Tour doping suspects face overnight tests

Tour de France riders suspected of doping may face more intrusive testing from next year that could include night-time checks, independent observers for the World Anti-doping Agency (WADA) said.

The International Cycling Union (UCI), accused last year of incompetence and favouritism by the French Anti-doping Agency (AFLD), had invited WADA to make checks for itself during last July’s Tour de France as it faced up to its critics.

A team of six independent observers (IO) found that the anti-doping measures on the 2010 Tour were of “good quality” overall, adding that “there are very few anti-doping programmes delivered by international federations that come close to matching that of the UCI”.

Nonetheless, while not detecting any major gaps in the UCI’s anti-doping strategy, the observers suggested there was still a need for “a more varied, targeted and aggressive approach to catching cheating riders”.

The report suggested the time had come to “seriously consider removing the informal knowledge and comfort that all riders have in knowing that they will not be tested in the middle of the night”.

During the Tour, the observers found, “some riders, demonstrating suspicious profiles and/or showing significantly impressive performances at the Tour, were tested on surprisingly few occasions”.

Also, according to the observers, teams are too easily able to get wind of impending checks.