One of the greatest one-day races, the Tour of Flanders, yesterday celebrated the return of its most feared cobbled climb, the Koppenberg, but the home stars Peter van Petegem and Johan Museeuw were unable to take advantage of it and were outwitted by the Italian Andrea Tafi, known to British fans as the winner in 1997 of the Rochester Classic, the last time a round of the season-long World Cup was held in the United Kingdom.

Short, viciously steep cobbled climbs are what give the Tour of Flanders its distinctive and tough character, but the Koppenberg was banned in 1987. It was one climb too far for many, with most of the field walking up rather than risking slowly toppling over.

The climb was removed from the route after the Dane, Jesper Skibby, fell off and was almost run over by a following car, which mangled his bike, but somehow missed his feet. It was back yesterday following £155,000 worth of improvements which involved relaying all of the cobbles on the one-in-four slopes, and proved to be the launch pad for the decisive escape of Van Petegem, Museeuw and Tafi.

In fourth place was the American George Hincapie, a team-mate of Lance Armstrong. The triple Tour winner had started expressly to help the New Yorker win, and was prominent in the tough final section. It was a difficult weekend for Armstrong, whose management sacked one of his team-mates, the Italian Gianpaolo Mondini, on Saturday night over drug charges incurred before he joined Armstrong's US Postal team.

Mondini is one of 13 Italians who face unprecedentedly strong sanctions after being found in possession of banned drugs in last year's massive police raids during the Tour of Italy. The Italian Olympic Committee's head of anti-doping, the lawyer Giacomo Aiello, requested a ban of four and a half years for Mondini, who admitted using the blood booster erythropoietin, hormones and insulin. Another, Alberto Elli could face a four-year ban for the use of insulin and growth hormone.

"The thing which pains me most is that during this period, including 2002, systematic doping was going on in cycling, said Aiello, who has sent the dossiers of a further 18 non-Italian cyclists and team staff to their national federations for consideration.

He expects to recommend further sanctions on high-profile names including the Tour de France winner Marco Pantani, while the magistrates are likely to prosecute about 60 cyclists and team staff.

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