29.10.2008

Description: Having seen a recent article in the press quoting comments from the head of the AFLD, the French Anti-Doping Agency, on the subject of the UCI’s anti-doping testing programme, the president of the UCI Pat McQuaid made the following points to clarify the situation:

“The UCI conducts a robust anti-doping programme which consists of a large volume of good quality tests leading to a corresponding number of detections. We’ve worked well with the AFLD in the past so I don’t understand why there should be any confusion as to how we implement testing on riders.

In 2007 we conducted 9849 tests and have conducted over 10’000 tests so far this year. These tests have been both in-competition (spread across a wide range of events) and out-of-competition. So far this year we have conducted over 4,000 out-of-competition blood tests and 1,000 out-of-competition urine tests. All of the urine tests have been tested for EPO and more recently for CERA. As the AFLD know these tests are conducted on both a broad and targeted basis, indeed a lot of our time has been spent targeting riders, especially since the advent of the biological passport.

Where we have information which indicates a rider could be doping (strange blood results, suspect urine results, unusually good performances, missed tests, or other indications) we will target him. We’ve targeted riders for extra blood tests to ensure they have a strong profile for experts to review. For example, targeting led to Emanuele Sella’s positive test for CERA earlier this year. Targeted testing also removed Kessler, Vinokourov, Kashechkin and Mayo last year.

In 2007 we opened 45 anti-doping rule violation procedures and 34 of those riders have already been sanctioned while some are still in progress. These included three EPO cases and two homologous blood transfusion cases. So far this year we have opened 56 potential anti-doping rule violation cases – including five for EPO. So to say we haven’t caught anyone recently for EPO is a blatant misrepresentation of the facts and downright disingenuous.

We have a number of adverse findings but that’s because we look hard and we remove riders from the sport each year. The AFLD uses the same methods and the same labs as us and I honestly don’t think that the number of riders caught at the Tour this year would have been any different if we had been conducting anti-doping rather than the AFLD. In fact, six of the seven riders would have returned adverse results under the anti-doping programme conducted by the UCI at previous Tour de France events – either through tests automatically conducted on stage winners such as Ricco, Schumacher and Piepoli or through follow up tests based on the blood tests which according to AFLD had shown abnormal results for Duenas, Beltran and Kohl. Although not specifically targeted, the stimulant detected in Fofonov’s sample would also have been readily found through UCI testing.

I am optimistic that the improved level of information which we are developing with the biological passport will soon make it so difficult for a rider to dope without being detected that we will be getting the upper hand. It is also the case that the development of new tests like the CERA test introduced in the middle of this year has enabled the testing authorities to catch riders this year who believed they were taking an undetectable substance. This is good news.

The fact that this year the CERA test was ready for the Tour de France was fortuitous timing for the AFLD and indeed for the sport. It is unwarranted and indeed unfair for the AFLD to claim victory for introducing a test which only became available immediately before the event. Of course, the UCI would have made exactly the same use of the new detection method as we have regularly done for other new substances and detection methods.

As we did at the start of the year we shall be inviting the head of the AFLD to the UCI headquarters so that we can discuss the future and most importantly how we can work together to fight doping. We have always worked together well and I don’t understand these recent statements or the motivation behind them. If the AFLD’s statements indicate it doesn’t want to work with UCI any longer that’s regrettable but it will not impair doping control at the Tour de France as the UCI is the responsible body for conducting doping control at all races on its international calendar. “

(Credit: UCI)

Related Story

• China's Sheng Lihao wins 2nd Paris Olympic gold with men's 10m air rifle victory(08-29 19:31)
• Olympics | Day 13: Chinese diver defends Olympic title, weightlifting debutant claims gold(08-09 16:50)
• Olympics | Chinese weightlifters Hou, Li retain gold at Paris 2024(08-08 14:26)
• Olympics | Day 12: Chinese weightlifters retain Olympic golds, artistic swimming team make history(08-08 14:23)
• Olympics | Chinese diver Quan defends women's 10m platform title at Paris Games(08-07 22:37)