No internal anti-doping controls for Leopard Trek

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The Leopard Trek team will not conduct any internal doping controls. Andreas Gösle, the head of the five team doctors, said that the riders are checked often enough by the International Cycling Union (UCI) with both doping controls and physical examinations.

Several years ago, many teams hired specialist firms to conduct internal controls. Gösle said that additional controls were not necessary. “What do these firms want? We have the bio-passport, the transparent athlete,” he told the Luxembourger newspaper Tageblatt.

“They are tested more than 30 times a year and for their health, there are an additional four standard check-ups required by the UCI. That's a lot.”

He also questioned whether the teams which several years ago announced significant internal controls with independent firms continue to do so. “Ask those teams, if they still do it. I don't know, but I don't think so.”

The Leopard Trek riders have not yet undergone doping controls at the training camp in Mallorca, “but they will come, I'm sure of that.”

Another aspect of the UCI's anti-doping program is the ADAMS system, under which the riders must indicate their whereabouts. “It is a burden for the athlete to a certain extent, but basically it is the right way to go. If they have to be available every day at a certain place and at a certain time, then that means a certain intrusion into their personal lives. And only because they are professional cyclists.”

Gösle is the head of the Crossklinik, a sports medicine center in Basel, Switzerland, which will care for the riders. “We have only one goal: our athletes should stay healthy.”

Caring for the health of a cyclist is not always so easy, as certain medications are on the forbidden list. “We have worse conditions than the normal population. For various illnesses we may not use certain mediations which would help,” he noted. “For example, Ephedrine, which is good for stuffed-up noses.”