By Julien Pretot
VAL D'ISERE, France, July 16 - CSC team manager
Bjarne Riis, absent from the Tour de France after his doping
admission, was keeping out of team affairs during the race,
sports director Alain Gallopin said.
The former Tour winner visited his team in London on the eve
of the race but had since kept his distance.
"When you are disconnected from a big Tour like this, you
cannot give your advice if you are in front of your TV 3,000
kilometres away," Gallopin told reporters on Monday's rest day.
Riis won the race in 1996, ending Miguel Indurain's
five-year reign as champion, but his name was erased from the
roll of honour by Tour organisers after he admitted in May to
using banned substances during his career.
The Dane said before the start of the race that he would not
attend this year's Tour because he did not have the strength to
help his riders, leaving Gallopin in charge of the team with his
aide Kim Andersen.
"Bjarne is fully confident we can do the job," Gallopin
said. "We have shown in the past that we were capable of
managing a team."
The Frenchman, who managed CSC during this year's Giro
d'Italia, said he was not in contact with Riis.
"I don't talk to him and Kim does speak to him just a
little," he said. "He does not interfere in the team tactics at
all. With Kim, we have agreed on everything so far. If there is
a tactical problem, it's between Kim and me."
CSC have had a successful start to the Tour with Swiss
Fabian Cancellara winning the prologue and the second stage in
Ghent.
He wore the overall leader's yellow jersey for seven days
and is now concentrating on helping team leaders Carlos Sastre
and Frank Schleck in the mountains.