tour de france riders caught doping

Crazy Stat Shows Just How Common Doping Was In Cycling When Lance Armstrong Was Winning The Tour de France

Even after Lance Armstrong finally came clean and was banned from cycling for life, many still defend the (unofficial) 7-time Tour de France champion.

The biggest argument for Armstrong is the belief that all riders were doping.

We have known for a while now that a lot of cyclists were doping. A recent breakdown of the extent of the "EPO Era" (named for the most common drug, Erythropoietin) shows the "everybody was doing it" defense may not be that far off.

Teddy Cutler of SportingIntelligence.com recently took a an excellent and detailed look at all the top cyclists from 1998 through 2013 and whether or not they have ever been linked to blood doping or have links to doping or a doctor linked to blood doping.

Related stories

During this 16-year period, 12 Tour de France races were won by cyclists who were confirmed dopers. In addition, of the 81 different riders who finished in the top-10 of the Tour de France during this period, 65% have been caught doping, admitted to blood doping, or have strong associations to doping and are suspected cheaters.

More importantly for Lance Armstrong, during the 7-year window when he won every Tour de France (1999-2005), 87% of the top-10 finishers (61 of 70) were confirmed dopers or suspected of doping.

Of those, 48 (69%) were confirmed, with 39 having been suspended at some point in their career.

None of that excuses Armstrong's behavior, especially outside of the races . But it is clear Armstrong wasn't alone. He was just better at it than anybody else.

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FACTBOX-Doping scandals on the Tour de France

Published 01/07/2015 at 02:11 GMT

A look at major doping scandals involving the Tour de France since the Festina affair in 1998:

Image credit: Eurosport

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Doping Cloud Still Looms Over a Thrilling Tour de France

By Michael Powell

• July 26, 2019

BRIANÇON, France — To watch the cyclists of the Tour de France assault the high Alps, those grand geologic up-thrusts of granite and limestone, to see men pedal through misting meadows and up brutal switchbacks is to thrill at feats of athleticism.

As the Tour headed toward its finale in Paris on Sunday, there were so many complex strategies and stories in the race’s final days: Would the ebullient young Julian Alaphilippe of Deceuninck Quick-Step regain the yellow jersey to become the first Frenchman to claim the title of champion in three decades? Would he fall to the high-altitude guy from Colombia, Egan Bernal of Team Ineos (the New York Yankees of cycling), or the Dutchman Steven Kruijswijk of Jumbo-Visma?

As I watched, however, another question nagged: Is all of this real?

Are these stars drawing on deep reserves within or are they helped along by a chemical new or old? When announcers exclaim that a rider pedals “like the Hulk” or describe Alaphilippe’s performance as “absolutely extraordinary,” it seems wise to temper the urge to clap unreservedly.

This sport was nearly consumed by doping. In the 1980s and 1990s and deep into this century, one champion after another fell away: Marco Pantani, Alberto Contador and Lance Armstrong, who was barred for life and stripped of seven Tour de France titles.

This much can be safely said: Cycling today is far cleaner than before. Testing has improved by great leaps and athletes have their blood tested out of season, as well. This is essential for any half-serious testing program. As fewer champions perform in ways that make them appear as a separate species, rival cyclists perhaps no longer feel it necessary to illegally pump EPO into their veins, which increases the capacity of the blood to carry oxygen.

That said, cycling certainly is not altogether clean. In March, the German police found a skier tethered to a blood bag and the investigation led two Austrian cyclists to confess to doping. They hailed from prominent teams competing in this year’s Tour de France.

“Are we catching every cyclist who dopes? No,” says Jonathan Vaughters, manager of the EF Education First cycling team, and author of “One-Way Ticket,” a forthcoming book that examines cycling’s dirty history and his own doping. “But we are leaps and bounds better than two decades ago.”

I placed a call to the South African Ross Tucker, an internationally renowned exercise physiologist and founder of the website The Science of Sport . He has tracked doping and performance and notes that in the wake of multiple scandals, cycling times declined. Of late, however, those times have edged back up.

Cycling has embraced the biological passport, which profiles athletes’ individual blood values, so there is a baseline that their tests can be compared with. That has dialed back but not stopped doping. A cyclist might still try to micro-dose — take small doses of drugs that are difficult to detect — right up to the line.

“The breadth in which you can safely dope has greatly narrowed and that has constrained use,” Tucker said. “What we don’t know are the unknown unknowns. Are there new drugs, new ways?”

Ominously to the view of antidoping scientists, neither of the Austrian cyclists caught in that police investigation had tested positive.

Marc Madiot, director of the team Groupama-FDJ, employed one of those cyclists and he made a fine show of indignation. “Trust was betrayed,” he proclaimed. “That’s one of the hazards in life.”

That’s true about life. It’s also true that Madiot raced in the bad old days of doping and was questioned intensively by the police and was nearly brought to ground in a big cycling doping scandal in 1998.

Now I need to back off a few steps. Cycling may be the original fallen angel of doping — competitive cyclists in the 1880s allegedly pedaled fueled by a stew of cocaine and caffeine — but it arguably has a notably tougher testing regimen than many American sports, including baseball.

And many in Major League Baseball’s establishment hailed from a no less dirty rotten steroid era. Tony La Russa, now a vice president with the Boston Red Sox, was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 2014 for his work as a manager. His teams, notably the Oakland Athletics, were great beneficiaries of baseball’s steroid age and he adamantly defended such obvious dopers as Mark McGwire.

Nor did the baseball press cover itself in glory. A house was on fire and too many reporters sounded like fan boys rather than run for a bucket of water.

Let’s return to cycling. The persistence of its doping problems owes to the fact that the sport is about power and endurance. As another fallen champion cyclist, Tyler Hamilton, noted in his own tell-all book, “The Secret Race,” racing at the highest level is about the ability to endure pain while producing energy across hours of effort and at high altitudes.

In all of that, he noted, blood doping was — and still can be — a great force multiplier.

Of late, the look of professional cyclists has changed and that has stirred concern. Where in the 1990s cyclists like Armstrong looked muscular and fierce, today cyclists look lean to the point of emaciation. Much speculation centers on an unapproved drug, AICAR, which helps an athlete lose weight without losing muscle mass.

Tucker equates the effect of that drug to car design. You can, he noted, make a bigger and more powerful engine, and that happened in the 1990s. Or you can keep the engine the same size and cut the mass of the car.

“AICAR offers a way to cut weight without impacting performance,” he noted.

There is finally a conundrum that confronts all who would keep doping out of professional sports: The distance between the cup of suspicion and the lip of drop-dead proof is great.

“In order to trigger a sanction, you have to have been 99.9 percent likely doped,” Tucker said. “Obviously many fall short. They are highly suspicious but not enough to sanction.”

So fish slip through the net and maybe we’re the better for that. Better to let 99 walk free than to jail one innocent. It does however feed that nagging suspicion that hangs over all sports in this era — the explanation for extraordinary accomplishment might prove more complicated than it appears.

An earlier version of this column misspelled a part of the name of the cycling team that is directed by Marc Madiot. It is Groupama-FDJ, not Goupama. The column also misstated the year of a widespread cycling doping scandal in which Madiot was questioned by the police. It was 1998, not 1999.

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Tour de France’s doping history clouds a ‘cleaner’ sport

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James Hopker does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

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With the start of the 101st Tour de France only one day away, the topic of doping in cycling will no doubt start to rear its ugly head. While the riders cover 3,664km in 21 stages over three weeks in an extraordinary feat of human endurance, the aftershocks of the Lance Armstrong affair continue to colour our approach to the event and its champions.

Armstrong was meant to be the saviour of modern day cycling as it sought to recover from the Festina scandal of 1998 . He was credited with an intense attention to detail and dedicated scientific approach to his preparation; his cycling team was revered for a scientific and systematic approach to training and racing. Both parties were seen as having “too much to lose” to be caught up in the doping scandals that surrounded the sport during the late 1990s and early 2000s. Unfortunately as we now know, this was not the case.

So where does this leave the current crop of cyclists as they push out on the start from the start line of this year’s Tour? Even the most cynical of us hope that the riders are clean, or at least cleaner than the previous decades. The anti-doping debate is also testament to the hope that people involved in the sport want change, and want to believe that professional cycling has cleaned up its act.

Media, sponsor and fan pressure is starting to force teams to take a “zero tolerance” stance on doping, and is undoubtedly behind the decision of Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI) President, Brian Cookson, to create the Cycling Independent Reform Commission (CIRC) . Cookson’s actions have won many admirers including International Olympic Committee President, Thomas Bach, who said he was “impressed” with the UCI’s efforts to stamp out doping in the sport.

Change on the horizon?

But is the attitude towards doping in cycling actually changing in the peloton itself? It is difficult to say for certain. Thanks to the history of the sport there will always be scepticism about whether riders are clean. It is unfortunate, but inevitable, that riders and teams who carry the yellow jersey that has been stained by years of doping and cheating, will be questioned. It was no great surprise that many in the sport viewed Chris Froome and Team Sky’s dominance at last year’s Tour with a level of suspicion.

The introduction of the biological passport for athletes in 2008 appears to have had an effect on athlete behavior and attitudes towards doping in the sport. The biological passport monitors certain parameters of a cyclist’s blood over time, making it more difficult for them to dope without detection. The passport does not test for specific banned substances, rather for the manipulation of blood parameters that suggest doping has occurred. Encouragingly, the biological passport has stood up to legal challenges . But it will take more evidence to show that the biological passport provides a long-term deterrent to doping within the sport.

So, why is doping such a big issue in cycling and other endurance-based sports? Well it improves performance, quite significantly, and in some cases by as much as 6% according to research work by Yannis Pitsiladis. Therefore, assuming that professional cycling is cleaning up its act, the Tour should be significantly slower than the 1990s and 2000s. This can be tracked as the Tour often visits the same routes and mountains year on year, affording historical comparisons.

Sports scientists such as Ross Tucker from South Africa have performed these comparisons, which demonstrate that from 2009, the average performance speed and power outputs of top tour riders fell by 5-10%. This is apparent from the fact that the tour winners of 2010 to 2012 being barely able to make the top ten in tours from the 1990s and 2000s.

Cycling power output carries with it some important physiological implications because the cyclist/bicycle system is “closed”: physiological power can be directly measured as mechanical power by a power meter on the bike. Therefore it is possible to estimate, with a few assumptions, what kind of physiology determines a given output. The performances of some riders in the Armstrong era were such that it is hard to believe they were the result of the “normal” training processes, however gifted they were.

In time, technological, training and nutritional advances might slowly narrow the gap between recent performances and those of the 1990s and 2000s. Last year Chris Froome’s ascent of the main mountain stages (Ax-3-Domaines and Mont Ventoux) matched the level of performance seen in the Armstrong era.

Speculation and accusation

Unsurprisingly following Froome’s performance in the mountains fingers started to be pointed at both him and Team Sky. Following a period of concerted pressure from the media, Sky eventually released Froome’s power data for “expert” review. Dave Brailsford, Team Sky Principal, suggested that their reluctance to release Froome’s data was due to the actions of “pseudo scientists” who misinterpret power output data either inadvertently, or deliberately, to make it say more or less what they want.

In some respect Brailsford is absolutely correct, there are many things that influence performance which power output data alone fails to capture (weather, race tactics, equipment calibration), making definitive conclusions difficult. It would be a misapplication of science to accuse a rider of doping due to an unrealistic performance, even though many do.

But secrecy and refusal to openly discuss performances inevitably leads to the speculation about their veracity. What most people strive for is a cleaner sport: at times there appears to be a polarised approach, either look to the future and deny everything from the past, or examine every detail and challenge every performance which from time to time leads to unfair accusations. A balanced approach is probably somewhere in the middle.

At the weekend, all eyes will turn to Froome and Team Sky as Tour favourites. Their performances are currently seen as the benchmark for the rest of the peloton, as well as cycling fans who want to know what it takes to win the Tour.

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Tour de France

Is ‘technological fraud’ a real threat at the tour de france, the uci x-rays the stage-winner and yellow jersey bikes every day..

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How serious is the threat of “technological fraud” in the Tour de France? And what is the UCI doing to try to keep the genie in the bottle?

Velo queried several Tour riders and team officials across the peloton as well as spoke to the UCI officials in charge of the controls.

Also read : The UCI claims it controlled 700 bikes during the Tour de France

The UCI conducts dozens of daily X-rays and scans across the peloton every day.

“To be honest, I am in the bunch, and I don’t think it’s happening,” Caleb Ewan told Velo before he left the Tour.  “It’s true, the guys are flying,  but it’s down to bikes are faster, knowledge and training improves, and it’s normal that the sport evolves every year, everyone gets better and better. It’s human evolution.”

Following UCI protocols, bikes are X-rayed every day from the yellow jersey, along with the bikes of all the stage-winners, jersey-holders, and other random riders.

The UCI expressed confidence its controls are sending out the right message.

“I think it’s very difficult,” UCI’s Michael Rogers, who heads up the UCI’s efforts to combat technological fraud, told Velo . “We also need to think of the other side. It’s an extreme risk,  and the risk/benefit ratio is out of whack, but we need to stay present.”

Staying present — that’s what the UCI insists it’s doing with its staff of three or four officials who ply the peloton every day.

They scan dozens of bikes each morning with a hand-held device that can detect magnets. Another mobile, hand-held X-ray device was introduced this year to complement the UCI’s finish-line X-ray system.

They’re looking for motors, batteries, cables, or any large, dense mass that otherwise is not part of a modern-day carbon-fiber bike build.

So far in the 2023 Tour, there’s been no evidence of technological fraud in the peloton. In fact, there’s never been since the UCI rolled out its high-profile X-ray program nearly five years ago .

There have been hints of hidden motors for years, however, with rumors of major one-day monuments and even grand tour performances clouded in suspicion. YouTube is full of videos describing how they can be used.

Oddly spinning wheels, random wheel changes, and sudden accelerations following strange hand movements on handlebars were tell tale signs, but nothing was ever rooted out.

In 2016, a Belgian rider was caught with a motor-assisted bike during a cyclocross race. There were rumors of a rider using a motor-assisted bike last year in one of Italy’s top gran fondos .

Sensing the sport’s credibility was in question, the UCI’s redoubled its efforts to stop would-be cheats. The cycling governing began using a thermal-heat sensor and then rolled out a mobile X-ray facility.

With the improved technology of electric bikes, however, many insist the technology already exists to hide and mask motors in today’s racing bikes that are already laden with batteries for electronic shifting.

But would someone dare use it in the Tour de France?

“In the pro ranks, I would be surprised. I don’t think it’s a real issue,” Ag2r-Citroën’s Oliver Naesen told Velo . “Every day in the race communiqué we see the bikes that are scanned, and they all come back negative. I have never read anything of anybody having any anything illegal on the bike.

“On this bike, there is a big battery in the seat post for the derailleurs. There is electricity in the shifters for the derailleurs, but motors and engines? Not as far as I know of.”

“Personally I don’t think it’s happening. I am an optimist. It’s the same with doping, I think the sport’s quite clean,” Israel-Premier Tech’s Michael Woods told Velo . “I wouldn’t be surprised if it happened in the past, but for it to be happening today, I don’t know.

“I won the other day [Puy de Dôme] and I didn’t have a motor in my bike,” Woods said. “The fans and the pundits are going to speculate, but that’s part of sport.”

Could someone use some sort of motorized assistance, not to necessarily go faster, but to ride easier across the stage to stay fresh for a key acceleration?

Or what about swapping out bikes during a stage, and riding a “clean” bike to the line where the X-ray crews are waiting?

Rogers insisted the UCI is keeping a sharp eye on the bikes raced on during each stage at the Tour.

Rogers told Velo that the team of UCI officials working the Tour this month are especially vigilant for any sort of suspicious performances, oddly timed bike changes, and frequent changes of wheels or other equipment.

“It’s quite a broad program. We have people tagging bikes after the race for X-rays,” Rogers told Velo . “We work closely with VAR [ed – instant replay], with watching video for suspicious kind of activity, bike changes, wheels changes, and we’ll keep track of those.”

Bikes can also be dismantled in what would be the ultimate control.

In the 2020 Tour, Jumbo-Visma’s top sport director was kicked out of the race after arguing with a UCI technician who insisted on taking apart Primož Roglič’s bike atop the Col de la Loze stage.

There was no motorized assistance found, but team officials were enraged after they said the UCI technician damaged the crankset.

Some pros believe that the UCI’s controls should be doing more.

Benoît Cosnefroy of Ag2r-Citroën told journalist James Startt that he doesn’t think the UCI controls are enough.

“I don’t know if there is any mechanical doping, but it’s possible in my opinion, and for me it’s a real problem because there is not a real fight against this,” Cosnefroy said. “It’s a question of credibility for our sport. It’s not like doping, where it is in your system and they can keep a flask and test it again some time in the future.

“With mechanical doping, there is no trace of it,” he said. “The bike is taken away and if something is wrong, there is no possible trace of it. For me the UCI is not doing enough.”

Rogers of the UCI insists the cycling federation is staying on top of the game.

“It’s important that we stay present and we keep up with technology,” Rogers told Velo . “We keep current, and we make sure we protect the integrity of the sport. The public are asking that, and there have been a lot of rumors in the past.

“We have to protect the riders by saying we check these things, and to send a message to the general public that the results are of full integrity.”

And what would happen if a stage winner at the Tour would be caught with a motor inside their bike?

“That would be really shocking, to be honest,” Naesen said. “They would go to prison.”

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UCI release Tour de France doping control numbers

Paolini only confirmed positive

In a press release issued yesterday, the UCI have detailed the level doping controls during this year’s Tour de France . The data revealed in the press release has been published by the Cycling Anti-Doping Federation (CADF).

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Night-time doping tests blocked by French law at Tour de France

According to the document, a total of 656 tests were completed during the three-week event. The anti-doping controls at the Tour de France were done in collaboration with the French Anti-Doping Agency (AFLD) and were all sent to the Châtenay-Malabry laboratory in France to be analysed. Of those tests completed, the majority, 482, were blood tests while the remaining 174 were urine tests.

“I would like to highlight once again the excellent climate in which all the stakeholders involved in the fight against doping work together on a daily basis for the benefit of our sport,” UCI president Brian Cookson said in the press release. “In particular, I would like to congratulate the AFLD and the CADF for their collaboration on this 2015 Tour de France. Thanks to the sharing of information between all anti-doping actors and a strategy focused on even more targeted controls, we can be confident of the robustness of our programme.”

There has been a lot of tension between the UCI and the AFLD in the past and it is only the second year that they have worked together on the Tour since the French organisation refused to collaborate with the UCI in the spring of 2013.

Ahead of the race, several night-time tests were done , however none took place during the race its self after it was blocked by French law. Currently, Luca Paolini (Katusha) is the only rider to have been confirmed as testing positive during the Tour de France. The Italian rider, who won Gent-Wevelgem earlier this year, produced an adverse analytical finding of cocaine following a test taken after the cobbled stage 4 of the French Grand Tour. He has been provisionally suspended by his team and is still awaiting the result of his B sample.

As has become procedure, the samples taken at the Tour de France will be stored for potential future testing. “The UCI, the CADF and the AFLD have agreed to keep the samples for potential retrospective analyses in the future. As for all Grands Tours, all the collected samples concerning the best five riders in the general classification will be kept for ten years for potential retrospective analyses,” said Bruno Genevois, President of the AFLD.

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Tour de France Riders Protest Doping Scandal

Who's left standing, top contenders in the tour.

Click for a larger interactive map of the Tour de France route. hide caption

Tour de France riders stage a protest in Orthez prior to the 16th stage of the Tour de France cycling race on Wednesday. Bas Czerwinski/AP Photos hide caption

Tour de France riders stage a protest in Orthez prior to the 16th stage of the Tour de France cycling race on Wednesday.

Race leader, Denmark's Michael Rasmussen, is riding under a cloud of suspicion because he skipped doping tests before the three-week Tour began. Joel Saget/Getty Images hide caption

Race leader, Denmark's Michael Rasmussen, is riding under a cloud of suspicion because he skipped doping tests before the three-week Tour began.

Rider Alexandre Vinoukourov, of Kazakhstan, tested positive for a banned blood transfusion. Joel Saget/Getty Images hide caption

Rider Alexandre Vinoukourov, of Kazakhstan, tested positive for a banned blood transfusion.

Dozens of Tour de France riders started out Wednesday with a protest, after another rider failed a doping test, this time for testosterone.

A senior French official said he did not know the identity of the rider and spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the case with reporters.

The revelation came a day after Alexandre Vinokourov, of Kazakhstan, and his Astana team were disqualified because he tested positive for a banned blood transfusion.

French sports newspaper L'Equipe, which broke the Vinoukourov story on Tuesday, said on its Web site Wednesday the latest case resulted from a test conducted on stage 11 of the Tour last Thursday.

L'Equipe did not name the rider. It said the UCI, cycling's governing body, would announce the latest test result shortly.

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 Denmark's Michael Rasmussen, who is riding under a cloud of suspicion because he skipped 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. The test showed that the testosterone was administered and that the hormone was not naturally occurring.

Dozens of Tour de France riders demonstrated their anger over repeated doping scandals by not starting the 16th stage at the scheduled time Wednesday. The pack of riders split into two groups: those who took the start as normal – including Rasmussen –- and those who protested by hanging back for a few minutes. Fans booed Rasmussen at the start.

Many of the riders involved in the symbolic protest were from French teams that have long complained that doping is ruining the sport. They simply let Rasmussen, star sprinter Tom Boonen and others ride away – but caught up with them further down the road.

The Tour's Web site said German squad Gerolsteiner also took part in the protest. Some of the French teams involved included Credit Agricole, Cofidis, FDJeux, Bouygues Telecom and Agritubel.

"We're fed up," French rider Ludovic Turpin told Eurosport television.

The protest contributed to a 13-minute delay to the scheduled start time of Wednesday's stage, the last in the Pyrenees. The race ends Sunday.

Tour organizers announced that 14 riders were subjected to blood tests early Wednesday. They were from French teams Cofidis and AG2R. The tests were all negative.

In all, 225 blood tests have been conducted so far at the race. Of those, just one – for Vinokourov – was positive.

Vinokourov tested positive for a blood transfusion after he won last Saturday's time trial. On Monday, Vinokourov also won stage 15 – a tough climb in the Pyrenees. Those performances marked a remarkable recovery from a crash that had ruined the first week of his race, leaving him with stitches in both knees.

Vinokourov told the French sports daily L'Equipe for Wednesday's edition that he had not cheated.

"It's a mistake. I never doped, that's not the way I see my profession," the newspaper quoted him as saying. "I think it's a mistake in part due to my crash. I have spoken to the team doctors who had a hypothesis that there was an enormous amount of blood in my thighs, which could have led to my positive test."

Vinokourov claimed to be the victim of a "provocation."

"It's been going on for months and today they're managing to demolish me," he said. "The setting up of our team made a lot of people jealous and now we're paying the price. It's a shame to leave the Tour this way, but I don't want to waste time in proving my innocence."

Vinokourov did manage a joke about his situation.

"I heard that I made a transfusion with my father's blood," Vinokourov said. "That's absurd, I can tell you that with his blood, I would have tested positive for vodka."

Without the Kazakh and his Astana team, the field was reduced to 151 riders on Wednesday. Astana's withdrawal also meant two of the top 10 riders were out - Andreas Kloeden of Germany, who had been fifth, and Kazakh Andrey Kashechkin, who had been eighth.

Wednesday's 135.8-mile 16th stage from Orthez to Gourette-Col d'Aubisque featured four huge climbs, culminating with an uphill finish so tough it does not even have a rating.

Rasmussen was aiming to get through the stage without losing time to his main rivals, so he can embark on the last major hurdle — a time trial on Saturday — in a commanding position.

The Dane started Wednesday with a 2:23 lead over Discovery team rider Alberto Contador of Spain. Cadel Evans, an Australian on the Predictor-Lotto squad, trails Rasmussen by four minutes, in third place.

From The Associated Press.

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Tour de France anti-doping measures explained

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There are 23 days until the start of the Tour de France, but still a host of issues to have to be resolved if the race is to avoid the controversy that has dogged the previous three editions.

Yesterday (Wednesday, June 10), the Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI) and French anti-doping agency (AFLD) hosted a joint press conference to announce a significantly increased testing programme for this year’s Tour de France.

UCI president Pat McQuaid also sought to clarify several issues that are looming on the horizon and Pierre Bordry of the AFLD explained the testing procedure for the 2009 Tour de France. The press conference, held at a Novotel in Paris, around the corner from a road named after Henri Desgrange, the founder of the Tour de France, was attended by current race director Christian Prudhomme.

Here, Cycling Weekly explains where each of the key bodies stands on each issue, and looks at what may happen between now and the start of the Tour in Monaco on July 4.

Scroll down to read more on the biological passport, Alejandro Valverde, Tom Boonen, Bernhard Kohl and the 2009 Tour de France anti-doping effort.

BIOLOGICAL PASSPORT Where do we stand?

Pat McQuaid said that the UCI would inform ‘a certain number of riders’ early next week that their biological passport data showed anomalies. He refused to confirm how many riders. Once the riders have been informed, their teams and national federations will be told.

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Does that mean they will be banned?

Not immediately. Mr McQuaid said that the UCI would not be able to provisionally suspend the riders on the basis of the biological passport, so it will be up to the teams to decide whether to withdraw the riders from competition.

What if one team withdraws their rider, but another doesn’t?

That could happen, and it could be divisive. Certain teams may seek to challenge the biological passport’s authenticity. However, if a team were to withdraw a rider from racing, or suspend them, the rider could challenge the decision at the Court of Arbitration for Sport.

Can riders be banned as a result of the biological passport at all?

They can. There is provision within the rules, but it’s a longer process than a clear anti-doping code violation such as a failed test. First the rider’s national federation would have to decide whether there is a case to answer. There is a precedent. Ivan Basso was banned for blood manipulation – removing blood. If it could be shown that certain blood values had decreased, and the only way they had decreased was because blood had been removed from the system, that would be an anti-doping code violation. But that process will take time.

How come Antonio Colom has been provisionally suspended then?

The Katusha rider was targeted for specific testing because of irregular blood values detected by the biological passport. Colom was positive for EPO after an out-of-competition test taken in early April. That is an anti-doping code violation.

In the meantime isn’t there going to be a bit of a witch hunt?

There could be, yes. When the UCI names the suspect riders, their teams will come under pressure, particularly from the media. ASO may decide to bar those riders from the Tour, and there could be a challenge at the Court of Arbitration for Sport. It’s going to be a busy three weeks.

ALEJANDRO VALVERDE Valverde is banned from racing in Italy for two years, the Tour’s 16th stage goes into Italy, so presumably he’s also barred from the Tour? Who stands where on this?

The UCI has requested that CONI [the Italian Olympic Committee] sends the full documents regarding Valverde’s suspension. CONI had 30 days to deliver, and that deadline is up today (June 11). McQuaid said the UCI’s lawyers will study the documents and if they conform to the WADA code, the two-year ban will be globalised, meaning Valverde will not be able to race anywhere.

How long will that take?

McQuaid said a matter of days – four, five, or six – but said the issue would not drag on.

Isn’t Valverde appealing the CONI decision?

Yes, he’s taking the case to the Court of Arbitration for Sport, but there is no date for a hearing yet, and so it may not be resolved before the Tour.

So what has ASO said?

Prudhomme has said that unless the CONI decision is overturned, he would be uncomfortable with Valverde starting the Tour. Caisse d’Epargne suggested pulling Valverde out of the Tour before the stage that goes into Italy, but Prudhomme has said that is unacceptable. The French Minister for Sport has said that Valverde is not welcome, although the rider is currently racing in France at the Dauphiné Libéré, so once again there’s a lack of consistency.

The UCI says Boonen can race, but the French Minister for Sport says he can’t, what’s going to happen?

Technically, the UCI is correct. Boonen tested positive for cocaine in an out-of-competition test in April. Cocaine is not on the WADA list of substances when detected out-of-competition, so Boonen cannot be suspended.

But last year Boonen stayed at home?

Yes, the Tour’s organisers and Boonen’s Quick Step team agreed to leave the rider out because they felt his presence would have compromised the image of the sport. But this year, Quick Step appears less willing to leave its prize asset on the sidelines and is pushing the issue.

Where do the UCI and ASO stand?

McQuaid stood by his statement that Boonen’s actions had damaged the sport’s image and said that the UCI disciplinary panel would be proceeding with a case against him, most likely for bringing the sport into disrepute. That case is not going to be heard before the end of June. ASO tentatively welcomed Boonen to the Tour, on the basis that no anti-doping rule has been broken. But the French Minister for Sport said it was unacceptable for Boonen to ride the Tour, even though the Belgian is currently racing on his turf at the Dauphiné Libéré.

BERNHARD KOHL The Austrian gave a strong interview to French newspaper L’Equipe but he appears to be back-tracking.

The eye-grabbing line in Kohl’s interview was that he alleged that most of the top ten in last year’s Tour de France were doping, a comment he now denies making. He’s threatened to sue the newspaper.

What has the UCI said?

The UCI has invited Kohl to their headquarters in Aigle to discuss his comments and to see what he can add to the anti-doping effort. McQuaid said he strongly disagreed with some of Kohl’s comments.

Bet the riders who finished in the top ten aren’t too happy either

As McQuaid said: “If I was Carlos Sastre, Christian Vande Velde or some of the other riders in the top ten, I’d be very angry.” Cedric Vasseur, head of the riders union, has threatened to sue Kohl.

ANDREAS KLODEN He was named in the independent report into the Freiburg clinic, but nothing seems to be happening. What’s going on?

Cycling Weekly was told by Swiss Cycling that Anti-Doping Switzerland is investigating the case.

But Kloden’s German?

Yes, but he rides under a Swiss licence.

What stage is the investigation at?

The UCI referred us to Swiss Cycling. Swiss Cycling referred us to Anti-Doping Switzerland and Anti-Doping Switzerland has not made any comment at this stage.

Aren’t riders under investigation supposed to be pulled out of racing?

According to the old ProTour ethics charter which was drawn up by the teams. That agreement no longer exists because certain teams refused to acknowledge it.

TOUR DE FRANCE TESTING PROGRAMME How many tests will there be?

ASO gave the UCI a list of about 300 riders from the 21 teams selected for the Tour who would be likely to start the race. A testing programme based on these riders has been underway for a number of weeks.

Around 50 riders are being specifically targeted for extra, extremely detailed testing, although McQuaid stressed that did not mean there were 50 suspect riders. He said the riders that were being most closely monitored where the favourites for the overall, the most likely stage winners as well as some who were being targeted as a result of their biological passport data.

At the pre-race tests, taken a day or so before the race, two samples will be taken so that in the event of a positive, a B sample will already be available for analysis.

During the Tour, around 300 to 400 tests would be carried out, with up to 10 riders tested after each stage.

In addition to that there would be other tests in the morning and evening.

Are they looking for anything specific?

EPO, insulin growth factor and human growth hormone.

What about signs of blood transfusions?

Blood transfusions of another person’s blood (homologous) can be detected. It is harder to detect a blood transfusion using a rider’s own blood (autologous) but not impossible. The UCI’s Dr Mario Zorzoli said that the biological passport showed signs of blood being removed and of red cells being injected.

Will samples be stored for future analysis?

Yes. And McQuaid said that testing is underway now on samples taken at the 2007 and 2008 Tours.

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Sports journalist Lionel Birnie has written professionally for Sunday Times ,  Procycling  and of course Cycling Weekly . He is also an author, publisher, and co-founder of The Cycling Podcast. His first experience covering the Tour de France came in 1999, and he has presented The Cycling Podcast with Richard Moore and Daniel Friebe since 2013. He founded Peloton Publishing in 2010 and has ghostwritten and published the autobiography of Sean Kelly, as well as a number of other sports icons. 

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