The Tour de France suffered another big blow on Friday when the Astana-Wuerth team decided to pull out.

Five of the team appeared on a list of nine Tour riders named in a doping investigation in Spain. The team, formerly known as Liberty Seguros, is led by Kazakh Alexander Vinokourov, who was fifth last year.

The five Astana-Wuerth riders on the list, released by the International Cycling Union (UCI), are Spaniards Joseba Beloki, Isidro Nozal and Alberto Contador, Sergio Paulinho of Portugal and Allan Davis of Australia.

Earlier, the Tour lost 1997 winner Jan Ullrich, Ivan Basso and Francisco Mancebo because of the Spanish investigation.

With the retirement of Lance Armstrong after his record seventh successive victory last year, this year's race, starting on Saturday, is now without the top five finishers of 2005.

German Ullrich, Spaniard Oscar Sevilla and Belgian team manager Rudy Pevenage were suspended earlier on Friday after their T-Mobile team was notified by Tour organisers ASO that they had been named in the probe by Spanish police.

The CSC team withdrew Giro d'Italia winner Basso and AG2R pulled Spaniard Mancebo out when teams decided unanimously to exclude anyone who featured in the investigation from the Tour.

The UCI said it could not be assumed all nine Tour riders were guilty of doping offences.

The Active Bay group that runs the Astana Wuerth team made it clear that their decision was taken in accordance with the ethics code signed by all teams participating in the UCI ProTour even though it said the code "did not respect the presumption of innocence of the riders."

Active Bay emphasised that their decision did not affect team leader Vinokourov, Andrey Kashechkin, Carlos Barredo and Luis Leon Sanchez who were not implicated in the Spanish probe.

However, as a team cannot compete in the Tour with just four riders they had no choice but to withdraw from the race.

The scandal erupted last month after the Spanish Civil Guard raided a number of addresses to find large quantities of anabolic steroids, laboratory equipment used for blood transfusions and more than 100 packs of frozen blood.

Doctor Eufemiano Fuentes, who has worked with a number of cycling teams, and Jose Luis Merino, the head of a clinical analysis laboratory, were released on bail after being questioned by Spanish police.

The assistant director of the Comunidad Valenciana team, Jose Ignacio Labarta, and the sporting director of the former Liberty Seguros team, Manolo Saiz, were also detained for questioning and then released.

Both men have since left their posts. Insurance giants Liberty Seguros withdrew their sponsorship of the team, who changed their name to Astana-Wuerth.

Comunidad Valenciana had their invitation to take part in the Tour withdrawn and Astana-Wuerth were only allowed to participate after appealing to the Court of Arbitration for Sport in Lausanne.

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