Spectator woe for riders

"There is a new phenomenon which is worrying us: arms stretched over the safety barriers and often at the end of those arms a mobile phone used as a camera," Tour director Christian Prudhomme told Reuters in an interview on Wednesday.

On Sunday, Norwegian Thor Hushovd lost the yellow jersey he had won in the prologue when he collided with an advertising board held by a spectator over the barriers at the end of the first road stage.

On the same day, world champion Tom Boonen hit a camcorder.

During Tuesday's third stage, French rider Sandy Casar was knocked off his bike by a spectator holding a mobile phone at the foot of the Cauberg ascent.

"It's crazy", Casar said on Wednesday. "Everything was going smoothly and then suddenly, bang, I was thrown off of my bike and sent into a black hole."

The spectator then had an argument with Marc Madiot, sports director of Casar's team La Francaise des Jeux, while others tried to take the wheels of the rider's bike.

Prudhomme said Tour organisers were used to crowd obstruction at the end of the mountain stages but the problem appears to have spread.

"With the mobile telephone phenomenon the risk is now everywhere. We are conscious we have to do something and for the time being we concentrate on prevention," he added.

After Hushovd's accident, the organisers banned the distribution advertising objects over the last two kilometres of the stages.

They also decided that six cars would patrol the course ahead of the race warning spectators about the risk for the riders.

"In a sense, it's the price the Tour has to pay for being successful, the race director said."There are other solutions but some of them would kill the spirit of the race.

"I don't think for instance that we can put barriers along the whole 3,653-km itinerary of the Tour. The last two kilometres of every stage are barriered," Prudhomme added.

"On the Champs-Elysees, we are using double barriers but there are very few places where we could do that because it's only possible on large avenues and it would affect the choice of arrival towns."

At the finish of Tuesday's stage in Valkenburg, overall race leader Boonen complained about the behaviour of spectators and the lack of security.

"It was dangerous today. On certain roads of five metres, there was only one metre of space to ride through. I saw chairs, cooling boxes and other stuff on the road," he said.

"I want to send out the message that people in the crowd should try to keep the roads free."

Spectator-linked incidents have been recorded in the past on the Tour.

In 1975, a French fan punched Belgium's five-times Tour champion Eddy Merckx. Laurent Jalabert was seriously injured in 1994 when he crashed into a policeman taking a picture.

In a similar incident five years later, Italian Giuseppe Guerini fell off his bike on the Alpe d'Huez climb after colliding with a spectator who was taking a photograph.

In 2003, on the Luz-Ardiden climb, American Lance Armstrong tangled with a spectator's bag and fell, only to get back on his bike and win the stage.

A year later, the Texan was spat on by a fan during a time trial on the Alpe d'Huez ascent.

"There were lots of fans, and it was a little scary. To me, it was not a good idea to have a time trial at l'Alpe d'Huez," the now retired seven-times champion said at the time.

"The crowds are always close on the climbs but I was lucky to get through today."

The 2006 Tour reaches the mountains on July 12, in the 10th stage from Cambo-les-Bains to Pau in the Pyrenees.