tour de france and doping

Tour de France 2021: French authorities open investigation into doping allegations against Bahrain-Victorious team

• Published 15 July 2021

Bahrain-Victorious have enjoyed a successful Tour de France so far, despite the loss of main GC hope Jack Haig

French prosecutors have opened a preliminary investigation into doping allegations against Bahrain-Victorious after their team hotel was searched.

Riders' rooms and the team bus were searched on Wednesday at the Tour de France but no arrests were made.

The Bahrain-based team confirmed they had provided copies of their riders' training files to police.

The team's technical director Vladimir Miholjevic said they had "complied with all the officers' requests".

He added the team were committed to adhering to "all regulatory requirements".

The prosecutor's office in Marseille said the investigation was into the possible "acquisition, transport, possession, import of a prohibited substance or prohibited method for use by an athlete without medical justification".

"The preliminary investigation is continuing to determine the reality or not of the offenses that justified its initiation," added the prosecutor office's statement.

"The existence of this investigation and the operations carried out do not in any way predict the existence of criminal offenses. Anyone suspected or prosecuted is presumed innocent until proven guilty."

Miholjevic said the situation had disturbed his riders' recovery for stage 18 on Thursday, the 129.7km-route from Pau to Luz Ardiden, which is the final mountain stage and arguably the most punishing day of this year's race.

Bahrain-Victorious have enjoyed a successful Tour so far, despite the loss of their main general classification hope Jack Haig in a crash on stage three.

Spanish all-rounder Pello Bilbao is currently 10th in the general classification of the race, while they have also claimed two stage victories, with Matej Mohoric winning stage seven and Dylan Teuns taking stage eight.

Dutch climber Wout Poels has also starred at the Tour and currently leads the King of the Mountains competition, while Italian sprinter Sonny Colbrelli, twice in the top three on mountain stages, sits third in the points classification.

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Lance armstrong timeline: cancer, tour de france, doping admission.

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MONTAIGU, FRANCE - JULY 04: TOUR DE FRANCE 1999, 1.Etappe, MONTAIGU - CHALLANS; Lance ARMSTRONG/USA - GELBES TRIKOT - (Photo by Andreas Rentz/Bongarts/Getty Images)

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A look at the rise and fall of Lance Armstrong , who beat testicular cancer to win a record seven Tour de France titles, then was found guilty of and admitted to doping for the majority of his career ...

Aug. 2, 1992: Armstrong, then a 20-year-old amateur cyclist who had left triathlon because it wasn’t an Olympic sport, makes his Olympic debut at the Barcelona Games. He finishes 14th in the road race as the top American, missing a late breakaway. “I don’t think it was one of my better days, unfortunately,” Armstrong said on NBC. “Last couple weeks, everything has been perfect, but today, I just didn’t have what it took.” A week later, Armstrong finished last of 111 riders in his pro debut.

Aug. 29, 1993: Wins the world championships road race, becoming the second U.S. man to win a senior road cycling world title after three-time Tour de France winner Greg LeMond . Armstrong prevails by 19 seconds over Spain’s Miguel Indurain , who won five straight Tours de France from 1991-95. “I’m not sure I’m cut out to be a Tour racer,” Armstrong said, according to the Chicago Tribune . “I love the Tour de France; it’s my favorite bike race, but I’m not fool enough to sit here and say I’m going to win it. For the time being, I’m a one-day rider.”

Aug. 3, 1996: After failing to finish three of his first four Tour de France appearances (and placing 36th in the other), is sixth in the Atlanta Olympic time trial. “This was a big goal and something that I wanted to do well in and wanted the American people to see success,” Armstrong said on NBC. “The legs just weren’t there to win or to medal. I have to move forward and look to the next thing.”

Oct. 2, 1996: Diagnosed with testicular cancer. A day later, he undergoes surgery to have the malignant right testicle removed. Five days later, he begins chemotherapy. Six days later, Armstrong holds a press conference to announce it publicly, saying the cancer spread to his abdomen (and, later, his brain). He described it as “between moderate and advanced” and that his oncologist told him the cure rate was between 65 and 85 percent. “I will win,” Armstrong says. “I intend to beat this disease, and further, I intend to ride again as a professional cyclist.”

Oct. 27, 1996: Betsy Andreu later testifies that, on this date, Armstrong told a doctor at Indiana University Hospital that he had taken performance-enhancing drugs; EPO, testosterone, growth hormone, cortisone and steroids. Andreu said she and others were in a room to hear this. Her husband, Frankie Andreu , an Armstrong cycling teammate, confirmed her recollection to the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency (USADA). Armstrong, in admitting to doping in 2013, declined to address what became known as “the hospital room confession.”

January 1997: Establishes the Lance Armstrong Foundation, later called Livestrong, to support cancer awareness and research. Is later declared cancer-free.

Feb. 15, 1998: Returns to racing. Later in September, finishes fourth in his Grand Tour return at the Vuelta a Espana, one of the three Grand Tours after the Giro d’Italia and Tour de France.

1999 Tour de France: Achieves global fame by winning cycling’s most prestigious event in his first Tour de France start since his cancer diagnosis. Armstrong was not a pre-event favorite, but he won the opening 4.2-mile prologue to set the tone. He won all three time trials and, by the end, distanced second-place Alex Zulle by 7 minutes, 37 seconds in a Tour that lacked the previous two winners -- Jan Ullrich and Marco Pantani . Armstrong faced doping questions during the three-week Tour. An Armstrong urine sample revealed a small amount of a corticosteroid, after which Armstrong produced a prescription for a cream to treat saddle sores to justify it. “There’s no secrets here,” Armstrong said after Stage 14. “We have the oldest secret in the book: hard work.”

2000 Tour de France: With Ullrich and Pantani in the field, Armstrong crushed them on Stage 10, taking the yellow jersey by four minutes. He ends up winning the Tour by 6:02 over Ullrich, who over the years became the closest thing Armstrong had to a rival. In a Nike commercial that debuted in January that year , Armstrong again attacked his critics, saying, “Everybody wants to know what I’m on. What am I on? I’m on my bike, busting my ass six hours a day. What are you on?”

Sept. 30, 2000: Takes bronze in the Sydney Olympic time trial, behind Russian Viatcheslav Ekimov (a teammate on Armstrong’s Tour de France teams) and Ullrich. Armstrong would be stripped of the bronze medal 12 years later for doping. “I came to win the gold medal,” he said on NBC. “When you prepare for an event and you come and you do your best, and you don’t win, you have to say, I didn’t deserve to win.”

2001 Tour de France: Third straight Tour title. In Stage 10 on the iconic Alpe d’Huez, Armstrong gave what came to be known as “The Look,” turning back to stare in sunglasses at Ullrich, then accelerating away to win the stage by 1:59 over the German. “I decided to give a look, see how he was, then give a little surge and see what happened,” Armstrong said after the stage. Also that year, LeMond gives a famous quote to journalist David Walsh on Armstrong: “If it is true, it is the greatest comeback in the history of sport. If it is not, it is the greatest fraud.”

2002 Tour de France: Fourth title in a row -- by 7:17 over Joseba Beloki sans Ullirch and Pantani -- with few notable highlights. Maybe the most memorable, French fans yelling “Dope!” as he chased Richard Virenque (another disgraced doper) up the esteemed Mont Ventoux. Armstrong would be named Sports Illustrated Sportsman of the Year.

2003 Tour de France: By far the closest of the Tour wins -- by 1:01 over Ullrich -- with two very close calls. In Stage 9, Armstrong detoured through a field to avoid a crashing Beloki, who broke his right femur and never contended at a Grand Tour again. In Stage 15, Armstrong’s handlebars caught a spectator’s yellow bag . He crashed to the pavement, remounted and won the stage, upping his lead from 15 seconds to 1:07 over Ullrich.

2004 Tour de France: Record-breaking sixth Tour de France title. Jacques Anquetil , Eddy Merckx , Bernard Hinault and Indurain shared the record of five, and now share the record again after Armstrong’s titles were stripped. Earlier in 2004, the Livestrong yellow bracelet/wristband is introduced. Tens of millions would be sold. He skips the 2004 Athens Olympics, which began three weeks after the Tour ended.

April 18, 2005: Announces he will retire after the 2005 Tour de France. “My children are my biggest supporters, but at the same time, they are the ones who told me it’s time to come home,” Armstrong says. On the same day, former teammate and 2004 Olympic time trial champion Tyler Hamilton is banned two years for blood doping.

2005 Tour de France: Finishes career with seventh Tour de France title. Armstrong remains defiant until the end. In his victory speech atop a podium on the Champs-Elysees, he says with girlfriend Sheryl Crow looking on, “The last thing I’ll say, for the people that don’t believe in cycling, the cynics and the skeptics, I"m sorry for you. I’m sorry you can’t dream big. And I’m sorry you don’t believe in miracles.” A month later, French sports daily newspaper L’Equipe publishes a front-page article headlined, “Le Mensonge Armstrong” or “The Armstrong Lie.” It reports that six Armstrong doping samples at the 1999 Tour de France showed the presence of the banned EPO.

Sept. 9, 2008: Announces comeback, the reason being “to launch an international cancer strategy,” in a video on his foundation’s website . In his 2013 doping confession, Armstrong says he regrets the comeback. “We wouldn’t be sitting here if I didn’t come back,” he tells Oprah Winfrey on primetime TV.

2009 Tour de France: Finishes third, 5:24 behind rival Astana teammate and Spanish winner Alberto Contador . “I can’t complain,” Armstrong said on Versus after the penultimate stage finishing atop Mont Ventoux. “For an old fart, coming in here, getting on the podium with these young guys, not so bad.” USADA later reported that scientific data showed Armstrong used EPO or blood transfusions during that Tour, which Armstrong denied in 2013 when admitting to doping earlier in his career.

2010 Tour de France: Finishes 23rd in his last Tour de France. Armstrong races after former teammate Floyd Landis admits to doping and accuses Armstrong and other former teammates of doping during the Tour de France wins. “At some point, people have to tell their kids that Santa Claus isn’t real,” Landis says in a “Nightline” interview that aired the final weekend of the Tour.

Feb. 16, 2011: Announces retirement, citing tiredness (in multiple respects) at age 39. “I can’t say I have any regrets. It’s been an excellent ride. I really thought I was going to win another Tour,” Armstrong said, according to The Associated Press. “Then I lined up like everybody else and wound up third.”

Aug. 24, 2012: USADA announces Armstrong is banned for life , and all of his results dating to Aug. 1, 1998, annulled, including all seven Tour de France titles. Armstrong chose not to contest the charges, which were first sent to him in a June letter, though he did not publicly admit to cheating. USADA releases details of the investigation in October. The International Cycling Union chooses not to contest USADA’s ruling, formally stripping him of the Tour de France titles. “Lance Armstrong has no place in cycling,” UCI President Pat McQuaid says. In November, a defiant Armstrong tweets an image of him lying on a couch in a room with seven framed Tour de France yellow jerseys on the walls.

Jan. 17, 2013: Admits to doping during all of his Tour de France victories in the Oprah confession that airs on primetime TV. “I viewed this situation as one big lie that I repeated a lot of times,” Armstrong says in a pre-recorded interview. “It’s just this mythic, perfect story, and it wasn’t true.” Armstrong said he did not view it as cheating while he was taking PEDs because others did, too. On the same day, the International Olympic Committee strips Armstrong of his 2000 Olympic bronze medal.

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Tour de France’s doping history clouds a ‘cleaner’ sport

Senior Lecturer, University of Kent

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James Hopker does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

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With the start of the 101st Tour de France only one day away, the topic of doping in cycling will no doubt start to rear its ugly head. While the riders cover 3,664km in 21 stages over three weeks in an extraordinary feat of human endurance, the aftershocks of the Lance Armstrong affair continue to colour our approach to the event and its champions.

Armstrong was meant to be the saviour of modern day cycling as it sought to recover from the Festina scandal of 1998 . He was credited with an intense attention to detail and dedicated scientific approach to his preparation; his cycling team was revered for a scientific and systematic approach to training and racing. Both parties were seen as having “too much to lose” to be caught up in the doping scandals that surrounded the sport during the late 1990s and early 2000s. Unfortunately as we now know, this was not the case.

So where does this leave the current crop of cyclists as they push out on the start from the start line of this year’s Tour? Even the most cynical of us hope that the riders are clean, or at least cleaner than the previous decades. The anti-doping debate is also testament to the hope that people involved in the sport want change, and want to believe that professional cycling has cleaned up its act.

Media, sponsor and fan pressure is starting to force teams to take a “zero tolerance” stance on doping, and is undoubtedly behind the decision of Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI) President, Brian Cookson, to create the Cycling Independent Reform Commission (CIRC) . Cookson’s actions have won many admirers including International Olympic Committee President, Thomas Bach, who said he was “impressed” with the UCI’s efforts to stamp out doping in the sport.

Change on the horizon?

But is the attitude towards doping in cycling actually changing in the peloton itself? It is difficult to say for certain. Thanks to the history of the sport there will always be scepticism about whether riders are clean. It is unfortunate, but inevitable, that riders and teams who carry the yellow jersey that has been stained by years of doping and cheating, will be questioned. It was no great surprise that many in the sport viewed Chris Froome and Team Sky’s dominance at last year’s Tour with a level of suspicion.

The introduction of the biological passport for athletes in 2008 appears to have had an effect on athlete behavior and attitudes towards doping in the sport. The biological passport monitors certain parameters of a cyclist’s blood over time, making it more difficult for them to dope without detection. The passport does not test for specific banned substances, rather for the manipulation of blood parameters that suggest doping has occurred. Encouragingly, the biological passport has stood up to legal challenges . But it will take more evidence to show that the biological passport provides a long-term deterrent to doping within the sport.

So, why is doping such a big issue in cycling and other endurance-based sports? Well it improves performance, quite significantly, and in some cases by as much as 6% according to research work by Yannis Pitsiladis. Therefore, assuming that professional cycling is cleaning up its act, the Tour should be significantly slower than the 1990s and 2000s. This can be tracked as the Tour often visits the same routes and mountains year on year, affording historical comparisons.

Sports scientists such as Ross Tucker from South Africa have performed these comparisons, which demonstrate that from 2009, the average performance speed and power outputs of top tour riders fell by 5-10%. This is apparent from the fact that the tour winners of 2010 to 2012 being barely able to make the top ten in tours from the 1990s and 2000s.

Cycling power output carries with it some important physiological implications because the cyclist/bicycle system is “closed”: physiological power can be directly measured as mechanical power by a power meter on the bike. Therefore it is possible to estimate, with a few assumptions, what kind of physiology determines a given output. The performances of some riders in the Armstrong era were such that it is hard to believe they were the result of the “normal” training processes, however gifted they were.

In time, technological, training and nutritional advances might slowly narrow the gap between recent performances and those of the 1990s and 2000s. Last year Chris Froome’s ascent of the main mountain stages (Ax-3-Domaines and Mont Ventoux) matched the level of performance seen in the Armstrong era.

Speculation and accusation

Unsurprisingly following Froome’s performance in the mountains fingers started to be pointed at both him and Team Sky. Following a period of concerted pressure from the media, Sky eventually released Froome’s power data for “expert” review. Dave Brailsford, Team Sky Principal, suggested that their reluctance to release Froome’s data was due to the actions of “pseudo scientists” who misinterpret power output data either inadvertently, or deliberately, to make it say more or less what they want.

In some respect Brailsford is absolutely correct, there are many things that influence performance which power output data alone fails to capture (weather, race tactics, equipment calibration), making definitive conclusions difficult. It would be a misapplication of science to accuse a rider of doping due to an unrealistic performance, even though many do.

But secrecy and refusal to openly discuss performances inevitably leads to the speculation about their veracity. What most people strive for is a cleaner sport: at times there appears to be a polarised approach, either look to the future and deny everything from the past, or examine every detail and challenge every performance which from time to time leads to unfair accusations. A balanced approach is probably somewhere in the middle.

At the weekend, all eyes will turn to Froome and Team Sky as Tour favourites. Their performances are currently seen as the benchmark for the rest of the peloton, as well as cycling fans who want to know what it takes to win the Tour.

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Crazy Stat Shows Just How Common Doping Was In Cycling When Lance Armstrong Was Winning The Tour de France

Even after Lance Armstrong finally came clean and was banned from cycling for life, many still defend the (unofficial) 7-time Tour de France champion.

The biggest argument for Armstrong is the belief that all riders were doping.

We have known for a while now that a lot of cyclists were doping. A recent breakdown of the extent of the "EPO Era" (named for the most common drug, Erythropoietin) shows the "everybody was doing it" defense may not be that far off.

Teddy Cutler of SportingIntelligence.com recently took a an excellent and detailed look at all the top cyclists from 1998 through 2013 and whether or not they have ever been linked to blood doping or have links to doping or a doctor linked to blood doping.

Related stories

During this 16-year period, 12 Tour de France races were won by cyclists who were confirmed dopers. In addition, of the 81 different riders who finished in the top-10 of the Tour de France during this period, 65% have been caught doping, admitted to blood doping, or have strong associations to doping and are suspected cheaters.

More importantly for Lance Armstrong, during the 7-year window when he won every Tour de France (1999-2005), 87% of the top-10 finishers (61 of 70) were confirmed dopers or suspected of doping.

Of those, 48 (69%) were confirmed, with 39 having been suspended at some point in their career.

None of that excuses Armstrong's behavior, especially outside of the races . But it is clear Armstrong wasn't alone. He was just better at it than anybody else.

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Mechanical doping claims resurface at Tour de France

Three anonymous riders claim to hear 'strange noises' from four team's rear wheels during the race

The spectre of mechanical doping has reared its head once again at the Tour de France following a report citing several unnamed riders claiming to hear "strange noises" in the rear wheels of a number of team's bikes at the race.

An article published by Swiss newspaper Le Temps on Thursday alleged that three separate riders at the Tour had heard noises they had never heard before coming from bikes involving four teams at the race. 

According to the report , one rider told the newspaper during the first week of the race that he was hearing odd new noises coming from the rear of several bikes. During the race, the UCI had announced that no forms of mechanical doping had been detected.

"There is a strange noise. I can hear it while riding. It comes from the rear wheels. A strange metallic noise, like a badly adjusted chain. I've never heard that anywhere," the rider said.

Tadej Pogacar says there is nothing illegal about his bike at Tour de France Tour de France leader Pogacar: Maybe one day I will publish my data French inquiry into mechanical doping dropped for lack of evidence

Two days later, the same rider reported back pointing out that the four teams that featured the noises coming from their rear wheel. "Four teams have this little sizzle in the rear wheel," he said.

Another rider said that talk in the peloton isn't about a motor in the crankset or seat-tube – the most popular rumour that has been circulated about possible mechanical doping in the past decade or so. Instead, he talked of an energy recovery system similar to the technology used in Formula 1 cars.

"There is no longer talk of a motor in the crankset or an electromagnet system in the wheel rims, but of a device hidden in the hub," he said. "We are also talking about an energy recuperator via the brakes. The inertia is stored like in Formula 1."

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A third rider, not quoted in the article, is also reported to have raised concerns about the situation. One of the riders noted the relative strength of the four teams in question, with 13 of the 19 stages so far having been shared among them.

"Who will dare to speak out? We're not doing anything, and the situation is serious," one of the riders said. "Usually, we have a team that dominates. Or a team that is weaker than the others. That's sport... This year, four teams are far above the rest. The smallest rider who signs with them becomes very strong. If he changes team, he becomes average again. How can you explain that?"

Following Friday's stage 18, race leader Tadej Pogačar, who rides for UAE Team Emirates, denied that his bike was in any way illegal.

"I don't know. We don't hear any noise," Pogačar said in the post-stage press conference. "We don't use anything illegal. It's all Campagnolo materials, Bora. I don't know what to say."

On Monday's rest day, the UCI announced technological testing figures for the first 15 stages of the Tour, with nothing suspicious found after 720 tests had been carried out, including testing with magnetic scanning tablets and X-ray technology.

"A total of 720 tests have been conducted before and after every stage. All tests have come back negative," read the UCI statement.

"Of the tests carried out, 606 were conducted on bikes before the start of each stage using magnetic scanning tablets.  Meanwhile, X-ray technology was used to test another 114 bikes at the end of each stage.

"The UCI underlines that the post-stage testing pool always includes the bike ridden by the winner of that day's stage as well as the leader of the general classification. The remainder of the post-stage testing pool is decided on a two-pronged approach: bikes selected by the UCI based on its information and intelligence, and bikes ridden by athletes selected for targeted anti-doping controls by the International Testing Agency (ITA), the independent body in charge of the UCI's anti-doping activities." 

The statement continued with an announcement that a new form of testing will debut at the upcoming Tokyo Olympic Games, with mobile technology able to scan bikes on the move, rather than just before or after races.

"After the introduction of magnetic tablets in 2016 and mobile X-ray technology in 2018, a new backscatter technology will be used to test bikes at the Tokyo Olympic Games. This relatively compact and light hand-held device provides instant images of the interior of the bike that can be shared in real-time to anywhere in the world via a secure platform.  It will be used in Tokyo at the road, mountain bike and track cycling events."

So far, only one rider has ever been caught and banned for mechanical doping. Cyclo-cross rider Femke Van den Driessche was banned for six years in 2016 after a motor was discovered in a bike with her pit crew at the Cyclo-cross World Championships that year.

In 2020, the French National Financial Prosecutor's Office (PNF) ended a multi-year investigation into mechanical doping at the sport's top level earlier this year without finding any further evidence of the practice.

A tech writer's analysis

Cyclingnews tech writer Josh Croxton gives his thoughts on the allegations:

Having not heard the noise that these anonymous riders are claiming to have heard, it's impossible to say what it's likely to be.

With that said, chains interacting with cassettes and derailleurs all make a noise, some are louder than others, and each setup will likely have a different pitch to the noise.

All four of the mentioned teams use groupsets that have been around for years already. Three of the teams use Shimano Dura-Ace R9170, while the fourth team use Campagnolo SuperRecord EPS 12-speed, and they all use stock components – there are no aftermarket pulley wheel systems attached to derailleurs.

They have all likely swapped out the stock bearings for oiled ceramic bearings, but even so, the noise of the chain interacting with the pulleys and the cassette shouldn't be anything that riders haven't heard before.

One thing that has changed in recent times is the use of waxed chains. It's not a new technology by any means – certainly not new to the 2021 Tour de France – and it's impossible to know for sure which teams are using waxed chains instead of a typical oil-based lubricant, but with the promise of a more efficient drivetrain, it's possible that more teams have made the switch.

One of the named teams, for example, are sponsored by CeramicSpeed and are running the brand's pre-treated UFO race chains. However, for any teams treating chains themselves, these chains need time to 'break in', since the wax dries and hardens. During that initial 10 kilometres or so, chains are considerably noisier than average.

That aside, unfortunately, there's no common denominator between the components used by the four mentioned teams. One team have used Vision wheels, another team has used both Vision and Shimano, while one are on Roval and the fourth team use Campagnolo wheels.

Ultimately, while these claims are very intriguing, there's very little to substantiate them at this stage.

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Josh is Associate Editor of Cyclingnews – leading our content on the best bikes, kit and the latest breaking tech stories from the pro peloton.

Josh has been with us since the summer of 2019 and throughout that time he's covered everything from buyer's guides and deals to the latest tech news and reviews. On the bike, Josh has been riding and racing for over 15 years.

He started out racing cross country in his teens back when 26-inch wheels and triple chainsets were still mainstream, but he found favour in road racing in his early 20s, racing at a local and national level for Somerset-based Team Tor 2000. 

These days he rides indoors for convenience and fitness, and outdoors for fun on road, gravel, 'cross and cross-country bikes, the latter usually with his two dogs in tow.

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How doping works in cycling, explained by a physiologist and former pro rider

We talked to an expert to learn more about how today’s cyclists cheat — from EPO, to salbutamol, to ... uh ... poop doping.

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Athletes cheat. And one of the best ways to cheat is to take banned substances to give your body a boost.

And there’s no sport and sporting event so inextricably linked to cheating as cycling and the Tour de France . Lance Armstrong is the face of cycling’s doping problem, but in truth the sport was cheating long before Armstrong, and in all sorts of creative ways . That legacy will undoubtedly continue long into the future. Don’t be surprised if you start hearing the term “poop doping” on a regular basis someday.

As for the present, well, you may have heard of Chris Froome, a man approaching Armstrong-ian levels of yellow jersey success who has also become embroiled in a doping scandal. Froome was found with twice the permitted level of salbutamol, an asthma medication, in his system during last year’s Vuelta a España, and was briefly banned from the Tour before being cleared five days before the start of the race .

The point being, cheating in sports is not going away any time soon, nor is it getting any easier to comprehend. To help explain, SB Nation spoke to Dr. Stacy Sims, an environmental exercise physiologist and nutrition scientist at the University of Waikato in New Zealand. Sims was a pro women’s cyclist who later went on to work with men’s pro cycling teams like Saxo and Dimension Data during the Tour de France, advising team chef Hannah Grant on rider nutrition.

Sims understands cyclists’ bodies perhaps as well as anyone can. She answered our questions cycling’s love affair with erythropoietin (better known as EPO), how asthma medication would help a rider — and, yes, if poop doping is really a thing.

EPO is the big thing. What advantage does EPO give you? And how does EPO work?

Dr. Stacy Sims: EPO is the hormone that is released in the kidney when you have a low partial pressure of oxygen. And you can naturally produce it by doing some dehydrated activity in the heat, or you go to altitude, and it’s your body’s drive to need more red cells, because red cells are responsible for picking up and delivering oxygen. So the idea behind taking EPO is to increase that red blood cell production, because with increased red cells, you have increased oxygen carrying capacity, and increased oxygen delivery capacity.

The idea behind lots of people using it is that it is a really fast way for red cell development. But the flip side to that is, if you get too many red cells in your blood and your blood becomes too viscous, then it actually can’t move through the body, which is why they have that cutoff of 50 [percent volume red blood cells to total blood volume].

So your hemoglobin and your hematocrit levels are tightly monitored. We look more at your hematocrit, because it’s your red cell count. And when it starts approaching that 50 mark, and 50 and beyond, that’s a tipping point for someone doping, and it is a health hazard, because if you get too much of that hematocrit, your blood just doesn’t go where it needs to go and it can’t function properly.

Is it possible to get past that 50 mark naturally? Has there ever been anyone who has been able to do that naturally?

SS: It depends on when you test them. If you test someone when they’re dehydrated, like after a max test or something, and they’re sitting around 47 to 48, then you’ll see that they’re 52 because they’ve lost a lot of the water out of their blood, so their blood is concentrated.

There are some anomalies. Cyclists, again, it’s really hard to tease out because of the incidence of doping. I would love to be able to have a clean team and really, as much as people say they are, you have your doubts. But it is possible.

It has an aspect of living in altitude, and having a high testosterone level. Then your body will compensate and produce more red cells just because it needs that for the oxygen, and the testosterone is a drive for producing EPO.

In what ways does doping throw off long-term studies on grand tour riders? And are riders who use EPO likely to have long-term problems?

SS: I think if they use EPO, then they will. Just from the aspect of having a really high hematocrit level, and you have to look at cardiovascular incidences of “sticky cells,” so there’s a higher amount of stuff in the blood — so you have your red cells, and your platelets, and fractions of cells — and if they are under this constant load of exercise and high sugar, then their vessels aren’t as compliant. So longer term, you can have some disorder with regards to vessel compliancy, so they become very stiff, they don’t have as much nitric oxide response, so their blood pressure is off and they’re dealing with high blood pressure.

You can end up with some vascular disease. So the longer term consequence of having that artificially high production of red cells can have a huge impact on overall cardiovascular and total vascular health.

Chris Froome was caught last September with excess Salbutamol in his system. That was new to me. How does excess asthmas medication help a rider?

SS: It is a bronchial dilator. I’ll take it back a step — the whole buzz about beet juice being a vasodilator, increasing blood circulation to the muscles without as much work, it’s the same idea of using clenbuterol or another type of asthma inhaler, where it increases the surface space of the bronchials so you have more oxygen transfer. So effectively with every breath, you can intake and transfer more oxygen to the cells. So again, it’s all about that oxygen delivery.

Is this something that has been common in cycling for a long time? Why don’t we see this happen more?

SS: I think a lot of people use the TUE [Therapeutic Use Exemption] as an excuse. Especially undercards of testosterone or asthma medication, people start to really question the harder drugs of like growth hormone and that kind of stuff. The common medications that are prescribed that can also be ergogenic, if you have a TUE, then it’s almost a carte blanche to use it regardless.

And I think that can be kind of why people are not necessarily bringing it to the table, so to speak. Because there are some people who legitimately need asthma inhalers, and there are some people who have Low T. Low T can be mitigated with energy availability and nutrient timing, and making sure you are on par with your intake, people don’t want to take the time to do it, they’d rather just take the drug.

The same with pseudoephedrine and ephedrine, that was taken off [the permitted substance list] because it was such a powerful stimulant, and such a powerful vasodilator. People can get it over the counter in cold medications, and they’re like, ‘Woah, this is such a significant ergogenic aid, we need to take it off.’ So there are some things that come up.

That’s where this health and performance line comes into play, because you have physicians who are like, ‘We need it for health,’ and then you have people who are monitoring for performance going, ‘Well, actually it enhances performance, are you sure?’ But they can’t necessarily question the physician.

Can I get your opinion on poop doping, and have you been looking into that at all?

SS: Into what doping?

Poop doping. There was a researcher who looked at the gut biomes of professional road racers and compared them to amateur cyclists and found that the best riders had this certain bacteria in their gut, and she posited that you could —

SS: — essentially change your gut microbiome and dope to — yeah.

I mean, in theory it seems like it would work. But in practice, there are so many other factors. We put it kinda also in the epigenetic aspect where you can take in certain things and cause a genetic expression, either over or under expression, and that may or may not enhance performance. This is the same with gut microbiome. I mean, seven days of one type of exposure will completely change a microbiome. So not only do they have to take the probiotics or the actual bacteria that mimics what the pro rider has, they also have to live the lifestyle, they have to be exposed to the same bacteria every day that’s on the counters and the sinks. They have to be exposed to the same food that’s grown in the same soil.

Again, in theory, probably. But in practice, I think it’s much more complex than what she’s talking about.

So you think it’s probably unlikely that someone riding the Tour de France this year is poop doping.

SS: [Laughs] Right.

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Tour de France

Is ‘technological fraud’ a real threat at the tour de france, the uci x-rays the stage-winner and yellow jersey bikes every day..

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How serious is the threat of “technological fraud” in the Tour de France? And what is the UCI doing to try to keep the genie in the bottle?

Velo queried several Tour riders and team officials across the peloton as well as spoke to the UCI officials in charge of the controls.

Also read : The UCI claims it controlled 700 bikes during the Tour de France

The UCI conducts dozens of daily X-rays and scans across the peloton every day.

“To be honest, I am in the bunch, and I don’t think it’s happening,” Caleb Ewan told Velo before he left the Tour.  “It’s true, the guys are flying,  but it’s down to bikes are faster, knowledge and training improves, and it’s normal that the sport evolves every year, everyone gets better and better. It’s human evolution.”

Following UCI protocols, bikes are X-rayed every day from the yellow jersey, along with the bikes of all the stage-winners, jersey-holders, and other random riders.

The UCI expressed confidence its controls are sending out the right message.

“I think it’s very difficult,” UCI’s Michael Rogers, who heads up the UCI’s efforts to combat technological fraud, told Velo . “We also need to think of the other side. It’s an extreme risk,  and the risk/benefit ratio is out of whack, but we need to stay present.”

Staying present — that’s what the UCI insists it’s doing with its staff of three or four officials who ply the peloton every day.

They scan dozens of bikes each morning with a hand-held device that can detect magnets. Another mobile, hand-held X-ray device was introduced this year to complement the UCI’s finish-line X-ray system.

They’re looking for motors, batteries, cables, or any large, dense mass that otherwise is not part of a modern-day carbon-fiber bike build.

So far in the 2023 Tour, there’s been no evidence of technological fraud in the peloton. In fact, there’s never been since the UCI rolled out its high-profile X-ray program nearly five years ago .

There have been hints of hidden motors for years, however, with rumors of major one-day monuments and even grand tour performances clouded in suspicion. YouTube is full of videos describing how they can be used.

Oddly spinning wheels, random wheel changes, and sudden accelerations following strange hand movements on handlebars were tell tale signs, but nothing was ever rooted out.

In 2016, a Belgian rider was caught with a motor-assisted bike during a cyclocross race. There were rumors of a rider using a motor-assisted bike last year in one of Italy’s top gran fondos .

Sensing the sport’s credibility was in question, the UCI’s redoubled its efforts to stop would-be cheats. The cycling governing began using a thermal-heat sensor and then rolled out a mobile X-ray facility.

With the improved technology of electric bikes, however, many insist the technology already exists to hide and mask motors in today’s racing bikes that are already laden with batteries for electronic shifting.

But would someone dare use it in the Tour de France?

“In the pro ranks, I would be surprised. I don’t think it’s a real issue,” Ag2r-Citroën’s Oliver Naesen told Velo . “Every day in the race communiqué we see the bikes that are scanned, and they all come back negative. I have never read anything of anybody having any anything illegal on the bike.

“On this bike, there is a big battery in the seat post for the derailleurs. There is electricity in the shifters for the derailleurs, but motors and engines? Not as far as I know of.”

“Personally I don’t think it’s happening. I am an optimist. It’s the same with doping, I think the sport’s quite clean,” Israel-Premier Tech’s Michael Woods told Velo . “I wouldn’t be surprised if it happened in the past, but for it to be happening today, I don’t know.

“I won the other day [Puy de Dôme] and I didn’t have a motor in my bike,” Woods said. “The fans and the pundits are going to speculate, but that’s part of sport.”

Could someone use some sort of motorized assistance, not to necessarily go faster, but to ride easier across the stage to stay fresh for a key acceleration?

Or what about swapping out bikes during a stage, and riding a “clean” bike to the line where the X-ray crews are waiting?

Rogers insisted the UCI is keeping a sharp eye on the bikes raced on during each stage at the Tour.

Rogers told Velo that the team of UCI officials working the Tour this month are especially vigilant for any sort of suspicious performances, oddly timed bike changes, and frequent changes of wheels or other equipment.

“It’s quite a broad program. We have people tagging bikes after the race for X-rays,” Rogers told Velo . “We work closely with VAR [ed – instant replay], with watching video for suspicious kind of activity, bike changes, wheels changes, and we’ll keep track of those.”

Bikes can also be dismantled in what would be the ultimate control.

In the 2020 Tour, Jumbo-Visma’s top sport director was kicked out of the race after arguing with a UCI technician who insisted on taking apart Primož Roglič’s bike atop the Col de la Loze stage.

There was no motorized assistance found, but team officials were enraged after they said the UCI technician damaged the crankset.

Some pros believe that the UCI’s controls should be doing more.

Benoît Cosnefroy of Ag2r-Citroën told journalist James Startt that he doesn’t think the UCI controls are enough.

“I don’t know if there is any mechanical doping, but it’s possible in my opinion, and for me it’s a real problem because there is not a real fight against this,” Cosnefroy said. “It’s a question of credibility for our sport. It’s not like doping, where it is in your system and they can keep a flask and test it again some time in the future.

“With mechanical doping, there is no trace of it,” he said. “The bike is taken away and if something is wrong, there is no possible trace of it. For me the UCI is not doing enough.”

Rogers of the UCI insists the cycling federation is staying on top of the game.

“It’s important that we stay present and we keep up with technology,” Rogers told Velo . “We keep current, and we make sure we protect the integrity of the sport. The public are asking that, and there have been a lot of rumors in the past.

“We have to protect the riders by saying we check these things, and to send a message to the general public that the results are of full integrity.”

And what would happen if a stage winner at the Tour would be caught with a motor inside their bike?

“That would be really shocking, to be honest,” Naesen said. “They would go to prison.”

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Tour de France anti-doping measures explained

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There are 23 days until the start of the Tour de France, but still a host of issues to have to be resolved if the race is to avoid the controversy that has dogged the previous three editions.

Yesterday (Wednesday, June 10), the Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI) and French anti-doping agency (AFLD) hosted a joint press conference to announce a significantly increased testing programme for this year’s Tour de France.

UCI president Pat McQuaid also sought to clarify several issues that are looming on the horizon and Pierre Bordry of the AFLD explained the testing procedure for the 2009 Tour de France. The press conference, held at a Novotel in Paris, around the corner from a road named after Henri Desgrange, the founder of the Tour de France, was attended by current race director Christian Prudhomme.

Here, Cycling Weekly explains where each of the key bodies stands on each issue, and looks at what may happen between now and the start of the Tour in Monaco on July 4.

Scroll down to read more on the biological passport, Alejandro Valverde, Tom Boonen, Bernhard Kohl and the 2009 Tour de France anti-doping effort.

BIOLOGICAL PASSPORT Where do we stand?

Pat McQuaid said that the UCI would inform ‘a certain number of riders’ early next week that their biological passport data showed anomalies. He refused to confirm how many riders. Once the riders have been informed, their teams and national federations will be told.

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Does that mean they will be banned?

Not immediately. Mr McQuaid said that the UCI would not be able to provisionally suspend the riders on the basis of the biological passport, so it will be up to the teams to decide whether to withdraw the riders from competition.

What if one team withdraws their rider, but another doesn’t?

That could happen, and it could be divisive. Certain teams may seek to challenge the biological passport’s authenticity. However, if a team were to withdraw a rider from racing, or suspend them, the rider could challenge the decision at the Court of Arbitration for Sport.

Can riders be banned as a result of the biological passport at all?

They can. There is provision within the rules, but it’s a longer process than a clear anti-doping code violation such as a failed test. First the rider’s national federation would have to decide whether there is a case to answer. There is a precedent. Ivan Basso was banned for blood manipulation – removing blood. If it could be shown that certain blood values had decreased, and the only way they had decreased was because blood had been removed from the system, that would be an anti-doping code violation. But that process will take time.

How come Antonio Colom has been provisionally suspended then?

The Katusha rider was targeted for specific testing because of irregular blood values detected by the biological passport. Colom was positive for EPO after an out-of-competition test taken in early April. That is an anti-doping code violation.

In the meantime isn’t there going to be a bit of a witch hunt?

There could be, yes. When the UCI names the suspect riders, their teams will come under pressure, particularly from the media. ASO may decide to bar those riders from the Tour, and there could be a challenge at the Court of Arbitration for Sport. It’s going to be a busy three weeks.

ALEJANDRO VALVERDE Valverde is banned from racing in Italy for two years, the Tour’s 16th stage goes into Italy, so presumably he’s also barred from the Tour? Who stands where on this?

The UCI has requested that CONI [the Italian Olympic Committee] sends the full documents regarding Valverde’s suspension. CONI had 30 days to deliver, and that deadline is up today (June 11). McQuaid said the UCI’s lawyers will study the documents and if they conform to the WADA code, the two-year ban will be globalised, meaning Valverde will not be able to race anywhere.

How long will that take?

McQuaid said a matter of days – four, five, or six – but said the issue would not drag on.

Isn’t Valverde appealing the CONI decision?

Yes, he’s taking the case to the Court of Arbitration for Sport, but there is no date for a hearing yet, and so it may not be resolved before the Tour.

So what has ASO said?

Prudhomme has said that unless the CONI decision is overturned, he would be uncomfortable with Valverde starting the Tour. Caisse d’Epargne suggested pulling Valverde out of the Tour before the stage that goes into Italy, but Prudhomme has said that is unacceptable. The French Minister for Sport has said that Valverde is not welcome, although the rider is currently racing in France at the Dauphiné Libéré, so once again there’s a lack of consistency.

The UCI says Boonen can race, but the French Minister for Sport says he can’t, what’s going to happen?

Technically, the UCI is correct. Boonen tested positive for cocaine in an out-of-competition test in April. Cocaine is not on the WADA list of substances when detected out-of-competition, so Boonen cannot be suspended.

But last year Boonen stayed at home?

Yes, the Tour’s organisers and Boonen’s Quick Step team agreed to leave the rider out because they felt his presence would have compromised the image of the sport. But this year, Quick Step appears less willing to leave its prize asset on the sidelines and is pushing the issue.

Where do the UCI and ASO stand?

McQuaid stood by his statement that Boonen’s actions had damaged the sport’s image and said that the UCI disciplinary panel would be proceeding with a case against him, most likely for bringing the sport into disrepute. That case is not going to be heard before the end of June. ASO tentatively welcomed Boonen to the Tour, on the basis that no anti-doping rule has been broken. But the French Minister for Sport said it was unacceptable for Boonen to ride the Tour, even though the Belgian is currently racing on his turf at the Dauphiné Libéré.

BERNHARD KOHL The Austrian gave a strong interview to French newspaper L’Equipe but he appears to be back-tracking.

The eye-grabbing line in Kohl’s interview was that he alleged that most of the top ten in last year’s Tour de France were doping, a comment he now denies making. He’s threatened to sue the newspaper.

What has the UCI said?

The UCI has invited Kohl to their headquarters in Aigle to discuss his comments and to see what he can add to the anti-doping effort. McQuaid said he strongly disagreed with some of Kohl’s comments.

Bet the riders who finished in the top ten aren’t too happy either

As McQuaid said: “If I was Carlos Sastre, Christian Vande Velde or some of the other riders in the top ten, I’d be very angry.” Cedric Vasseur, head of the riders union, has threatened to sue Kohl.

ANDREAS KLODEN He was named in the independent report into the Freiburg clinic, but nothing seems to be happening. What’s going on?

Cycling Weekly was told by Swiss Cycling that Anti-Doping Switzerland is investigating the case.

But Kloden’s German?

Yes, but he rides under a Swiss licence.

What stage is the investigation at?

The UCI referred us to Swiss Cycling. Swiss Cycling referred us to Anti-Doping Switzerland and Anti-Doping Switzerland has not made any comment at this stage.

Aren’t riders under investigation supposed to be pulled out of racing?

According to the old ProTour ethics charter which was drawn up by the teams. That agreement no longer exists because certain teams refused to acknowledge it.

TOUR DE FRANCE TESTING PROGRAMME How many tests will there be?

ASO gave the UCI a list of about 300 riders from the 21 teams selected for the Tour who would be likely to start the race. A testing programme based on these riders has been underway for a number of weeks.

Around 50 riders are being specifically targeted for extra, extremely detailed testing, although McQuaid stressed that did not mean there were 50 suspect riders. He said the riders that were being most closely monitored where the favourites for the overall, the most likely stage winners as well as some who were being targeted as a result of their biological passport data.

At the pre-race tests, taken a day or so before the race, two samples will be taken so that in the event of a positive, a B sample will already be available for analysis.

During the Tour, around 300 to 400 tests would be carried out, with up to 10 riders tested after each stage.

In addition to that there would be other tests in the morning and evening.

Are they looking for anything specific?

EPO, insulin growth factor and human growth hormone.

What about signs of blood transfusions?

Blood transfusions of another person’s blood (homologous) can be detected. It is harder to detect a blood transfusion using a rider’s own blood (autologous) but not impossible. The UCI’s Dr Mario Zorzoli said that the biological passport showed signs of blood being removed and of red cells being injected.

Will samples be stored for future analysis?

Yes. And McQuaid said that testing is underway now on samples taken at the 2007 and 2008 Tours.

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Sports journalist Lionel Birnie has written professionally for Sunday Times ,  Procycling  and of course Cycling Weekly . He is also an author, publisher, and co-founder of The Cycling Podcast. His first experience covering the Tour de France came in 1999, and he has presented The Cycling Podcast with Richard Moore and Daniel Friebe since 2013. He founded Peloton Publishing in 2010 and has ghostwritten and published the autobiography of Sean Kelly, as well as a number of other sports icons. 

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Tour de France team under investigation for suspected doping, two in custody

French police detained two people on Monday as part of an investigation into suspected doping at this year’s Tour de France in the Arkea-Samsic team, prosecutors announced.

Issued on: 21/09/2020 - 23:50

The probe is the first significant one in several years for the repeatedly scandal-hit tour which wrapped up on Sunday in Paris with a victory for 21-year-old Tadej Pogacar , who became the youngest winner in more than a century. 

In a statement, prosecutor Dominique Laurens in the southern city of Marseille said that an investigation was being carried out into a “small part” of Arkea-Samsic, without specifying who had been placed in custody.

Laurens added that the two people had “many health products including drugs in their personal belongings, but also and above all a method that can be qualified as doping”.

The general manager of the French team, Emmanuel Hubert, told AFP he was supporting his riders.

“But if it turned out that at the end of the current investigation, elements came to confirm the truth of doping practices, the team would immediately dissociate itself from such acts and would take the necessary measures without delay,” he said.

A source familiar with the matter told AFP that the searches had targeted several riders including Colombia’s Dayer Quintana, brother of team leader and former Giro d’Italia winner Nairo Quintana, as well as members of the medical team.

French daily Le Parisien reported that the two in custody were a doctor and physiotherapist.

Team not targeted ‘directly’

The probe will come as a huge disappointment to organisers just a day after positive headlines about the against-the-odds organisation of the race and the last-minute drama that saw Pogacar seize victory on his first Tour de France.

Many had predicted the Covid-19 pandemic would prevent the riders making it the 3,400 kilometres from the Mediterranean city of Nice to the French capital.

Arkea-Samsic team manager Hubert said the probe only involved “a very limited number of riders, as well as their close entourage who are not employed by the team”.

He added that the investigation “does not target the team or its staff directly”.

According to the prosecutor, the investigation is focused on the prescription of a substance or banned method for athletes, as well as help and encouragement in the use of that substance or method.

The charges can lead to up to five years in prison and a 75,000-euro ($88,000) fine.

Arkea-Samsic leader Nairo Quintana finished the Tour in 17 th place, more than an hour behind the winner Pogacar. Quintana’s teammate Warren Barguil finished in 14 th place, 31 minutes from Pogacar.

The Tour de France has suffered repeated scandals over the years.

One of the biggest occurred in 1998 when customs officials stopped a vehicle laden with doping products, leading the Festina team to be thrown off the race as the peloton staggered into Paris.

US star rider Lance Armstrong , who won from 1999-2005, caused further outrage and disappointment for fans by admitting to doping . He was eventually stripped of his seven Tour de France titles.

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White noise of scepticism shrouds Vingegaard after Tour dominance

Yellow jersey holder forced to answer questions over how he is so far ahead as sport’s uncomfortable history casts its shadow

T he knives are out, or at least unsheathed, for Jonas Vingegaard at the Tour de France, but then it doesn’t take much to trigger scepticism towards the wearer of the yellow jersey. It is always there, simmering away, even though 25 years have passed since the Festina affair of 1998 and more than a decade since Lance Armstrong confessed his doping sins to Oprah Winfrey.

Vingegaard, like so many before him, is having to recite the same mantra: trust me, I work hard, I sacrifice so much. Believe me, I am not taking anything.

Entering Thursday’s stage with a 7min 35sec lead over Tadej Pogacar and a 10:45 margin to third-placed Adam Yates, the Dane may well win this Tour by 10 minutes, which would be the biggest margin of victory since Jan Ullrich won by more than nine minutes in 1997.

It doesn’t help that the modern history of the Tour, from Lance to Landis, from Wiggins to Froome, is shrouded in a white noise of scepticism and suspicion, which ebbs and flows according to the nature of performances. That is the unavoidable context, despite all the talk of a new generation. Yet some of the questioning of Vingegaard has been based not only on his results, but also on his taciturn nature and his undeniable Danishness.

On Wednesday, after he pulverised Pogacar on the merciless slopes of the Col de la Loze, the questions came again. “I can tell, from my heart, that I don’t take anything,” he said. “I don’t take anything that I wouldn’t give to my daughter and I would definitely not give her any drugs.”

His Jumbo-Visma team manager, Grischa Niermann, defended his rider. “I’m not Jonas,” the German former professional said, “but I think he’s said a hundred thousand times that there is no performance-enhancing stuff, which is not allowed, and I’m 100% putting my fingers in the fire for that.”

A degree of scepticism towards Vingegaard became open derision in some French media outlets after he flamed the opposition in Tuesday’s time-trial stage from Passy to Combloux. “From another planet,” headlined L’Équipe while Aujourd’hui asked: “How did he do it?” It was an extraordinary performance, magnified for some, by Pogacar’s decline. A winning margin of 30 seconds would perhaps not have been so remarked upon, but inflicting a defeat of 1:38 in 22.4km on the Slovenian stretched credulity for some commentators.

However, the ailing Pogacar was already slipping out of contention, as the following day’s collapse on the brutal stage to Courchevel showed. Vingegaard had done enough earlier in the race,by containing his rival. Now, with Pogacar out of steam, he could press home his advantage.

It is not just trust in the riders that is so fragile, but also trust in the sport’s administration. Fraud in cycling has long been a characteristic. In the earliest years of the Tour, riders took lifts, skipped sections of the course and even caught trains.

As well as the threat of doping, cycling’s governing body, the UCI, now regularly scan the peloton’s bikes for concealed motors. Machines are X-rayed every day, including the race leader, stage winner, other classification leaders and some selected at random.

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The use of motors, surely the darkest of the dark arts, has long been suspected. Femke Van den Driessche was suspended for six years after being caught using one in the 2016 Cyclo-cross World Championships. No one has been caught using them in Europe’s Grand Tours.

“We have a very solid and robust testing programme for both anti-doping and technological fraud and there is no reason to have doubts,” the UCI president, David Lappartient, said in 2016. “However, zero risk doesn’t exist.”

Vingegaard’s vagueness about his power outputs after Tuesday’s time trial and the reluctance of his team to open up his power files have also raised questions of malpractice. But other teams adopt the same policy for fear of leaking too much knowledge to their rivals. And it is obvious that athlete development has continued, sports science has moved at high speed, equipment is hugely enhanced, insight and understanding of performance and nutrition is now fine-tuned to the rigours of the Tour. Scrutiny and vigilance of the sport has also ramped up, albeit not especially rapidly.

All of that is just a smokescreen, argue the sceptics. Look at the range of performances, the history of the sport, the development of new doping practices. Some people have short memories, they say. Unfortunately for Vingegaard, many Tour watchers also have long ones.

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Ahead of Olympics, World Anti-Doping Agency Faces a Trust Crisis

Concerns are growing that the body whose job is keeping sports free of illegal drugs is failing at that mission, leading Congress to question U.S. support.

By Michael S. Schmidt ,  Jenny Vrentas and Tariq Panja

Michael S. Schmidt reported from New York, Jenny Vrentas from Washington, and Tariq Panja from London.

Two months before the Olympics are scheduled to begin in Paris, the global agency tasked with policing doping in sports is facing a growing crisis as it fends off allegations it helped cover up the positive tests of elite Chinese swimmers who went on to compete — and win medals — at the last Summer Games.

The allegations are particularly vexing for the World Anti-Doping Agency, which has long billed itself as the gold standard in the worldwide movement for clean sports, because they raise the specter that the agency — and by extension the entire system set up to try to keep the Olympics clean — cannot be trusted.

Athletes are openly questioning whether WADA can be relied upon to do its core job of ensuring there will be a level playing field in Paris, where some of the same Chinese swimmers are favorites to win more medals.

And in recent days, pressure on WADA has increased significantly, particularly from the United States, which is one of the agency’s chief funders, and as new questions have emerged about WADA’s appointment of an independent prosecutor to investigate the allegations, and whether WADA has provided an accurate account to the public about the appointment, according to interviews and documents reviewed by The New York Times.

On Wednesday, the Biden administration’s top drug official — who is also a member of WADA’s executive committee — sent a stinging letter to the antidoping agency laying out how it needs to appoint a truly independent commission to investigate how the positive tests were handled and demanding that its executive board hold an emergency meeting within the next 10 days.

“Let me underscore the extreme concern I have been hearing directly from American athletes and their representatives on this issue,” the official, Dr. Rahul Gupta, wrote in the letter, which was sent on Biden administration letterhead. “As I have shared with you, the athletes have expressed they are heading into the Olympic and Paralympic Games with serious concerns about whether the playing field is level and the competition fair.”

That same day, the senator in charge of the subcommittee that provides funding to WADA, Chris Van Hollen, Democrat of Maryland, said, “We need answers before we support future funding.” (The United States contributes more to WADA’s budget — pledging more than $3.6 million this year — than any nation; the International Olympic Committee matches whatever the United States gives.)

Then on Friday, a congressional aide said that a bipartisan House committee investigating the Chinese Communist Party has begun looking into the positive tests.

Lilly King, a two-time Olympic gold-medalist and a member of U.S.A. Swimming’s Athletes’ Advisory Council, said that she no longer trusts that WADA is doing its job to keep athletes who violate antidoping rules out of the Games.

“I am not confident when I get up on the blocks that the people to my right and my left are clean,” Ms. King said in a telephone interview on Friday. “And that’s really unfortunate, because that’s not something I should have to focus on while racing at the Olympics.”

The mounting pressure and growing concerns about the credibility of Olympic competitions have been met with silence from the two groups that account for a major portion of the International Olympic Committee’s revenue: its chief broadcaster and sponsors.

NBC, whose broadcast rights payments comprise a significant portion of the I.O.C.’s total budget, did not respond to a question about whether it was confident it would be broadcasting an Olympics in which viewers could trust that the athletes they were watching would be clean.

The multimillion-dollar Olympic sponsors — Visa, Airbnb, Coca-Cola and Intel — did not respond to messages seeking comment on whether they were concerned about linking their brands with a Games in which athletes have expressed concerns about cheating. Allianz, a German financial services company, also declined to comment.

The New York Times reported last month that WADA failed to follow its own rules after 23 elite Chinese swimmers all tested positive for the same banned drug in 2021, months before the last Summer Olympics. The drug — trimetazidine, known as TMZ — is a prescription heart medication, but it is popular among athletes looking for an advantage because it helps them train harder, recover faster and quickly moves through the body, making it more difficult to detect.

Two days after the Times article was published, WADA’s president, Witold Banka, and other top officials from the agency held a news conference during which they said they had no choice but to accept the explanation provided by China’s antidoping agency for the positive tests. The Chinese agency claimed that all of the swimmers had inadvertently ingested the drug because they ate food from a kitchen contaminated by TMZ.

In the days that followed, WADA published a lengthy document that again tried to explain its decision.

But neither move satisfied athletes, sports officials and antidoping officials perplexed by WADA’s apparent unwillingness to pursue its own investigation of the positive tests. Within days of the news becoming public, however, WADA appointed a special prosecutor, Eric Cottier, to review its handling of the case.

That decision, too, quickly drew criticism.

Mr. Cottier is a former attorney general of Vaud, a Swiss region that has become the center of international sports, and that is home to several sports organizations, including the I.O.C. But interviews showed that Mr. Cottier had been nominated to lead the investigation by the WADA official who was in charge of auditing the agency’s intelligence and investigations department at the time the Chinese swimmers tested positive.

The auditor, Jacques Antenen, served as Vaud’s police chief under Mr. Cottier when he was Vaud’s attorney general. In a telephone interview on May 3, Mr. Antenen said he had contacted Olivier Niggli, WADA’s most senior administrator, in the days after the disclosure of the positive tests to suggest that Mr. Cottier might be a good choice to lead the investigation.

“I didn’t recommend him; I just said if you need someone, it’s a good choice,” Mr. Antenen said. He said he did not know if others had been considered for the role.

Regardless of Mr. Cottier’s abilities and qualifications, his physical proximity to figures close to WADA, the I.O.C. and the sports movement are problematic, governance experts said.

Mr. Cottier and Christoph de Kepper, the I.O.C.’s director general, were among the people who celebrated Mr. Antenen’s retirement from the police force at a party in 2022. The I.O.C. contributes half of WADA’s annual $40 million budget.

The celebration, which was featured in the police service’s in-house magazine, was first reported by The Associated Press. A caption with a picture of two of the men in the magazine reads, “Attorney General Eric Cottier came to greet his old friend Jacques Antenen.”

A WADA spokesman, James Fitzgerald, said his agency had, in fact, contacted Mr. Antenen first, to ask “if he knew of someone with the requisite credentials, independence and availability to carry out a thorough review of WADA’s handling on this case.”

“These attempts to slur the integrity of a highly regarded professional just as he begins his work are getting more and more ridiculous and are designed to undermine the process,” Mr. Fitzgerald said.

There are also new questions about WADA’s public statements related to the appointment of Mr. Cottier. In a statement to The Times, WADA said it had discussed Mr. Cottier’s appointment with its board before formally appointing him to the role.

But Dr. Gupta’s Office of National Drug Control Policy said in a statement that shortly before the formal announcement of Mr. Cottier’s hiring in April, WADA told its board an investigator had already been chosen.

Dr. Gupta said in his letter to WADA that he was “deeply concerned” that the executive committee “was not adequately briefed with essential information throughout this process.”

Current and former athletes are now asking for more testing worldwide heading into the Paris Games, but they acknowledged that their concerns about the global antidoping regulator are unlikely to be allayed in time for the opening ceremony.

Ms. King, the American swimmer, said that when she learned of the undisclosed positive tests, she felt as if this were a replay of her experience from the 2016 Rio Olympics , when she won a gold medal in the 100-meter breaststroke over a Russian swimmer, Yulia Efimova, who had failed a drug test earlier that year but was allowed to compete after the result was overturned on appeal.

Katie Meili, an athlete representative on U.S.A. Swimming’s board of directors and the bronze medalist in that race behind Ms. King and Ms. Efimova, said athletes had “put a ton of faith in WADA.”

“Yes, the positive tests are a concern, and that’s a bad thing,” she said. “But even more concerning to me is that the international regulator is not doing their job.”

Amy Chang Chien contributed research.

Michael S. Schmidt is an investigative reporter for The Times covering Washington. His work focuses on tracking and explaining high-profile federal investigations. More about Michael S. Schmidt

Jenny Vrentas is a Times reporter covering money, power and influence in sports. More about Jenny Vrentas

Tariq Panja is a global sports correspondent, focusing on stories where money, geopolitics and crime intersect with the sports world. More about Tariq Panja

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