader Michael Rasmussen, and ended the day in police custody.

And the team had no choice but to pull out of the race it says it is promising to clean up.