UCI says increased testing is changing cycling's drug culture
AIGLE, Switzerland - Cycling is finally turning the corner in the fight against doping through its "biological passport" program, the sport's world governing body said Friday.
The UCI is preparing to issue the passports to 854 professional cyclists who are providing regular blood and urine samples to build up individual scientific profiles of their bodies.
"We are seeing a major change at the top level of the sport," International Cycling Union president Pat McQuaid said at a news conference. "We all are aware that cycling has a doping problem and for 40 years has been dealing with a doping problem. We needed to go at it with a huge campaign in which we bombarded athletes with tests and the biological passport program gave us that opportunity."
Officials hope the program will soon become a model for other sports, revolutionizing the way top athletes globally are tested for banned substances. The passports are also crucial to a sport seeking to restore credibility and win back public faith after two successive Tour de France races tainted by drug scandals.
The original 2006 winner Floyd Landis was stripped of his title, last year's pre-race favourite Alexander Vinokourov tested positive for a blood transfusion and 2007 leader Michael Rasmussen was fired by his team midway through the race for allegedly lying about his whereabouts after missing doping tests.
"We are in a position after the difficult years of 2006 and 2007 that the stakeholders in the sport were in a position to accept and invest in the biological passport," McQuaid said.
UCI teamed up with the World Anti-Doping Agency to create the program as a US$8-million pilot project funded by race organizers, teams and riders.
It requires each athlete to provide a series of blood and urine samples that make up an individual hematological and steroid profile of their body.
So far, about 2,100 tests have been collected, of which five were positive and 23 registered levels that were slightly higher or lower than expected, McQuaid said.
"It is not unusual to have results of this kind, and there is no concern at this moment," McQuaid.
When the biological profiles are completed, suspected doping offences will be spotted in the fluctuations from the athlete's known levels, rather than having to test for and identify illegal substances.
Results from a testing laboratory in Lausanne, Switzerland, are supplied to one of nine doping experts on a UCI panel who can recommend sanctions within a week.
An athlete is banned for two years for a first doping offence, in line with the WADA code.
The passport program also requires athletes to provide regularly updated details of their whereabouts in training so out-of-competition tests can be taken. Three missed tests in 18 months counts as a doping violation.
"Last year we completed just over 9,000 tests: this year we will be doing just over 18,500," UCI anti-doping manager Anne Gripper told The Associated Press.
"This is the peak year of testing. Once we have strong profiles we won't need the same volume of testing. Establishing that baseline is important. Given the enormity of what we are doing it has been going well. We are getting the full support of the riders and teams."
The UCI executive committee meets in Copenhagen, Denmark, next month to finalize its rules for operating the passport program. McQuaid said the program results are being made available to WADA despite a split between the two organizations.
WADA pulled out of the partnership in March after UCI launched a court action in Switzerland against Montreal lawyer Dick Pound, the agency's former president, based on comments about cycling's doping problems.
"The UCI has absolutely no problem with the World Anti-Doping Agency. We collaborate on a daily basis in the fight against doping," McQuaid said.
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