When the first drugs scandal of the 2008 Tour de France broke last Friday and Manuel Beltrán, the Spaniard, tested positive for erythropoietin (EPO), the media ran to Bob Stapleton, the manager of Team Columbia and an outspoken critic of cycling's cultural malaise. “You have to view them as addicts and probably they have to be treated like that as well,” the 50-year-old Californian said.

Yesterday his words took on greater weight when it was revealed that Moisés Dueñas Nevado, the Spaniard who rides for the Barloworld team, had tested positive for EPO after the fourth stage, according to the French anti-doping agency. Dueñas Nevado was withdrawn from the race and detained by French police. “I am stunned,” Claudio Corti, the Barloworld team manager, said.

Stapleton seemed less surprised. “Some addicts never get over their problems,” he said. “It's behaviour that goes beyond irrational and there's no place for it in sport.”

Stapleton's assessment was born out of bitter experience. The team that he inherited in 2006, T-Mobile, were far from clean. He thought that he had banished T-Mobile's demons after he revamped the German team in time for last year's Tour. Yet further scandals persisted until last autumn, when T-Mobile withdrew its £8million annual investment.

Stapleton, a telecommunications multimillionaire, might have followed suit. Instead he stayed, rebuilding the team first as High Road and latterly as Team Columbia, with a strict anti-doping programme. This month his faith has been rewarded by the success of Mark Cavendish, the Briton, in the Tour's sprint stages and the four days Kim Kirchen, of Luxembourg, has spent in the yellow jersey.

Stapleton admitted that his baptism of fire with T-Mobile may have stood him in good stead. “I have changed my tactics quite a bit,” he said. “Now I have evolved to try and work with the different factions and try and build some common ground.”

Part of that process has been the rejection of the International Cycling Union (UCI) and its ProTour structure by the elite teams. “At a time when the sport really wanted to come together, the constant sabre-rattling by the UCI has pushed people away,” Stapleton said. “We need a logical organisation, but I am very concerned about anti-doping momentum being lost because of political factions.”