Swiss daily stops Tour de France coverage

Doping scandals surrounding Tour de France became the reason for one of Switzerland's biggest newspaper to stop writing about it.

The daily Tages Anzeiger said on its Web site Wednesday it will no longer report on the Tour stages and will limit its coverage to results and doping stories.

The move comes a day after Kazakh rider Alexandre Vinokourov and his Astana team were disqualified because he tested positive for a banned blood transfusion.

The newspaper has a circulation of about 231,000, reaching an estimated 550,000 readers.

Two German public TV channels - ZDF and ARD - last week dropped their coverage of the Tour as a protest after German cycling officials announced that T-Mobile rider Patrik Sinkewitz tested positive for high levels of testosterone.

Tour leader Michael Rasmussen - who won Wednesday's 16th stage of the Tour de France - is also battling doping suspicions because he skipped drug controls before the Tour start.