Another Tour de France rider - the Italian Cristian Moreni - has failed a doping test and was led away by police at the end of Wednesday’s 16th stage.

"He accepted his wrongdoing and did not ask for a B-sample," said Eric Boyer, manager of Moreni’s Cofidis team, after the rider had tested positive for testosterone.

Athletes caught doping are entitled to ask for follow-up tests to confirm - and in rare cases deny - the results of the initial A sample.

Police were seen leading Moreni away from the Cofidis team bus, although it was unclear where they were taking him. The French team later withdrew all of their riders, meaning the end of this year's race for Moreni's British team-mate Bradley Wiggins, as Cofidis followed the lead set yesterday by Astana, who pulled out en masse following doping revelations surrounding their star rider Alexandre Vinokourov.

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Background

• Tour stage starts without yellow jersey

• France mourns 'death of the Tour'

• Rasmussen sacked by Rabobank

• New doping scandal hits the Tour

• Tour in disarray after Vinokourov tests positive

Background

• Rasmussen extends Tour advantage

• Vinokourov bounces back for second stage

• Contador a contender after Pyrenees triumph

• Vinokourov makes it lucky 13

• Rasmussen keeps yellow jersey as Boonen wins

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L’Equipe, the French sports newspaper which broke the story on Tuesday that Vinokourov had tested positive for a banned blood transfusion, said Moreni’s case resulted from a test conducted on stage 11 of the Tour last Thursday.

Moreni started Wednesday’s 16th stage in 58th place, 1 hr, 34 mins and 45 secs behind race leader Michael Rasmussen. He finished 41st on Wednesday’s stage, falling another 21 minutes behind Rasmussen.

Urine tests are conducted daily at the Tour on the stage winner, the race leader and other selected riders.

Stage 11, from Marseille to Montpellier in southern France, was won by sprinter Robert Hunter, a South African with the Barloworld team. The race leader then - and now - was Rasmussen, the Dane who is riding under a cloud of suspicion because he missed several doping tests before the three-week Tour began.

The identity of the other riders tested that day was not immediately known.

L’Equipe said the test analysis was conducted by the Chatenay-Malabry lab on the outskirts of Paris. Traces of testosterone were found in the urine sample, the newspaper reported.