WADA released Tour de France Independent Observers report
The World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) has released the Independent Observers report from the Tour de France, which declared that the anti-doping controls put in place by the Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI) for the event are “of good quality.” In response
to the report, WADA ruled that the French anti-doping agency (AFLD) would not be allowed to conduct additional testing at the Tour.
“It has to be remembered that it was we at the UCI who invited them to the Tour de France. We invited them to put our system to the test,” said UCI press officer Enrico Carpani. “We are also very happy that from a general point of view, the report indicates
that the UCI’s anti-doping system is very efficient and is certainly among the best of those run by various international governing bodies.”
However, the report also highlighted several serious shortcomings in the doping program. The Independent Observers (IO) were called to the Tour after the UCI refused to allow AFLD access to intelligence gathered at the race. WADA ultimately allowed the AFLD
to be involved at the 2010 Tour, but the findings in the IO report have caused them to rule that the UCI will have the sole authority to conduct doping tests in the future. With this authority, the UCI is expected to take into consideration a set of 57 recommendations
put forth by the report.
“As the aim of inviting WADA’s observers was to see how things were going from an external perspective, we are happy that the report has been published,” said Carpani evasively. “We are studying it in detail to verify if the recommendations outlined in the
report are necessary, justified and, above all, realisable."
WADA has recommended that the UCI "take the next step in designing and executing a testing strategy that is radically different to those executed in the past" in response to the report’s observation that only 15% of doping controls at the 2010 tour were
unannounced. There was also no evidence that the controls were specifically targeted at suspected dopers or unusually well-performing riders.
"As a way of illustrating this, during the Tour it leaked in the media that the authorities of the country of one of the competing riders had just initiated an investigation against the rider to examine doping allegations. Information which appeared on the
media linked the rider with the use of a new drug, which is prohibited in sport. The IO Team did not observe any attempt to target test this rider for the new prohibited substance," read the report.
The report was critical of the priority given to blood taken for the biological passport over blood taken to be tested for banned substances. The riders were ranked between 1 and 10 for the likelihood of doping based on their biological passport, but one
rider ranked 10 was not tested at all, while some others were tested no more than normal.
“During the Tour, a number of riders demonstrating suspicious profiles and/or showing significantly impressive performances at the Tour were tested on surprisingly few occasions and, for three riders of interest, did not provide a blood sample for the purposes
of anti-doping in the whole Tour,” read the report.
The IO report still considered the testing program at the 2010 Tour de France superior to most, and within the report itself it was explained that the long list of recommendations should not detract from the conclusion that the program was relatively successful.
“The IO Team believes that there are very few anti-doping programmes delivered by International Federations that come close to matching that of the UCI.”
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