Cycling: Not finished, but Yates selling anyway

Banned cyclist Jeremy Yates is selling up his cycling gear - including kit from the French professional team he won't get to ride for - but vows his career is not over.

Yates' two-year ban for doping means his two-season contract with Credit Agricole, a Tour de France team, is over before it began.

The ban arises from a random sample taken in March which contained an illegal level of testosterone, indicative of doping with the steroid.

Yates has a long list of cycling clothing, including Credit Agricole racing and training kit - advertised as "never been worn" - for sale on the internet site TradeMe. Items include clothing from other European teams he has ridden for, Mapei and Deschacht-Eddy Merckx.

He told the Weekend Herald he was selling his gear because there was no money in amateur cycling but he did not want to discuss his future.

"If I was to say anything, it would be everything and to a publisher, for a big fee," Yates said.

"I've only got one thing to say. I am 22 years old and in no uncertain terms is this the end of my cycling [career]."

Yates was allowed to race the Lake Taupo Cycle Challenge last weekend, days after news of his ban, and Cycling New Zealand says it will not stop him from racing in New Zealand until it receives confirmation of his ban from world cycling body UCI.

BikeNZ chief executive Rodger Thompson said it asked the UCI to clarify the situation a week ago but had yet to receive a reply.

Thompson said the situation was unsatisfactory but BikeNZ was not willing to risk a lawsuit from Yates by withdrawing his licence to race here until it received official UCI notification of the ban.

Yates won the world road junior title in 2000 and was considered one of New Zealand's brightest road prospects.

He was to have been one of three Kiwis racing in top-division teams next year, with fellow Credit Agricole rider Julian Dean and Hayden Roulston, who will be a domestique in Lance Armstrong's new team Discovery Channel.

Yates' junior worlds victory was rated among the best by a New Zealand road cyclist with Bruce Biddle's fourth placing in the 1972 Munich Olympics.

The third-placed rider was disqualified after a positive drug test and Biddle was promoted to third but not awarded a medal because he was not drug-tested after the race.

He was instead given a commemorative plaque.