PARIS (Reuters) – St Etienne president Roland Romeyer has already started his four-day bike ride to Paris for Saturday’s League Cup final where his club face Stade Rennes with both sides chasing a first trophy for more than 30 years.

While this cup is not as prestigious as the French Cup or even a Champions League qualifying spot, for the clubs meeting at the Stade de France it is a big deal as shown by Romeyer’s vow to pedal there if his players reached the final.

PARIS, April 18 (Reuters) – St Etienne president Roland Romeyer has already started his four-day bike ride to Paris for Saturday’s League Cup final where his club face Stade Rennes with both sides chasing a first trophy for more than 30 years.

While this cup is not as prestigious as the French Cup or even a Champions League qualifying spot, for the clubs meeting at the Stade de France it is a big deal as shown by Romeyer’s vow to pedal there if his players reached the final.

PARIS (Reuters) – Lance Armstrong returned four samples with traces of banned corticosteroids in the 1999 Tour de France, the International Cycling Union (UCI) said on Wednesday, although the governing body added it did not handle them as positive tests.

On Tuesday the Belgian newspaper Het Nieuwsblad published a copy of an alleged internal UCI memo which said a lawyer for the sport’s ruling body had said the American’s samples from the 1999 showed traces of corticosteroids on four occasions.

PARIS (Reuters) – France’s 2010 World Cup debacle ushered in a new era for Les Bleus and the players had better get used to dealing with a high level of public scrutiny, said coach Didier Deschamps.

Under the former France captain, who took over from Laurent Blanc after they were eliminated in the Euro 2012 quarter-finals, the players who once revolted against the national team’s management have been on their best behaviour.

PARIS, April 11 (Reuters) – France’s 2010 World Cup debacle ushered in a new era for Les Bleus and the players had better get used to dealing with a high level of public scrutiny, said coach Didier Deschamps.

Under the former France captain, who took over from Laurent Blanc after they were eliminated in the Euro 2012 quarter-finals, the players who once revolted against the national team’s management have been on their best behaviour.

PARIS (Reuters) – Olympique Lyon’s worst run for 20 years in the top flight has left the seven-times Ligue 1 champions on the verge of missing out on a Champions League spot for the second year in a row.

Lyon, who host mid-table Toulouse on Sunday, have slipped from second to fourth in the standings after losing three league games in succession for the first time since 1993.

PARIS, April 10 (Reuters) – Olympique Lyon’s worst run for 20 years in the top flight has left the seven-times Ligue 1 champions on the verge of missing out on a Champions League spot for the second year in a row.

Lyon, who host mid-table Toulouse on Sunday, have slipped from second to fourth in the standings after losing three league games in succession for the first time since 1993.

PARIS (Reuters) – Team Sky prepared in unconventional fashion for the Flanders classic races this season, hoping to crush the competition as they have been doing on stage events, but results let them down.

The British team have only Mathew Hayman’s third place in the Dwars door Vlaanderen race to boast about while Geraint Thomas managed fourth in the Het Nieuwsblad and the E3 Prijs Vlaanderen-Harelbeke.

ROUBAIX, France (Reuters) – Swiss Fabian Cancellara kept his composure to win a third Paris-Roubaix title, outdoing Belgian Sep Vanmarcke in a session of track cycling tactics at the end of a 254-km ride on Sunday.

Cancellara, who won the Queen of the Classics in 2006 and 2010, entered the Roubaix outdoor velodrome, where the finish line was drawn, for 1-1/2 laps against a rival who is supposed to be a better sprinter.

PARIS (Reuters) – Paris St Germain’s Jeremy Menez and Zlatan Ibrahimovic struck second-half goals to secure a 2-0 win at Stade Rennes as their understrength side restored a seven-point lead in Ligue 1 on Saturday.

Menez, who has lost his starting role this season, fired home in the 57th minute before league top scorer Ibrahimovic struck his 26th of the season in added time as PSG get ready to visit Barcelona in the Champions league on Wednesday.