Anti-Doping
October 23, 2007
"This is a new and historic step in the fight against doping," Pat McQuaid told reporters on Tuesday from Paris, where he was attending the second day of a two-day international meeting on doping in cycling.
The "biological passport," which was first announced by UCI last week, would monitor a series of blood parameters of a rider, creating a medical profile that could be compared to the results of anti-doping tests.
McQuaid cautioned that the initiative, set to take effect in January, will not cure cycling's doping problem but will serve as a new element in the anti-doping "arsenal" along with blood and urine tests.
"For each rider, you'll have an individual set of parameters that are his norm ... his blood parameters. There is a norm and above and below, it can only go a certain distance," McQuaid said.
"If you see that during the tests the number goes above the norm, then you know he's done something, that he's manipulated something and it's not a natural occurrence," he added.
McQuaid urged all parties to help set up a working group as quickly as possible in order to be able to start the project on time.
"If everybody stays will be us -- riders, teams, organizers and media together we can build a better future for this sport," he said.
Increased doping controls
UCI anti-doping manager Anne Gripper said the organization hopes to increase the number of tests taken out of competition. The UCI will have conducted about 1,500 doping tests out of competition in 2007, she said, a figure that should rise to about 8,000 next year.
The director general of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), David Howman, also praised the passport, in a new show of unity after recent high-profile disputes between the two organizations who have variously pointed fingers over who deserves blame for the doping scandals that have battered cycling.
WADA and the UCI were to sign an agreement later Tuesday creating a working group to flesh out the details of the biological passports in time for a January launch.
The meeting was organized by French Health and Sports Minister Roselyne Bachelot in an effort to parry some of the fallout from the Tour de France.
"The first thing I'm expecting is to show how cycling can be at the forefront -- voluntarily -- in this area, and rebuild the image" of the sport, Bachelot said in the lead-up to the event. "We want to make this summit a sort of pilot project for the fight against doping, which will be useful for the entire sports world."
Annus horribilis
Cheating has dogged cycling for years, but this year more than most.
The season started off with confessions by former cycling star Bjarne Riis and a half-dozen riders from the German team T-Mobile, who admitted to using the blood-booster erythropoietin (EPO), during the 1990s.
Then, at this year's Tour de France, race leader Michael Rasmussen was sacked by his Rabobank team for allegedly lying about his training program, while pre-race favorite Kazakh Alexandre Vinokourov was kicked out of the event along with his Astana team after testing positive for a banned blood transfusion.
To cap it off, last month, 2006 tour winner Floyd Landis was stripped of his title after testing positive for elevated levels of testosterone.