doping ciclismo tour de france

How Is Doping Controlled and Regulated in the Tour de France?

As the world’s most prestigious cycling race approaches, anti-doping measures tighten.

Anti-doping at this year’s Tour will be run by the International Testing Agency (ITA), which is contracted by the UCI, cycling’s governing body. The ITA has been managing anti-doping at the Tour since 2021 and typically tests riders’ blood pre-competition and during the race. Tests are then analyzed at a World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) accredited lab.

According to Law In Sport , in 2021, all 184 participating riders were subject to a pre-competition blood test ahead of the start. During the race, 60 percent of the riders were tested, and 393 blood and 162 urine samples were collected. The GC leader and stage winners were tested after each stage.

This year, the ITA plans to collect roughly 600 blood and urine samples during the race, in addition to the roughly 400 out-of-competition tests in the month leading up to the Tour.

There were also measures to keep an eye on the rest of the peloton and get specific about testing. “These doping controls were targeted based on several factors such as prior risk assessment, performance or intelligence,” Law in Sport noted.

According to the UCI , the rider’s Athlete Biological Passport (ABP) and intel gathered by the ITA’s Intelligence & Investigations Department are taken into account. This year, there is one new test for the endocrine module that can indicate the use of Human Growth hormone (HGh) that will be used. Some samples may be kept for up to 10 years for further analysis.

The budget for anti-doping has only increased in recent years: According to the UCI, the UCI, UCI WorldTeams, UCI ProTeams, UCI WorldTour organizers, and men’s professional road cyclists approved a 35-percent budget increase for anti-doping that runs through the end of this year.

The budget increase largely has gone to investigations rather than more tests at races, according to Director General of the ITA Benjamin Cohen. “As the testing operations for this event are already at a vigorous level, the additional resources stemming from the decision of the cycling stakeholders to further protect the sport from doping will allow us to step up in other relevant areas of the clean sport program for the Tour de France and throughout the year,” he said in a press release . “Most notably, it allows us to invest more in intelligence and investigations, an area that has proven to be very effective and complementary to the testing regime.”

Last year, special attention was paid to race leader Jonas Vingegaard’s team, then Jumbo-Visma, and Tadej Pogačar’s team UAE. According to reports , within two days, Vingegaard was tested four times—a fact that his team manager applauded.

There are also mechanical doping and anti-doping controls now in place at races like the Tour. Since the mid-2010s, UCI officials have been checking bikes for motors across disciplines, and testing is done at the start of races regularly. If you’re watching the pre-race commentary during a stage, you may notice officials going around to bikes waving tablets over them. This isn’t some weird techno-benediction; the officials are looking for motors using mobile X-ray technology.

After each stage, checks will be carried out on the bikes of the stage winner, riders wearing a yellow, green, polka dot, white leader’s jersey, some random selections and “any rider who gives rise to suspicion, for example following the pre-stage control, or incidents picked up by the UCI Video Commissaire.”

Lest you think this is the stuff of science fiction, it has happened before: In 2016, at the Cyclocross World Championships, U23 racer Femke van den Driessche’s pit bike was found to have a small motor in it. The scene was dramatic: As UCI officials assessed her bike in the pit, she was seen ducking under the course tape and riding away. (She later used the ‘holding it for a friend’ defense that’s popular with athletes who are caught with banned substances.)

Molly writes about cycling, nutrition and training with an emphasis on bringing more women into sport. She's the author of nine books including the Shred Girls series and is the founder of Strong Girl Publishing . She co-hosts The Consummate Athlete Podcast and spends most of her free time biking and running on trails, occasionally joined by her mini-dachshund.

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The Tour de France's first doping scandal, 100 years on

Sport The Tour de France's first doping scandal, 100 years on

The Tour de France is a race that has always been intrinsically linked with its past.

The race drips with its own sense of self, with its history dictating everything from its route to its idiosyncratic quirks.

This year's 111th edition is no different.

For the first time since 1903, Paris will play no role in the route, a by-product of the imminent Olympic Games.

That wasn't an issue in 1924, incidentally, when the Grande Arrivée into the Parc des Princes velodrome in Paris clashed with the final day of the swimming, tennis and boxing, and came slap-bang in the middle of the gymnastics.

But times change and now, a century on, the sporting and cultural behemoth that is the Olympic Games takes precedent.

So, the Tour was forced to change things up — and looked no further than into its extensive back-catalogue for alternative inspiration.

They settled on honouring the Tour's first Italian champion, Ottavio Bottecchia, with a Grand Départ in Florence, Italy for the first time.

The race will have three stages in Italy before the race crosses into southern France .

That 1924 victory was the first of two consecutive Tours de France wins Bottecchia achieved before his mysterious death in 1927 — but that's another story.

Bottecchia was, by all accounts, the strongest in the race, but his passage towards victory was no doubt aided, in part, by the acrimonious exit of defending champion Henri Pélissier, to whom Bottecchia finished second in 1923.

Pélissier was one of the great French cyclists either side of World War I, winning a total of 10 Tour d France stages, split before and after the conflict as well as claiming victories in Milan-San Remo, Paris-Brussels, Bordeaux-Paris and Paris-Tours.

He also won Paris–Roubaix twice and the Tour of Lombardy three times to round off an impressive and imposing resume.

Aside from being a terrific rider, the cantankerous Parisian was also a firm believer in getting a fair go for his fellow riders.

He frequently butted heads with Tour de France founder, Henri Desgrange over the spartan conditions the race director imposed on the competitors, both on the Tour and at other races throughout the calendar.

The 'calvary' of early Tours de France

Tours de France have always been extreme tests of endurance.

This year's race covers 3,499.2km with almost 53,000m of elevation gain.

Overall, riders will expect to be racing for a total of 80 or so hours over the course of the three-week, 21-stage race.

That's nothing compared to 1924, though.

A century ago, riders completed a whopping 5,425km shared across just 15 stages — Pélissier complained later that the race was like "a calvary," only the way to the cross only had 14 stations — the Tour had 15.

"You have no idea what the Tour de France is," he added, speaking to French journalist Albert Londres, whose reports in le Petit Parisien newspaper created a sensation when they were published.

The shortest of those 15 stages was a mountainous 275km from Nice to Briançon in the Alps — 44km longer than the lengthiest stage on this year's route. The longest was a barely conceivable 482km from Les Sables-d'Olonne to Bayonne which took 19 hours and 40 minutes to complete.

Bottecchia's total winning time was a shade over 222 hours, or just over nine days in the saddle.

But it wasn't just the distances.

A stickler for observing archaic and antagonistic rules, Desgrange demanded that every rider finished with the same equipment that they started each stage with.

That meant any punctured tyres needed to be carried with them and any extra jackets or jumpers that were being worn at the start of the stage — which often started in the cold, early hours of the morning before sunrise, before riding through the heat of a French summer's day — had to be worn at the finish.

"We don't only have to work like donkeys, we have to freeze or suffocate as well," Pélissier said.

"Apparently that's an important part of the sport."

After an instance where Pélissier was docked time for losing one of his jerseys, he said he went to find Desgrange, who told him that he could not throw away anything provided by the race organisers. 

Pélissier's argument that the race had not provided him the jerseys — Pélissier, unlike other riders, had arranged his own sponsorship — adding that he would quit the race in protest.

He eventually did so, taking his brother Francis and another rider, Maurice Ville with him.

It was on that day that he ran into Londres in a cafe next to the station in the small Normandy village of Coutances.

Les Forçats de la Route

Over a bowl of chocolate, the subsequent interview blew the lid off some of the more unsavoury aspects of the Tour that has cast a lengthy shadow over the entire sport ever since.

In that cafe, the two Pélissier brothers and Ville outlined what exactly the riders had to consume to get through those monstrous stages.

Spoiler alert, it wasn't bowls of chocolate.

"Do you want to see how we walk?" writes Londres, describing Henri Pélissier taking a vial out of his bag.

"This is the cocaine for the eyes, this is the chloroform for the gums," Henri Pélissier said.

Ville now emptied his bag on the table, revealing an ointment that "warms the knees".

All three riders then revealed the three boxes of pills they had with them.

It was Francis Pélissier that said the most explosive line.

"In short, we ride on dynamite," he said.

The story of that Tour de France was immortalised in Londres' reporting, a book which he titled: Les Forçats de la Route, the convicts of the road, in which he also revealed that the riders said that, instead of sleeping, they danced a jig in their rooms at night and suffered with "draining" diarrhoea. 

All three backtracked from the comments, suggesting they were overplaying things for a man in Londres who was not a cycling journalist per se — his typical beat was foreign affairs and the exposing of the horrors of colonialism. 

But even accounting for that, there were no repercussions from the startling admissions revealed in the book.

Why? Well, what the Pélissier's and Ville admitted to was far from against the rules.

In fact, French law only prohibited the use of stimulants in sport in 1965, over 40 years later.

In part, that was a reaction to the death of 24-year-old Danish rider Knud Enemark Jensen, who collapsed during a time trial at the 1960 Olympic Games in Rome.

Despite the ban on stimulants, doping cases in the Tour have followed with alarming regularity.

Whether it was Tom Simpson's horrendous drug-addled death on the slopes of Mont Ventoux in 1967, right through to the seismic Festina affair of 1998 and then the subsequent seven lost Lance Armstrong years.

The most recent case that directly impacted the Tour featured Nairo Quintana and his Arkéa-Samsic squad .

Quintana was disqualified from his sixth place finish in 2022 after testing positive for Tramadol — a substance banned by the UCI but not on the WADA list.

And still it continues.

Just this week, Italian rider Andrea Piccolo was sacked by EF Education-EasyPost Pro Cycling after the 23-year-old was stopped by Italian authorities on suspicion of transporting human growth hormone into Italy.

Piccolo was not scheduled to race the Tour, but did compete in the Giro d'Italia earlier this year.

Drugs have been a part of the Tour de France for over a century, leaving every subsequent winner to face questions over the legitimacy of their triumphs, even if the optimist hopes that sports science and the extraordinary levels of scrutiny placed upon the leading riders today means what we've seen is fully legal.

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The UCI reveals its programme to combat doping and technological fraud for the 2023 Tour de France

The Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI) today reveals its programme to combat anti-doping and technological fraud that it will implement for the upcoming Tour de France (1-23 July).

The comprehensive anti-doping programme deployed at the French Grand Tour will be led by the International Testing Agency (ITA), the body to which the UCI delegated the operational activities of its fight for clean cycling in 2021. After ensuring a level playing field for all participants at the Giro d'Italia last May, the ITA will once again work with all stakeholders, including the French authorities, to protect the integrity of one of the world's most prestigious cycling events.

This will be the third time that the ITA has taken charge of the anti-doping programme at the Tour de France since the UCI delegated its anti-doping activities to the agency. Within this framework, the ITA is in charge of the overall anti-doping strategy, which includes the definition of a precise and targeted testing plan. This plan is applied on the basis of a risk assessment that takes into account a wide variety of relevant factors whilst constantly adapting to current circumstances or new information. The testing plan also considers any relevant information received through the monitoring of the athletes’ Athlete Biological Passport (ABP) or gathered by the ITA’s Intelligence & Investigations Department.

All doping controls at the Tour de France will be targeted and performed at any time throughout the three-week race, not only at the finish line. At every stage, the yellow jersey and stage winner will be tested. Additionally, all athletes will already be tested before the start of the event as part of their medical monitoring. At the end of the race, the ITA will make a selection of samples that will be kept for potential re-analysis over the next 10 years.

Doping controls will mainly be conducted by the ITA’s Doping Control Officers (DCOs) with in-depth cycling experience. The ITA is also in close contact with other relevant French and international actors, for example with authorities, for support and exchange of information.

It should be remembered that 2023 has seen a significant increase in funding for cycling’s anti-doping programme . The UCI, UCI WorldTeams, UCI ProTeams, UCI WorldTour organisers and men’s professional road cyclists decided to further strengthen the capacity of the ITA to protect the integrity of the sport thanks to a progressive 35% budget increase up until the end of 2024. This funding principally reinforces the areas of Intelligence & Investigations, testing, scientific analysis, data analysis, long-term sample storage and sample re-analysis.

The Director General of the ITA Benjamin Cohen said: “We are looking forward to delivering the anti-doping programme for this major cycling race for the third time under the responsibility of the ITA and in collaboration with our partners to ensure a level playing field during the event. As the testing operations for this event are already at a vigorous level, the additional resources stemming from the decision of the cycling stakeholders to further protect the sport from doping will allow us to step up in other relevant areas of the clean sport programme for the Tour de France and throughout the year. Most notably, it allows us to invest more in intelligence and investigations, an area that has proven to be very effective and complementary to the testing regime. We are steadfast in our commitment to ensure a clean and fair competition environment for all participants in this highly anticipated event.”

When it comes to the fight against technological fraud at the Tour de France, controls for the presence of any possible propulsion systems hidden in tubes and other bike components will be carried out with the use of three tools: magnetic tablets, mobile X-Ray cabinet and portable devices using backscatter and transmission technologies.

Before each of the 21 stages, a UCI Technical Commissaire will be at the team buses to check all bikes being ridden at the start of that day’s stage. These pre-stage checks will be carried out using magnetic tablets.

After each stage , checks will be carried out on bikes ridden by:

the stage winner

riders wearing a leader’s jersey (yellow, green, polka dot, white)

three to four randomly-selected riders

riders who give rise to suspicion, for example following the pre-stage scan, an abnormally high number of bike changes (in which case the bikes on the team car can also be checked) or other incidents picked up by the UCI Video Commissaire

These post-stage checks will be carried out using either mobile X-Ray technology or devices that use backscatter and transmission technologies. If necessary, the bike in question will be dismantled.

Once the riders have crossed the finish line, the bikes subject to post-stage checks will be quickly tagged, enabling rapid control procedures to be carried out in a matter of minutes. The introduction of RFID tagging (tamper-proof tags using radio frequency identification technology) for all bicycles as part of the UCI Road Equipment Registration Procedure for the 2023 Tour de France and Tour de France Women with Zwift strengthens the UCI's ability to monitor the use of bicycles throughout the stages.

As a reminder, the mobile X-Ray technology, which is safe for users and riders, provides high resolution X-Ray image of a complete bike in just five minutes. Meanwhile the backscatter and transmission technology provides instantaneous high resolution images of the interior of the sections examined that can be transmitted, remotely, directly to the UCI Commissaires.

For road cycling, the UCI carries out bike checks at all UCI WorldTour events, as well as the UCI Road World Championships, UCI Para-cycling Road World Championships, UCI Para-cycling Road World Cup, UCI Women’s WorldTour events and the Olympic Games. Controls are also carried out at UCI World Championships for mountain bike, cyclo-cross and track as well as the UCI Cyclo-cross World Cup.

At last year’s Tour de France, a total of 934 bike checks were carried out and no cases of technological fraud were detected.

UCI Director General Amina Lanaya said: "The UCI continues to take the possibility of technological fraud very seriously. Our range of tools to combat all forms of cheating using a motor enables us to carry out rapid and effective checks. With the introduction of RFID tags on all the bikes, the UCI has the ability to monitor the use of the bikes during the race. This is essential to guarantee the fairness of cycling competitions and to protect the integrity of the sport and its athletes."

Tour de France leader Vingegaard tested four times in last two days

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Reporting by Julien Pretot; Editing by Christian Radnedge

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Pogacar says he understands speed of Tour raises doping suspicions

Saint-Gervais (France) (AFP) – Tadej Pogacar on Monday echoed his Tour de France rival Jonas Vingegaard on the question of doping, saying he understood "people asking the question" because "we ride fast."

Issued on: 17/07/2023 - 18:48 Modified: 18/07/2023 - 02:11

Pogacar trails Vingegaard by 10 seconds after a series of ferocious battles on the most demanding ascents. On the way up some traditional climbs, they have broken speed records.

On Monday's rest day, Pogacar gave a press conference and the topic of doping came up.

"I get this question every year at the tour," the Slovenian said. "I don't see any difference than other years.

"We ride fast, every stage, we go full. I understand people asking question because of what happened in the past people are worried and I completely understand."

On Sunday, after both men beat Chris Froome's record up Le Bettex, the final climb of the stage, Vingegaard, as race leader, faced the media and doubts.

"I fully understand and we have to be sceptical because of what happened in the past or it will just happen again," said the Dane.

"Yes we are going fast and beating records so it's a good thing that fans ask questions about that."

Cycling has been plagued by doping over the years and not least at the Tour de France.

Seven-time Tour champion Lance Armstrong was stripped of his seven titles for doping, while fellow American Floyd Landis and Spaniard Alberto Contador also saw titles taken away because of illegal drug-taking.

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• Tour de France

How doping works in cycling, explained by a physiologist and former pro rider

We talked to an expert to learn more about how today’s cyclists cheat — from EPO, to salbutamol, to ... uh ... poop doping.

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Athletes cheat. And one of the best ways to cheat is to take banned substances to give your body a boost.

And there’s no sport and sporting event so inextricably linked to cheating as cycling and the Tour de France . Lance Armstrong is the face of cycling’s doping problem, but in truth the sport was cheating long before Armstrong, and in all sorts of creative ways . That legacy will undoubtedly continue long into the future. Don’t be surprised if you start hearing the term “poop doping” on a regular basis someday.

As for the present, well, you may have heard of Chris Froome, a man approaching Armstrong-ian levels of yellow jersey success who has also become embroiled in a doping scandal. Froome was found with twice the permitted level of salbutamol, an asthma medication, in his system during last year’s Vuelta a España, and was briefly banned from the Tour before being cleared five days before the start of the race .

The point being, cheating in sports is not going away any time soon, nor is it getting any easier to comprehend. To help explain, SB Nation spoke to Dr. Stacy Sims, an environmental exercise physiologist and nutrition scientist at the University of Waikato in New Zealand. Sims was a pro women’s cyclist who later went on to work with men’s pro cycling teams like Saxo and Dimension Data during the Tour de France, advising team chef Hannah Grant on rider nutrition.

Sims understands cyclists’ bodies perhaps as well as anyone can. She answered our questions cycling’s love affair with erythropoietin (better known as EPO), how asthma medication would help a rider — and, yes, if poop doping is really a thing.

EPO is the big thing. What advantage does EPO give you? And how does EPO work?

Dr. Stacy Sims: EPO is the hormone that is released in the kidney when you have a low partial pressure of oxygen. And you can naturally produce it by doing some dehydrated activity in the heat, or you go to altitude, and it’s your body’s drive to need more red cells, because red cells are responsible for picking up and delivering oxygen. So the idea behind taking EPO is to increase that red blood cell production, because with increased red cells, you have increased oxygen carrying capacity, and increased oxygen delivery capacity.

The idea behind lots of people using it is that it is a really fast way for red cell development. But the flip side to that is, if you get too many red cells in your blood and your blood becomes too viscous, then it actually can’t move through the body, which is why they have that cutoff of 50 [percent volume red blood cells to total blood volume].

So your hemoglobin and your hematocrit levels are tightly monitored. We look more at your hematocrit, because it’s your red cell count. And when it starts approaching that 50 mark, and 50 and beyond, that’s a tipping point for someone doping, and it is a health hazard, because if you get too much of that hematocrit, your blood just doesn’t go where it needs to go and it can’t function properly.

Is it possible to get past that 50 mark naturally? Has there ever been anyone who has been able to do that naturally?

SS: It depends on when you test them. If you test someone when they’re dehydrated, like after a max test or something, and they’re sitting around 47 to 48, then you’ll see that they’re 52 because they’ve lost a lot of the water out of their blood, so their blood is concentrated.

There are some anomalies. Cyclists, again, it’s really hard to tease out because of the incidence of doping. I would love to be able to have a clean team and really, as much as people say they are, you have your doubts. But it is possible.

It has an aspect of living in altitude, and having a high testosterone level. Then your body will compensate and produce more red cells just because it needs that for the oxygen, and the testosterone is a drive for producing EPO.

In what ways does doping throw off long-term studies on grand tour riders? And are riders who use EPO likely to have long-term problems?

SS: I think if they use EPO, then they will. Just from the aspect of having a really high hematocrit level, and you have to look at cardiovascular incidences of “sticky cells,” so there’s a higher amount of stuff in the blood — so you have your red cells, and your platelets, and fractions of cells — and if they are under this constant load of exercise and high sugar, then their vessels aren’t as compliant. So longer term, you can have some disorder with regards to vessel compliancy, so they become very stiff, they don’t have as much nitric oxide response, so their blood pressure is off and they’re dealing with high blood pressure.

You can end up with some vascular disease. So the longer term consequence of having that artificially high production of red cells can have a huge impact on overall cardiovascular and total vascular health.

Chris Froome was caught last September with excess Salbutamol in his system. That was new to me. How does excess asthmas medication help a rider?

SS: It is a bronchial dilator. I’ll take it back a step — the whole buzz about beet juice being a vasodilator, increasing blood circulation to the muscles without as much work, it’s the same idea of using clenbuterol or another type of asthma inhaler, where it increases the surface space of the bronchials so you have more oxygen transfer. So effectively with every breath, you can intake and transfer more oxygen to the cells. So again, it’s all about that oxygen delivery.

Is this something that has been common in cycling for a long time? Why don’t we see this happen more?

SS: I think a lot of people use the TUE [Therapeutic Use Exemption] as an excuse. Especially undercards of testosterone or asthma medication, people start to really question the harder drugs of like growth hormone and that kind of stuff. The common medications that are prescribed that can also be ergogenic, if you have a TUE, then it’s almost a carte blanche to use it regardless.

And I think that can be kind of why people are not necessarily bringing it to the table, so to speak. Because there are some people who legitimately need asthma inhalers, and there are some people who have Low T. Low T can be mitigated with energy availability and nutrient timing, and making sure you are on par with your intake, people don’t want to take the time to do it, they’d rather just take the drug.

The same with pseudoephedrine and ephedrine, that was taken off [the permitted substance list] because it was such a powerful stimulant, and such a powerful vasodilator. People can get it over the counter in cold medications, and they’re like, ‘Woah, this is such a significant ergogenic aid, we need to take it off.’ So there are some things that come up.

That’s where this health and performance line comes into play, because you have physicians who are like, ‘We need it for health,’ and then you have people who are monitoring for performance going, ‘Well, actually it enhances performance, are you sure?’ But they can’t necessarily question the physician.

Can I get your opinion on poop doping, and have you been looking into that at all?

SS: Into what doping?

Poop doping. There was a researcher who looked at the gut biomes of professional road racers and compared them to amateur cyclists and found that the best riders had this certain bacteria in their gut, and she posited that you could —

SS: — essentially change your gut microbiome and dope to — yeah.

I mean, in theory it seems like it would work. But in practice, there are so many other factors. We put it kinda also in the epigenetic aspect where you can take in certain things and cause a genetic expression, either over or under expression, and that may or may not enhance performance. This is the same with gut microbiome. I mean, seven days of one type of exposure will completely change a microbiome. So not only do they have to take the probiotics or the actual bacteria that mimics what the pro rider has, they also have to live the lifestyle, they have to be exposed to the same bacteria every day that’s on the counters and the sinks. They have to be exposed to the same food that’s grown in the same soil.

Again, in theory, probably. But in practice, I think it’s much more complex than what she’s talking about.

So you think it’s probably unlikely that someone riding the Tour de France this year is poop doping.

SS: [Laughs] Right.

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UCI explains how doping will be tackled at the 2024 Tour de France

The 2024 Tour de France is just around the corner. The biggest cycling event on the planet has been in the center of many riders' year-long preparation. And cycling authorities will be also more than ready. That is - for riders who'd try to use any illegal techniques to make up for insufficient level heading into Grande Boucle. In a press release , UCI explains how the testing will be approached in (and during the run-in to) the grand tour.

All doping controls at the Tour de France will be targeted and performed at any time throughout the three-week race, not only at the finish line. At every stage, the yellow jersey and stage winner will be tested. This year, all samples will primarily be sent to the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA)-accredited anti-doping laboratory in Lausanne, Switzerland.

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While around 600 blood and urine samples will be collected during the race, the period prior to the Tour de France is also key to guarantee a level-playing field during the race. Therefore, the ITA will have conducted around 400 out-of-competition tests in the month leading up to the event.

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At the end of the race, the ITA will make a selection of samples that will be kept for potential re-analysis over the next 10 years, and will keep monitoring athletes closely after the Tour de France based on all relevant data it will have collected before and during the race.

"Just being able to breathe normally hurts for months" - Chris Froome 'can't imagine how' Jonas Vingegaard has made the 2024 Tour de France after punctured lung

When it comes to the fight against technological fraud at the Tour de France, controls for the presence of any possible propulsion systems hidden in bikes will be carried out with the use of several non-intrusive tools available to the UCI such as magnetic tablets. In 2024, a new non-intrusive inspection tool will be added to the UCI's arsenal as part of the improvement of its detection programme using the latest technology. Further information on this subject will be communicated in due course after the 2024 Tour de France.

Before each of the 21 stages, a UCI Technical Commissaire will be at the team buses to check all bikes being ridden at the start of that day’s stage. These pre-stage checks will be carried out using magnetic tablets.

After each stage, checks will be carried out on bikes ridden by: the stage winner, riders wearing a leader’s jersey (yellow, green, polka dot, white), several randomly-selected riders, and any rider who gives rise to suspicion, for example following the pre-stage control, or incidents picked up by the UCI Video Commissaire.

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Wed 17 Jul 2024

Thu 18 Jul 2024

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.

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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Has Pro Cycling Cleaned Up Its Act?

Tour de france.

The 111th edition of the Tour de France , which starts on Saturday, June 29, promises to be an exciting one. For the first time ever, the Tour’s “Grand Depart”, its grand departure, will take place on the Italian peninsula, with riders facing a hilly first stage from Florence to Rimini before continuing to Bologna and Turin on the second and third stage, respectively. Due to the Olympics that start in Paris on July 26, it’s also the first time ever that the La Grande Boucle (“The Big Loop”) won’t finish in the French capital and the first time since 1974 that the final stage won’t end on the iconic cobblestone of Champs-Élysées. Instead cycling fans will be treated to an individual time trial on the final day of this year’s tour, re-inserting sporting jeopardy to a stage that has been more of a parade for the designated winner in recent decades. With four favorites, including defending champion Jonas Vingegaard and two-time winner Tadej Pogačar in the peloton, the race’s organizers will be hoping for a lot of sporting headlines over the coming, hopefully scandal-free, three weeks.

As the following chart shows, the Tour de France and professional cycling as a whole appear to have cleaned up their act, with the share of participants found guilty of anti-doping violations dropping continuously over the past two decades. Given the sport’s history, you don’t have to be a cynic to at least put an asterisk to these numbers, however. Too often have allegedly clean champions later been found guilty of doping as anti-doping agencies caught up with the latest performance enhancing drug of choice. Looking at the data compiled by French website cyclisme-dopage.com is sobering to say the least. It reveals that the Tour de France winner in 44 of the last 56 years has been found guilty of doping at some point in his career, many of which having retroactively been stripped of their Tour wins.

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Con i “Superman” del Tour de France si scatena la polemica sul doping

Le straordinarie prestazioni dei corridori al Tour sollevano dubbi e più di una polemica sui controlli anti-doping. Scritte sulla strada, opinionisti tv e alcuni media: «Non è normale»

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Chris Froome reveals details of how and why he was cleared in anti-doping investigation

Defence based on statistical model showing likelihood of false positives

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Chris Froome on stage six of the Giro d'Italia

Chris Froome has revealed more details of the successful defence that saw the anti-doping investigation into him dismissed by WADA and the UCI less than a week ahead of the Tour de France .

Speaking to The Times , Froome spoke about the moment he received the official notification that the case against him had been dropped.

"These were severe allegations. For an athlete it doesn’t get much worse. This was a nightmare scenario for any clean athlete. It was challenging to a level I’ve never experienced before," Froome said.

"It’s been a long process getting to this point but out with Wout [Poels] this morning, our last ride before leaving for the start of the Tour, my phone buzzing off the hook with messages from friends, colleagues, people I’ve known right back to school, I’ve been inundated with people saying they knew the truth would come out eventually and it did."

>>> 'Testing hasn't become irrelevant': WADA science director defends anti-doping process after Froome case

According to The Times , Froome's successful defence was based on demonstrating the likelihood of delivering a false positive for someone taking regular asthma medication.

Legal and scientific teams looked at the varying levels of excretion of salbutamol from Froome's other urine samples during the Vuelta, and used this to build a statistical model to show the chances of a false positive. This model was then submitted to the UCI which carried out its own tests, discovering that the chances of the current test delivering a false positive was "alarmingly high".

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Froome's evidence also included submissions from the scientist responsible setting the World Anti-Doping Agency's limit for salbutamol dosage and the level at which an anti-doping investigation is triggered.

Watch: Tour de France 2018 preview

As well as explaining his relief at receiving the news that the case against him had been dropped, Froome also revealed the moment that he got the phone call from the UCI at the World Championships in Bergen informing him of the investigation.

"It was the phone call I never thought I would ever receive," the 33-year-old said. "Tim Kerrison was walking around and I told him, ‘I can’t believe what I just heard.’

"You do everything right then this nightmare. I actually felt dizzy. I climbed off and immediately just started googling to learn what I could about salbutamol, about thresholds."

>>> Tour de France boss: 'We needed an answer on the Froome case, but it's a pity it came so late'

Froome will now line up for the start of the 2018 Tour de France free from the pressure of having an anti-doping investigation hanging over his head.

On Tuesday Team Sky announced the seven riders who will support Froome in his question to win a fifth Tour de France title, with a strong team of domestiques including Geraint Thomas, Wout Poels, and Michal Kwiatkowski.

The Tour de France starts on Saturday with a 201km stage from Noirmoutier-en-l'Île to Fontenay-le-Comte, which Froome will be hoping to get through without and trouble.

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Henry Robertshaw began his time at Cycling Weekly working with the tech team, writing reviews, buying guides and appearing in videos advising on how to dress for the seasons. He later moved over to the news team, where his work focused on the professional peloton as well as legislation and provision for cycling. He's since moved his career in a new direction, with a role at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.

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Thursday, July 18, 2024 3:38 am (Paris)

• Tour de France

Pogacar's impossibly fast climb to the Plateau de Beille, the 2024 Tour de France's tipping point

For some years now, each edition of the Tour has had a 'tipping point' when the festive atmosphere at the start gives way to doubts and endless unanswered questions.

By  Pierre Carrey   (Nîmes (France) special correspondent)

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That's it, the party's partly over, the Tour de France 2024 has reached a tipping point. The embers are still hot, but the phenomenal triumph of yellow jersey-wearer Tadej Pogacar at the Plateau de Beille on Sunday, July 14, has already established itself as a major episode in the history of Tour crises. His record-breaking performance is the stuff of misunderstandings, doubts and tensions in and around the peloton. It raised myriad questions that remain unanswered, including the most obvious and the most blunt: Was this sporting performance natural, or did it conceal dishonest means, or even doping?

The "tipping point" of a Tour de France can easily be identified above all by the atmosphere it creates: a chill in the middle of July, punctuated with sighs, unspoken words, exchanged glances and smiles, both empty and mocking. Everyone understands. A heavy silence suddenly and relentlessly descended on the Plateau de Beille on Sunday. Exactly 5.4 kilometers from the finish, when the Slovenian from the UAE-Emirates team struck a blow against his opponent Jonas Vingegaard (Visma-Lease a Bike).

Seen from afar, the "tipping point" was undetectable. Some of the spectators were still carried away with enthusiasm, the organization's loudspeakers were going wild for what was being presented as a feat. But, stationed behind the finish banner, the crowd of Tour followers was frozen. This zone brings together those who know the business best: team employees, guests and journalists. Nervous tension rose from the TV screens, which relayed the race with perfect neutrality, and from the smartphones, which conveyed the anger exploding on social media. Then came the riders themselves, the day's losers. They were asked to give their opinion on the suspect performance. Their responses were cautious, sometimes with double meanings, sarcasm and self-mockery, because humor is the new language of the peloton.

Decency period

Not everyone involved in or following the Tour was convinced they had witnessed a fraudulent performance. But everyone understood that the event had now been broken in two, the atmosphere irreparably rotten until the last day. The Tour bubble knew the moment would come, but didn't know when. It feigns oblivion from one year to the next, but since the Festina scandal in 1998, every edition has had a "tipping point," some more memorable than others for the outrageousness of the performance and the ensuing deterioration of the atmosphere. July 13, 1999, is etched into the event's chronology. That was the day Lance Armstrong won in Sestriere, Italy. Another such day was July 14, 2015, when Chris Froome won at Pierre-Saint-Martin in the Pyrénées, or, more recently, July 18, 2023, with Vingegaard's time trial between Passy and Combloux in the Alps.

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Tour de France - Cos'è il rebreathing usato da Pogacar e Vingegaard? E perché non viene considerato doping dalla WADA?

Aggiornato 17/07/2024 alle 11:29 GMT+2

TOUR DE FRANCE - L'ultima polemica è sull'utilizzo del "rebreathing" da parte delle squadre di Pogacar e Vingegaard. UAE Emirates, Visma Lease a Bike e Israel, infatti, utilizzano uno speciale strumento per rilevare la quantità di monossido di carbonio nei polmoni durante l'allenamento in altura. Non è doping, ma c'è chi pensa che queste squadre usino il rebreathing intensivo. Che cos'è?

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Tour de France retoma protocolos da Covid-19 após casos confirmados

Depois do quarto diagnóstico de covid-19, a organização do tour de france decidiu retomar os protocolos da pandemia para proteger a todos.

17/07/2024 14:42 , atualizado 17/07/2024 14:42

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A organização do Tour de France decidiu retomar medidas importantes em relação aos cuidados contra a Covid-19, após um novo caso ser confirmado entre os atletas que disputam a competição.

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Chris Harper, ciclista australiano, apresentou sintomas e foi diagnosticado com a doença. A partir do conhecimento dessa informação, a comissão organizadora decidiu que o uso da máscara deveria voltar a ser obrigatório, tanto para atletas quanto para os membros das equipes em competição. A medida foi tomada na terça-feira (17/7).

Com o diagnóstico, Harper, que pertence a equipe Jayco Alula, decidiu desistir da prova antes do início da 16ª etapa. A equipe emitiu um comunicado sobre o fato. “Ele (Harper) está apresentando sintomas de Covid e, seguindo orientação médica, retornará para casa para descansar e se recuperar adequadamente para os próximos objetivos”.

Esse foi o quarto caso de Covid-19 nesta edição da Volta da França . Os outros atletas com casos confirmados são Tom Pidcock, Maxim Van Gils e Juan Ayuso.

A 16ª etapa foi disputada nesta terça-feira (16/7), e foi vencida pelo belga Jasper Philipsen. O líder geral é o esloveno Tadej Pogacar

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Pogacar no, ma Vingegaard conferma l’uso di monossido di carbonio al Tour: “Come fumare una sigaretta”

Il "rebreathing" è oramai sulla bocca di tutti e sta scaldando le giornate del Tour de France tanto e forse più delle imprese dei suoi campioni, come Pogacar e Vingegaard. Proprio lo sloveno in maglia gialla e il suo principale rivale danese sono stati indicati tra i ciclisti che farebbero uso di questa pratica "sospetta", inalando quantità di monossido di carbonio per aumentare la soglia aerobica e migliorare le prestazioni. Accuse di illecito che sono state smentite dai due diretti interessati, ma in modo diverso : Pogacar non ne conoscerebbe addirittura l'esistenza mentre Vingegaard ne ha confermato l'utilizzo, solo in "modalità" lecita.

Vingegaard conferma l'inalazione di monossido di carbonio

Il primo a prendere la parola di fronte alle accuse di "doping" – anche se ad oggi l'utilizzo di monossido di carbonio non è inserito tra le sostanze proibite dalla WADA – è stato Jonas Vingegaard che è andato diretto al punto: sì, la Visma ! Lease a Bike fa uso di questi respiratori per tutti i suoi ciclisti, ma solamente per pratiche consentite e per verificare i livelli dei propri ciclisti.

" Non è qualcosa di pericoloso " ha confermato Vingegaard. " Mi dicono che si manda nei polmoni qualcosa di simile al fumo di una sigaretta " in riferimento proprio alla presenza di monossido di carbonio. " Insomma, è un po' come fumare una sigaretta. In realtà serve solo per misurare la quantità di emoglobina presente nel sangue. Non c'è nulla di sospetto in questo ".

Pogacar smentisce la pratica del "rebreathing" tra sarcasmo e fastidio

Le accuse mosse dal sito Escape Collective ha identificato l'utilizzo del monossido di carbonio in tre delle squadre presenti al Tour tra cui anche il Team UAE Emirates, di Pogacar . Ovviamente alla maglia gialla è stato chiesto spiegazione sull'argomento e la risposta non si è fatta attendere: nessun utilizzo del rebreathing ha detto lo sloveno che, però, si è nascosto in un sarcasmo un po' goffo e poco credibile.

" Forse sono solo ignorante " ha ironizzato la maglia gialla, già vincitore dell'ultimo Giro d'Italia. " Ma quando ho letto di questo e mi hanno informato,  ho pensato subito allo scarico delle auto, non lo so… Non ne so molto, quindi non ho commenti sull'argomento perché non so proprio cosa sia. Quando mi parlate di monossido" ha poi concluso laconicamente " penso sempre e solo a cosa esce dallo scarico di un'auto ".

Cos'è il "rebreathing", l'inalazione del monossido di carbonio per valutare i valori nel sangue

La pratica del "rebreathing" di per sé non è uso illecito o "doping" , tanto che nei rapporti WADA non è presente tra quelle vietate. È l'utilizzo che se ne fa che può destare oltre che sospetti anche vantaggi per chi si sottopone al suo utilizzo. Generalmente i principali Team di ciclismo professionistico utilizzano sofisticati macchinari che permettono di valutare di volta in volta i valori del sangue, dell'emoglobina, della soglia aerobica dei propri corridori. Lo si utilizza soprattutto negli allenamenti , prima e dopo le sedute in altura per verificarne eventuali progressi e miglioramenti.

Sotto l'occhio della critica è l'eventuale utilizzo eccessivo e metodico che se ne fa durante una gara, sottoponendo con costanza e per altri scopi i propri corridori al cosiddetto "rebreathing": se utilizzato in modo "scorretto", infatti, permetterebbe ai ciclisti di aumentare i propri valori di emoglobina, ritrovandosi con più ossigeno nel sangue e di conseguenza, permettendo di migliorare la propria prestazione sotto sforzo. 

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‘Yes, I doped’ - Jan Ullrich makes full doping confession

1997 Tour de France winner believes he deserves to keep his victory

Jan Ullrich has finally fully confessed to doping, including before he won the 1997 Tour de France, revealing how he opted for the lowest risk when choosing a blood doping programme with the infamous Dr. Eufemiano Fuentes. 

“Yes, I doped,” Ullrich said to Stern and other German media after a pre-release screening of the four-part documentary 'Der Gejagte' ('The Hunted'), which will be released on Amazon Prime in Germany from November 28.  

Ullrich's victory in the 1997 Tour de France made him the poster boy for a boom in German cycling and he remains the only German to ever have won the sport's biggest race. 

He became Lance Armstrong's biggest rival in the sport after the Texan returned to racing following treatment for testicular cancer, but he never managed to beat Armstrong or win the Tour again, finishing second in 1998, 2000, 2001 and 2003.

Ullrich’s career ended abruptly when he was pulled from the 2006 Tour before the start in Strasbourg after serious accusations of blood doping emerged.  

Jan Ullrich: I was just like Marco Pantani… nearly dead 'I took cocaine, drank whisky like water and was close to death' – Jan Ullrich opens up in documentary

Jan Ullrich opens up about doping before documentary about his traumatic life and career

Ullrich confessed to working with Dr. Fuentes back in 2013 and has more recently indicated he doped and tried to justify why. 

Now he has openly confessed to doping just before the release of the documentary, which comes after the two years of filming and research. The process was part of Ullrich's period of introspection after a mental and physical breakdown in 2018, fuelled by whisky and cocaine, almost killed him. 

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The documentary will initially be available in Germany, Austria and Switzerland but the production company behind it is negotiating with other territories. 

During the filming of the documentary, Ullrich visited Marco Pantani’s home town of Cesenatico and met his parents, learning of the tragedy of Pantani’s death after several years of cocaine use and mental illness. Pantani’s mother attended the pre-release showing of the documentary in Munich on Wednesday, along with Ivan Basso and Ullrich's former directeurs sportifs at Team Telekom, Rudy Pevenage and Olaf Ludwig.

“It was a huge shock for me at the time,” Ullrich said of Pantani's death in a long interview with Armstrong published in Germany newspaper Zeit .  

Armstrong  travelled to Europe to help Ullrich when he was at his lowest in 2018 and the two fierce rivals are now good friends.

“His mum was incredibly touched when I stood in front of her, there is a real connection. Even if it sounds trite: in a way we are like one big family,” Ullrich said of Pantani. 

Early this week Ullrich explained that he refused to confess to doping despite the growing evidence because he didn’t want to “drag a lot of people down with me into the abyss.” 

Looking fatigued after making a complete confession to different German media on Wednesday evening, Ullrich now regrets not confessing sooner. 

"If I had told my story, I would have had many wonderful years. But I didn't have the courage. Now it feels good to admit my guilt," he told the dpa news agency and other German media.     

"Almost everyone took performance-enhancing substances back then. I didn't take anything that the others didn't take. For me, cheating starts when I gain an advantage. That wasn't the case. I wanted to ensure equal opportunities.

“I was guilty and now I feel guilty. I can say with all my heart that I did not want to deceive anyone. I didn't want to get ahead of the other riders.

"It was just a different time then. Cycling had a system and I ended up in that. For me it was important to start the races with equal opportunities."

Ullrich won the amateur world title at just 19 in Oslo in 1993, when future rival Armstrong won the professional men’s road race at just 21. 

Ullrich now reveals he started doping soon afterwards, when he turned professional with T-Mobile.  

“I came into contact with it in 1995/1996, before the Tour de France . At the time it was explained to me in a plausible way. I was not afraid. It was so obvious to me at the time,” he admitted.

“I was young and naive and came into an existing system. And that was made so palatable and indispensable to me that I decided to do it. My career would have been over if I hadn’t done it. I never felt like a criminal."

Lance Armstrong’s seven Tour de France were officially removed from the record book after he was banned for doping by USADA but Ullrich’s former teammate Bjarne Riis is still officially the 1996 winner after his doping confession. 

Ullirich believes he deserves to still be considered a Tour de France winner, despite now confessing to doping even before his 1997 victory.   

“I know what I have achieved. Personally, I think I deserve the title. Others have to decide that. But in my heart I am a Tour de France winner,” he said .

When a blood haematocrit threshold and then an anti-doping test for EPO were introduced, Ullrich, like some of his biggest, most daring rivals, switched to blood doping. 

"I wanted to win and build on my successes. I had a new team at the time and Dr. Fuentes was recommended to me - that's how I ended up there," he revealed, unafraid of the medical consequences, yet also concerned about taking too many risks. 

“Everything was medically controlled. Ultimately, it was my own blood that I had taken, something natural and under medical supervision, I wasn't afraid. 

“Fuentes asked me: Which traffic light do you want to go through? The green, the yellow or the red? It was immediately clear to me - these are the risk levels. I said: always green. I don’t even want to know what the other levels are.”

The Ullrich documentary will be released on November 28, and the German will turn 50 on December 2. He has slowly rebuilt his life since his problems in 2018, with cycling and his children playing a major role in his return to health and stability. 

His confession to doping is a final step toward full personal redemption.   

“I am healthy, I have both feet back in life and have found my centre,” he said. “Life has become easier.” 

Ullrich’s children have started cycling and racing themselves, apparently with some of the talent of their father. He hopes to even find a role in the sport, if is forgiven for his doping, especially in Germany, where a black and white stance to cheating, and especially to doping in cycling, still runs strong.    

"If I had the opportunity, I would take the chance because I'm a master in this field and I still feel good," Ullrich said. "I simply love this sport and it will shape me throughout my life."

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Stephen is the most experienced member of the Cyclingnews team, having reported on professional cycling since 1994. He has been Head of News at Cyclingnews since 2022, before which he held the position of European editor since 2012 and previously worked for Reuters , Shift Active Media , and CyclingWeekly , among other publications.

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