The use of rider power data as a form of anti-doping is likely to be a hot topic at next month's Tour de France, after the International Testing Agency (ITA) revealed details of a two-year feasibility and pilot study exploring whether power data could be a supplementary source of intelligence for anti-doping purposes.

Using rider power data, like how biological samples are used to create the Athlete Biological Passport (ABP) has been discussed for several years but critics have often cited a lack of accuracy and concerns about privacy.

However, the ITA has revealed that 60 riders have consented to participate in the trial project, including riders from Visma-Lease a Bike, Picnic PostNL, Jayco AlUla, Decathlon CGM CMA and Cofidis. Others are said to be in advanced discussions continuing with the ITA.

The research is being carried out in collaboration with the University of Kent and University College London. The ITA was founded by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) as an independent non-profit foundation to carry out a multi-sport approach to anti-doping, taking it out of the hands of individual governing bodies.

Depending on how the trial project goes, using power data could eventually be part of the fight against doping in pro cycling and even other sports such as triathlon.

However, there has been considerable pushback against power data analysis from some part of the sport. Tadej Pogačar's agent Alex Carera described it as 'stupid' and an extra burden on athletes. Earlier this year, he told The Athletic that measuring any evolution in performance was not needed because "we do not have a doping problem."

Adam Hansen, the president of the CPA riders’ unions also has concerns about using power data as an anti-doping tool, with different stakeholders in the sport at loggerheads about who owns and controls rider data.

“I highly believe it won’t be successful. And then it will be scrapped. But we will see how it goes," Hansen told Road.cc.

“At first they said it’s just a test. I said, 'OK, that’s fine. But what happens when it’s not a test? What happens when a rider does not submit his training data? What happens if his SRM or Garmin is flat? What happens if his power meter does not work?

“While this is voluntary at the moment, I’m really worried when it becomes mandatory.”

However, the ITA claimed it has the support of the UCI, who is funding the research from revenue that is partly paid by riders, teams and race organisers.

"If validated by the ITA and approved by both the UCI Funding Committee and the UCI Management Committee, the UCI regulations will be amended to require the mandatory sharing to the ITA of individual power data for all professional men’s road riders," the ITA said as it detailed the testing.

It also said that "The study is being conducted with riders participating on a voluntary basis and in full compliance with applicable data protection regulations."

ITA said the research includes two incremental phases over two years after first revealing the idea in 2025.

"The first year focuses on retrospective analysis using historical rider data to determine whether a meaningful and sufficiently reliable longitudinal monitoring approach can be developed.

"If the feasibility phase demonstrates that the modelling principles are scientifically and operationally robust, the project would progress into a pilot implementation phase using current season data.

"Its purpose is not to establish anti-doping rule violations through performance data, but to evaluate whether certain patterns or evolutions in performance may, in the future, help inform areas such as targeted testing strategies, sample retention decisions, additional laboratory analysis or investigations."

The ITA could use power data to look for what it calls “excess performances” compared to their peers and across their careers, much like the Athlete Biological Passport does for blood values.

“We are constantly looking at how to make the cycling anti-doping program smarter and more effective," said ITA Director General Benjamin Cohen.

“Power data has been part of the conversation in cycling for many years. It is one of the sport’s most widely used performance tools, yet until now its potential contribution to anti-doping has remained largely unexplored.

"Thanks to the commitment of riders, teams and recognised experts, we now have the opportunity to assess its potential through a structured scientific process and determine whether it can meaningfully complement the anti-doping toolbox in the future."

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"Secrets are poison. They suck the life out of you." Tyler Hamilton.

"I viewed this situation as one big lie that I repeated a lot of times." Lance Armstrong.

"This place has been my home. They liked me here. Not anymore. Now they will look the other way. Now I don't belong." David Millar.

Is doping worth it? To live everyday looking over your shoulder? To enhance performance but diminish character? Cheating equals high anxiety and, of course, little sympathy. The stress-free solution? Don't dope. It's simple. Or is it?

These days, the advanced anti-doping and testing system means athletes face 'strict liability' for every single substance they consume, vigilance so high that they can't even buy vitamin C at a pharmacy, and surveillance that requires them to provide their location at a specific time every single day.

Is adhering to an anti-doping system that monitors you every day of the year, where you're guilty until proven innocent, in need of reform for athlete sanity? Cyclingnews investigated the system, the rules, and the mental impact they have on riders who are just trying to stay clean, and prove it.

The contamination issue

Michael Woods enjoyed a stellar 13-year professional career, primarily for Cannondale (now EF Education-EasyPost) and Israel-PremierTech (now NSN Cycling Team). He won four Grand Tour stages – one at the Tour de France, three at the Vuelta a España– and the prestigious one-day race, Milan-Torino. Woods retired from the WorldTour at the end of 2025 but, like many modern-day pros, he soon swapped road for gravel. When we caught up, he'd just 'won' the Canadian gravel national championships. Possibly. Extreme heat led to the event being cancelled while riders were still out on the course, meaning Woods' result was in doubt. Unlike his stance on cheats.

"I'll start off by saying that dopers ruin the sport for all of us," he says. "I'm all for clean sport and forged a career from clean sport. But the anti-doping system, while a necessary burden, is a massive burden. It's a huge stress. During my entire career, I guarantee that I never intentionally took a performance-enhancing substance. But I couldn't guarantee that I wouldn't have tested positive for one."

That's not an admission of guilt or Machiavellian Armstrong wordplay – "I've been tested 500 times and I've never failed a drug test" – but an honest appraisal of a system that can end careers if an athlete's urine or blood sample shows traces of one of more than 400 prohibited substances.

According to WADA's (World Anti-Doping Agency) Athletes' Anti-Doping Rights Act, 'strict liability' means that the athlete is solely responsible for any "any banned substance you use, attempt to use or is found in your system, regardless of how it got there or whether there was any intention to cheat". In anti-doping, not knowing isn't an excuse. You must live pure in an impure world.

"Unless you live on a farm, isolated from the rest of the world, growing your own food and ensuring no-one touches it, can you guarantee that something isn't contaminated?" says Woods. "Whenever I took a drugs test, that played on my mind. It's stressful and it's the same throughout the peloton.

"One of the biggest stressors is that you're guilty unless you can prove your innocence. And even if you prove how you ended up consuming contaminated food, by virtue of how the media handles the story and how the sport deals with you, you're tainted. I have friends who tested positive but discovered the source of contamination and were exonerated. But the damage to their finances and reputations was irreparable.

"They're especially damning in Canada. I'm proud of the fact that our country is vehemently for anti-doping, but it means any positive test results in you being crucified. Arguably, this goes back to Ben Johnson and what happened in South Korea. We were burnt and embarrassed on an international scale."

For our younger readers, the muscular Johnson won the 100m men's race at the 1988 Seoul Olympics in a new world record, before ignominiously leaving the Games and being stripped of gold after testing positive for the steroid stanozolol. It was arguably the biggest story in Olympic history. A piece of graffiti in the Olympic village encapsulated the drama: "Hero to zero in 9.79 secs."

Hormone-fuelled food system

Johnson confessed to doping. Many banned athletes don't, blaming their positive test on contamination. In the monochrome world of doping, it's seen as a convenient excuse. But the evidence suggests many grey areas.

Take the steroid trenbolone, used in the American food industry to boost the efficiency and yield of meat production. It's legal in the USA. But trenbolone is on WADA's prohibited list. Maximum residue figures are set for how much trenbolone commonly remains in a slaughtered animal from farm to fork for anti-doping purposes. Several assumptions are made that impact these residue figures, including point of administration. Trenbolone is mixed into a compressed pellet and injected into the back of the cattle's ear. The steroid then dissolves into the bloodstream. After around 200 days, the animals are 'harvested', whereby the ears are removed to prevent potential contamination.

If the farmer follows standard practice and an athlete records an anti-doping violation, the contaminated meat excuse is flimsy. But not, many a defendant has argued, if the pellet was misplaced and entered muscles from which rib-eye and loin steaks are cut. Or oxtail. That was the defence of runner Erriyon Knighton, who tested positive for trenbolone in March 2024. An independent arbitrator initially cleared him after accepting that contaminated meat likely caused the result, allowing him to compete at the Paris Olympics where the American finished fourth in the 200m. However, the Court of Arbitration for Sport later ruled the contamination evidence was insufficient and imposed a four-year ban. Knighton continues to protest his innocence.

Clenbuterol is another WADA-prohibited substance used to increase meat yields, albeit it's banned around the world because residues are high enough to cause health issues. Despite that, there's a huge black market in many Latin American and South-east Asian countries.

Alberto Contador was handed a two-year ban and stripped of his 2010 Tour de France victory after testing positive for clenbuterol. The Spaniard's contamination defence – that it was down to eating meat brought across the border from Spain to Pau on the rest day – didn't hold up because the illegal clenbuterol farming practices are rare in Spain, despite Contador passing a lie detector test.

(As an aside, for my new book Dope I interviewed Morten Hostrup, associate professor of physiology at the University of Copenhagen, who'd recently undertaken human studies on clenbuterol. Hostrup told me it's great for muscle building but actually impairs endurance performance because it 'suppresses mitochondrial function' in the muscle. "It's one reason why the current regulations would have accepted Contador's explanation," he told me. "He wouldn't have been suspended.")

In short, contamination is a very real stressor for professional athletes. "I raced the Vuelta a Mexico [which last took place in 2015 but is scheduled for a return in 2027] and the Tour of Qinghai Lake in China and basically you eat rice and eggs," says Woods. "You have to be hyper-vigilant and it's an extra stressor."

Supplementary pressures

It's the same with supplements. According to a 2025 survey by Sport Integrity Australia, one in three sport supplements – around 35 per cent of 200 samples – bought online contained at least one substance prohibited by WADA. Why is down to two reasons: accidental (the equipment wasn't cleaned thoroughly) and intentional (the manufacturer purposely added a prohibited performance-enhancer to crank up its effectiveness and have the athlete coming back for more).

WADA recommends athletes take supplements that are third-party tested. These products will feature the testing company's respective logos, and include NSF Certified for Sport, Informed Choice and Informed Sport.

"You couldn't take anything not approved by the team," says Woods. "It makes sense, but if you're feeling under the weather and want to buy vitamin C, you can't go to the pharmacy and be an adult. You have to report to mom and dad and ask if it's OK. It's for the right reasons, but it becomes crazy. You lose any autonomy and it's something you're constantly thinking about."

"When I first started competing, I was proud of making sure I was doing everything right," Woods adds. "Come the end of my road career, I'd been on some form of anti-doping programme for nearly 15 years. After all that time, you start to think, ‘Fuck this. I am so over it!'"

Or I'm not just over this, but I'm over life, in the case of former British cyclist Lizzy Banks, whose contamination case left her battling suicidal thoughts. In July 2023, Banks tested positive for traces of the banned diuretic chlortalidone. April 2024, UK Anti-Doping (UKAD) cleared Banks, accepting that contamination likely stemmed from a tablet she took for asthma. June 2024, WADA appealed her case to the Court of Arbitration for Sport, ruling that she'd failed to prove the source of the contamination despite overwhelming scientific and contextual evidence and so banned her for two years.

"This case demonstrates the high bar set by the application of the 'strict liability' principle," UKAD pronounced, "and the challenges in identifying and establishing unintentional violations."

The 'will they, won't they?' sanction left Banks in turmoil.

"I'm not sure yet whether I regret having carried on the fight," she wrote at the time. "I'm so empty right now that I barely know what I feel anymore. But this is what they do to people like me. They crush us. They expect that we will just walk away and they will never have any consequences. But there must be consequences."

Banks proposed a series of anti-doping changes to protect athlete welfare including easing the burden of proof – that athletes shouldn't be required to provide the exact source of contamination when strong scientific evidence shows the substance level is incompatible with intentional use. She sees the current system as creating prolonged uncertainty and psychological harm.

Whereabouts is the welfare?

As do a dozen professional tennis players, including Nick Kyrgios, who in January 2025 filed a legal case against tennis federations and the International Tennis Integrity Agency (ITIA) for a complete disregard of athlete well-being when enforcing anti-doping policing.

The case came off the back of doping allegations against the men's world number one, Jannik Sinner, who twice tested positive for the banned steroid clostebol. WADA accepted the Italian's story that he didn't cheat and exposure came via his fitness coach's massage cream. Both parties agreed to a three-month ban that some felt conveniently expired before the second Major of the year, the French Open. The civil class-action cited his preferential treatment due to potential financial implications and access to superior legal representation.

A team of academics – including Alex Smith, senior researcher at Bern University in Switzerland – examined the complaint in a paper entitled, 'Coercive compliance? Anti-doping systems in tennis and athlete mental health.' It's a fascinating read and draws attention to the need for fairness when enforcing anti-doping policy.

"The focus of most anti-doping bodies remains firmly on detection and deterrence, which is understandable, but the inadvertent psychological implications of compliance sits largely outside that frame," co-author Smith tells us. "Research has documented what some call ‘clean anxiety' among athletes, which is a persistent fear of inadvertent rule violations and the reputational damage that would follow.

"For younger athletes who are still developing, that could be particularly problematic. They're trying to establish themselves in elite sport, managing uncertain incomes, unpredictable travel, sometimes young families, and on top of all that they carry this background fear of making an administrative error that carries the same punishment as failing a drugs test."

For administrative error, read the Whereabouts system. This is a requirement in any sport signed up to the WADA Code and allows anti-doping authorities to conduct unannounced drug tests on athletes between 6am and 11pm (and, in some cases like targeted testing, also between 11pm and 6am) on any day of the year. Athletes must update their ADAMS (Anti-Doping Administration Management System) to give a specific 60-minute time slot each day when they guarantee they'll be available for testing. You can update it any time before that 60-minute time slot begins. If you miss three tests within a 12-month period, you're banned.

"Athletes have described the constant need to remain organised, available and compliant, particularly during periods of travel, family commitments, illness or other major life stressors," says Smith. "The concern is often less about being monitored and more about the possibility of making an administrative mistake that could carry significant professional consequences. In that respect, the psychological burden may be less visible than other stressors in elite sport, but it does remain present in the background of athletes' lives."

Smith stresses that the integrity of anti-doping testing is vitally important and out-of-competition testing is an effective tool. "However, athletes are required to disclose their whereabouts around the clock, submit to surprise testing and provide highly sensitive health data, including biometric identifiers and medical information," he says. "Nowhere else in a democratic society would we accept that level of surveillance as a condition of employment."

That's the academic viewpoint. What about the athletic one? "Of course, out-of-competition testing and monitoring is important," says Woods. "Dick Pound [former president of WADA] had a great saying that if you fail in competition, you've failed two tests: the doping control test and the IQ test!

"So, things like the Whereabouts system are useful but I'd actually have preferred a tracking device, especially in the off-season when you're looking to switch off from cycling mode. That's when your plans tend to change. You might head to your mate's for a couple of drinks and the last thing you're thinking of is logging into your phone to change the address on ADAMS. You then awake the next morning and panic that if the doping officer visited, you've messed up.

"Thankfully, I was pretty diligent and only had one out-of-competition miss, which I contested because the tester made fundamental errors and it was removed. The area – Andorra, where I was living – was unfamiliar to them and they went to the wrong building. But it was stressful."

Woods says he has friends who missed three tests in the 12-month period but fought the last one and won. "And I know others who missed three and were banned."

Punished for neurology

Further pressure arises from the therapeutic usage exemption (TUE) system, which allows prohibited substances to be used for medical reasons. It's supposed to be performance-enabling rather than enhancing, though is perceived to be widely abused.

"The burden arises from the additional documentation and evidentiary requirements imposed by the anti-doping framework," says Smith. "For conditions such as attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), it's a challenge. Many cyclists take medication for ADHD, which is on the prohibited list, but the process of sorting a TUE is extremely involved. That's not great for a disorder associated with forgetfulness and disorganisation. You're almost punishing someone for having the disorder, which means many might not bother taking the medication to avoid form-filling. If you're in the middle of a peloton and you've got a disorder that's linked to hyperactivity and impulsivity, that has clear implications for you and your fellow riders."

"That's me," says Woods. "I've never been officially diagnosed but I was almost held back a grade and repeatedly told I had 'attention issues'. If I was younger, I'm confident I'd have been diagnosed with ADHD at school. Keeping on top of these forms and apps is a real issue and can kill careers. Miss tests and teams won't sign you. Sponsors won't sponsor you. You can't race."

Smith says British Cycling has delivered TUE courses specifically aimed at riders with ADHD, but suggests all levels of elite athletes should be better supported, as they can face considerable costs simply to demonstrate eligibility for a treatment that's medically needed. More broadly, he says that greater focus must centre on the daily strain of adhering to anti-doping policy.

"The argument is always that athletes consent to it, but that consent is functionally coerced," he says. "An athlete who refuses compliance faces immediate exclusion from international competition. The balance shifts when you build genuine welfare support into the framework. Right now, the obligations are clearly defined and the consequences of failure are clearly defined, but the psychological support available to athletes navigating that system remains largely absent. We believe that you can uphold rigorous testing and provide mental health resources."

"We'd suggest introducing mandatory welfare assessments as part of the anti-doping relationship as standard practice for any athlete in a registered testing pool," Smith continues. "Right now, the system is entirely focussed on compliance. There's no touchpoint where anyone asks how an athlete is actually doing. A welfare check-in, delivered through the existing infrastructure, would catch athletes who are struggling before they reach crisis point, and it would send a signal that anti-doping organisations view athletes as people with lives and health needs rather than just samples to be collected."

This humanising of the anti-doping system is picked up on by those dozen tennis players, who contested the ITIA policy of "requiring players selected for drug testing to shower under direct observation if they choose to wash before providing a sample".

Woods echoes the indignity. "I've had testers come straight after my morning coffee. Let's just say I'm regular after that first caffeine hit. The chaperone can't take their eyes off you once you've opened the door, so I've had times when I've taken a shit staring eyeball to eyeball with a tester. I get it because there are cases in the past of athletes passing off clean samples by using a prosthetic penis. But you don't want it, the tester certainly doesn't want it. I must admit, you do sit there thinking fuck the dopers."

Anti-doping remains essential. Few athletes and researchers would argue otherwise. Yet as sport pursues cheats with ever greater vigilance, it must also consider the cost borne by those playing by the rules. For every doper trying to evade detection, thousands of clean athletes are navigating surveillance, suspicion and the fear of inadvertent error. Protecting sport's integrity matters. Protecting the well-being of the people who uphold it matters, too.

Riders competing virtually on MyWhoosh will have to be ready to provide blood and urine samples, as the indoor cycling platform rolls out a first-of-its-kind anti-doping testing programme.

We’ve seen virtual riding platforms such as MyWhoosh and Zwift aim to crack down on 'robo-doping', where riders digitally manipulate their performance data, but this is a new regime to test riders for physically doping, based on the World Anti-Doping Agency’s (WADA) Prohibited List of banned performance-enhancing substances.

The testing programme will apply to the MyWhoosh virtual events that offer significant prize money, most notably the Sunday Race Club, where weekly prize purses run into the tens of thousands of dollars. MyWhoosh indicated that "as prize-money events continue to grow" it’s becoming increasingly aware of the need to "ensure that competition results reflect genuine performance".

The testing programme, which is carried out by the International Doping Tests & Management (IDTM), comes into force on Sunday, May 10 and will see the first samples taken on Sunday, May 17.

"The introduction of anti-doping and integrity testing is about protecting fair competition and rider trust," said Matt Smithson, Director of Esports & Game Operations at MyWhoosh.

"As our Sunday Race Club grows, the standards around fairness must match the seriousness of the event. Our goal is to protect clean riders and ensure that our global community can trust in the integrity of every podium finish."

How will it actually work?

For relevant races, riders will be required to declare their exact physical location in advance of the event. If selected for testing, they must remain at their declared location for up to three hours after the race, during which the testers would come round to collect a sample.

A rider could be notified of an impeding test shortly before, during or immediately after the event.

Samples to be taken could include urine, a blood sample collected from a vein, or a dried blood spot sample taken from a finger-prick.

Selection for testing is at MyWhoosh’s discretion and could be both random and targeted. The platform says results, performance data, and even intelligence could help target the testing but that racers could equally be selected at random.

If a rider refuses to comply – either through refusal, evasion, or tampering – they would face "severe sanctions such as disqualification, prize money claw-backs, and suspension from the platform."

MyWhoosh did not state the sanctions for a positive test, but they would likely be the same as the above.

The challenges

One challenge would appear to be the spread-out nature of the competitors, who can race from home in any country in the world.

The IDTM, which is carrying out the sample collections on behalf of MyWhoosh, would need agents near enough to the selected rider to reach them within three hours of the conclusion of the race in question. Even WADA struggles with global reach with its out-of-competition testing strategy.

That ties into the cost of the operation, which is likely to be significant. MyWhoosh is already handing out significant prize money, and the bill is set to be footed by the fee-paying riders themselves, but it will be interesting to see how much the whole operation ends up costing.

Another challenge would be the legal basis for all this, and whether a racer could look to challenge the legality of a positive test, either through an appeals process or even in court.

Sanctions would only apply to the MyWhoosh platform, which is, in effect, its own governing body for this programme but has no jurisdiction beyond it, so racers banned from MyWhoosh would not face any restrictions in any other area of competitive cycling. And while this is low-level competition in the grand scheme of things, potential lost earnings and reputational damage could form the basis for legal challenges if a banned rider has the inclination and the cash, so MyWhoosh will need to make sure its system is water-tight from that perspective.

MyWhoosh says its anti-doping programme operates under the 'MyWhoosh Cycling E-sports Rules and Regulations', establishing "a 'private contractual and sporting integrity framework' that draws from recognised international standards, including the WADA Prohibited List."

Twenty-one-year-old North American racer Evan Boyle has accepted a 16-month sanction for committing three 'Whereabouts Failures' in the space of 12 months, United States Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) announced.

Boyle is best known for his top USPro National Championships results last year, which included a silver medal in the elite men's road race. He also scored a silver in the U23 time trial in 2023.

After riding the last two years with Hagens Berman Jayco devo squad, the rider from upstate New York had signed to race with Team Winston Salem-Flow but had not started his 2026 season. He had been listed to start for the US domestic elite team at Ronde de l'Isard in May.

According to the USADA statement on its website, Boyle was included in the USADA Registered Testing Pool, athletes who are subject to Whereabouts requirements, so they can remain located for out-of-competition testing.

"Within a 12-month period, Boyle accrued three Whereabouts Failures: the first on July 16, 2025, the second on August 16, 2025, and the third on October 2, 2025," the statement added.

"The accumulation of three Whereabouts Failures within a 12-month period constitutes a rule violation under the USADA Protocol for Olympic and Paralympic Movement Testing, the United States Olympic and Paralympic Committee National Anti-Doping Policy, and the International Cycling Union Anti-Doping Rules, all of which have adopted the World Anti-Doping Code.

"The period of ineligibility for Whereabouts rule violations ranges from one year to two years, depending on the athlete’s degree of fault.

"In this case, USADA determined that a 16-month period of ineligibility was appropriate given the circumstances of the case."

The statement notes that Boyle's 16-month sanction began on December 8, 2025, when he was notified of his third Whereabouts Failure. He has been disqualified from all competitions as well as forfeiting medals, points and prizes from October 2, 2025, onwards.

The ITA has announced that Hungarian racer Bálint Makrai, who rides for ProTeam MBH Bank-CSB Telecom Fort, has returned an adverse analytical finding for the anabolic steroid Metandienone.

The 19-year-old returned the positive sample in an out-of-competition test on March 30, 2026, and has been provisionally suspended as a result.

Metandienone, known by its trade name Dianabol, is an anabolic steroid which, in the words of the ITA, "increases testosterone levels, causing muscle-mass growth, endurance and strength."

Makrai has raced with the Italo-Hungarian squad MBH Bank-CSB Telecom Fort as the team has grown from an amateur club setup to a Continental squad and, from this year, a ProTeam.

This year, he started the Tour de la Provence but didn't finish the first stage. He has also raced the .2 races, the UMAG Classic, Popolarissima, and the GP Slovenian Istria, the latter two won by MBH Bank racers Davide Persico and Nicolò Buratti.

Makrai hasn't raced since the GP Slovenian Istra on March 22. Eight days later, he returned the positive test.

"The rider has been informed of the case and has the right to request the analysis of the B-sample," the ITA stated.

"If the B-sample analysis is requested and confirms the result of the A-sample, the case will be considered as a confirmed anti-doping rule violation. If the B-sample analysis is not requested, the case will also go ahead as a confirmed anti-doping rule violation. The rider will have the opportunity to present his explanations for the result.

"Further, in accordance with the World Anti-Doping Code and Article 6.2.1 of the UCI Regulations for Results Management, a mandatory provisional suspension has been imposed on the rider. The rider has the right to challenge the provisional suspension and ask for its lifting."

Vini Fantini-BePink rider Linda Laporta has tested positive for the Selective Androgen Receptor Modulator (SARM) Enobosarm, also known as ostarine.

The International Testing Agency (ITA) announced the finding on Monday, revealing that Italian racer Laporta returned an adverse analytical finding for the substance on the opening stage of the UAE Tour Women on February 5.

The test was conducted as part of an intelligence-led mission, the ITA stated.

Laporta finished 50th at the UAE Tour and has since raced the Volta Valenciana Femenina and Trofeo Oro in Euro. This season marked the 26-year-old's third in the professional peloton, with Laporta having previously raced for BTC City Ljubljana.

The ITA stated that Laporta has been provisionally suspended from racing in accordance with UCI anti-doping rules. She has the right to request analysis of her B-sample and "will have the opportunity to present her explanations for the result," the ITA said.

"The ITA reports that a sample collected during an intelligence-led testing mission conducted by the ITA during the 2026 UAE Tour Women on 5 February 2026 from Linda Laporta, a cyclist from Italy, has returned an AAF¹ for the Enobosarm (Ostarine)," the ITA announced.

"The substance is listed under class S1.2 Other Anabolic Agents according to the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) Prohibited List. It is prohibited at all times (in- and out-of-competition) and is classified as a non-specified substance. Ostarine has been shown to increase lean body mass and promote muscle growth.

"...In accordance with the World Anti-Doping Code and Article 7.4.1 of the UCI Anti-Doping Rules, a mandatory provisional suspension has been imposed on the rider. In line with the applicable regulations, the rider has the right to challenge the provisional suspension and ask for its lifting."

Last year, Laporta made her debut at the Giro d'Italia Women, finishing the race in 73rd. She finished the season strongly, placing in the top 10 at the Trofeo Tessile & Moda Donne and Veneto Women. She now faces a multi-year ban if her B-sample confirms the positive test result.

Several riders have previously been banned from racing after testing positive for Ostarine.

In 2014, Vacansoleil-DCM rider Nikita Novikov was handed a two-year ban after returning an out-of-competition positive for the substance in May 2013. Vini Zabù rider Matteo Spreafico left the 2020 Giro d'Italia after returning two positives during the race. He was later handed a three-year ban and has since returned to racing with Italian Continental squad Mg.K Vis.

Portuguese Continental squad Feirense-Beeceler have been suspended from racing for 22 days after three of the team's riders committed Biological Passport violations during the 2022 and 2023 seasons.

The International Testing Agency (ITA) announced the decision on Friday, with the UCI Disciplinary Commission issuing the suspension.

In accordance with Article 11.3 of the UCI's anti-doping rules, the team will be banned for a period of 22 days from March 22 to April 12. The news comes the same week as another team suspension after the Colombian team Medellin-EPM was recently handed a 30-day ban in the wake of two Biological Passport cases.

Three riders on Feirense-Beeceler have recently returned Biological Passport anti-doping rule violations – Venceslau Fernandes, Barry Frederik Miller, and Antonio Carvalho Ferreira.

Fernandes was handed a six-year racing ban after returning with unexplained abnormalities in his Biological Passport when he raced for the team in 2022. The Portuguese Anti-Doping Agency (ADOP) notified him of the anti-doping rule violation on November 7, 2024, and his ban runs from that date.

Miller's Biological Passport issues date to February 2023. He was notified on September 18, 2025. His case is still ongoing with ADOP.

Carvalho Ferreira's Biological Passport abnormalities also date to February 2023. He was notified of the anti-doping rule violation by the UCI on November 4, 2025 and was later handed a four-year ban from racing, running from the same date.

"The UCI Disciplinary Commission’s decision may be challenged before the appeals division of the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) by the Team or the UCI in accordance with Article 11.3.2 of the UCI anti-doping rules," the ITA stated.

Feirense-Beeceler join fellow Portuguese squad APHotels & Resorts-Tavira-SC Farense in receiving a suspension following multiple Biological Passport cases. Tavira were banned for 20 days last October.

Other teams to have received similar bans in recent years include Androni Giocattoli in 2015, Bardiani CSF in 2017, and Vini Zabù in 2021.

Colombian Continental team Medellin-EPM have been suspended from racing for 30 days after the team's riders were found to have committed two anti-doping rule violations within the same 12-month period.

The International Testing Agency (ITA) announced the decision on Tuesday, with the UCI Disciplinary Commission issuing the suspension.

As a result, the team will be out of action for 30 days from March 27, 2026, until April 25, 2026, in accordance with article 11.3 of the UCI's anti-doping rules.

The ban follows two riders on the team, Colombian racers Aldemar Reyes and Fabio Duarte, returning abnormalities in their Biological Passports during the 2025 season.

"On 10 June 2025, the Colombian rider Aldemar Reyes Ortega was notified by the National Anti-Doping Organisation of Colombia (Coldeportes) of an asserted ADRV, due to unexplained abnormalities in his ABP in the period around February and August 2023," the ITA announced.

"Then, on 21 August 2025, the Colombian rider Fabio Andres Duarte Arevalo was notified by the Coldeportes of an ADRV, due to unexplained abnormalities in his ABP, also in February 2023, as well as between July and December 2024 and in January 2025."

The team, which this year includes 49-year-old Oscar Sevilla and former QuickStep sprinter Alvaro Hodeg, can challenge the decision at the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS).

Otherwise, they will miss races including the Tour of Hainan, where Sevilla scored a top-10 placing last April.

Previous teams to have received a 30-day ban from racing following two anti-doping rule violations include Italian squads Androni Giocattoli in 2015, Bardiani CSF in 2017, Vini Zabù in 2021, and Portuguese squad Tavira last year.

The Movement for Credible Cycling (MPCC) has announced that US ProTeam Modern Aventure Pro Cycling have been granted provisional membership, after undertaking "additional due diligence" due to the doping pasts of team manager George Hincapie and performance director Bobby Julich.

The team was founded this year and has been granted a second-division licence for the 2026 and 2027 seasons, with notable names including Stefan de Bod, Robin Carpenter, and Leo Hayter on board the 21-rider squad.

Behind the scenes, Hincapie and his brother Richard are on board in management roles. At the same time, Julich is also part of the squad alongside several other ex-riders – Ty Magner, Alex Howes, and Joey Rosskopf – who work as directeurs sportifs.

The MPCC is an organisation that works to clear up grey areas around doping, setting stricter rules than WADA, which teams and riders can voluntarily sign up for. Not all teams are members – Modern Adventure are the 14th men's ProTeam to join the organisation.

Modern Adventure have already been awarded wildcard invitations to WorldTour races, the UAE Tour and Volta a Catalunya, as well as Belgian Classic Kuurne-Brussel-Kuurne, and now they'll be part of the MPCC.

In a statement announcing the decision, the MPCC said they had considered the pasts of Hincapie and Julich before admitting the team.

"As part of this process, the Board considered the fact that team manager George Hincapie and sporting director Bobby Julich publicly admitted anti-doping violations during their racing careers more than a decade ago," the MPCC stated.

"Although these events are in the past, they remain relevant given cycling’s history and the importance of rebuilding trust in the sport. As a result, the MPCC board undertook additional due diligence in which team owner George Hincapie elaborated on his reasoning for their membership request."

In October 2012, Hincapie admitted to doping during his career as part of the USADA investigation into doping at US Postal. Later the same month, Julich was released by Team Sky and publicly confessed to doping in an open letter published on Cyclingnews.

Speaking about his team's provisional admittance to the MPCC, Hincapie said that he hopes Modern Adventure can be "part of rebuilding that trust" damaged by doping scandals over the years.

"Joining the MPCC is important to me because it's about more than just our team – it’s about the future of cycling," Hincapie said.

"The sport has been damaged by doping scandals, and we have an opportunity to be part of rebuilding that trust. I witnessed firsthand the cultural shift in the sport many years ago, and I've seen both the damage that comes from turning a blind eye and the progress that’s possible when athletes choose integrity.

"By committing to the MPCC’s enhanced transparency standards, we’re proving that clean athletes can compete at the highest level and that credibility matters more than shortcuts. I want our team to stand for integrity and show the next generation of cyclists – one of whom happens to be my son – that there’s a better way forward for this sport we love."

The team joins 12 WorldTour and Women's WorldTour, 19 men's and women's Pro teams, and 15 men's and women's Continental teams in the MPCC.

The organisation stated that Modern Adventure were admitted "after discussion", noting that an initial probationary membership is the same for all new members.

"Modern Adventure Pro Cycling has committed to fully respecting MPCC rules and to operating with a high level of transparency. The MPCC will follow this membership with particular attention to ensure these commitments are upheld in practice," the MPCC stated.

"The MPCC continues to believe that progress comes from responsibility and collective effort. By choosing to adhere to stricter standards and working together in an open and constructive way, teams can play an active role in strengthening the integrity of cycling."

The UCI has announced that one of Colombia's top track stars of the last decade, double World Championships silver medallist Martha Bayona, has been banned for 18 months by its Anti-Doping Tribunal after registering three failures in their whereabouts program.

Bayona now has a month to appeal against the decision in the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS), the UCI confirmed in their press release, although the track star has already stated on social media that she will accept the sanction.

Bayona's suspension, which was already provisional, is now formally backdated to April 23, 2025 and will run until October 22, 2026.

Viewed as one of Colombia's leading track stars, the 30-year-old racer has taken ten medals in the Track Nations Cup series as well as two silver medals in the Keirin at the World Championships. She also has five gold medals in the Pan American Games.

Bayona subsequently produced a lengthy post on social media in which she insisted that she had not committed any errors.

"I respect this decision, even if it's not been an easy pathway either on the sporting or personal level. I want something to be very clear, it was never my intention to avoid any controls or cheat," she said.

"During this time I've gone through one of the most difficult years I've had on a personal level: the provisional suspension, the impossibility of racing, loneliness, lack of support from the authorities.

"I also lived through the death of my father, a profoundly painful blow which has marked a before and an after in my life."

After taking a long-postponed decision – because of her career – to undergo surgery during her provisional suspension, she said that "the process has reminded me that beyond results and medals, athletes are people. We train to the limit, yes, but we are also vulnerable, we have difficulties, periods of mourning and moments of crisis. Recognising that is not a weakness, but an act of honesty. I will assume the consequences of this process [the anti-doping suspension] with respect, strength and as something educational."

This is the second anti-doping suspension received by a Colombian racer in 2026. In late January, Germán Darío Gómez, a rider with the ProTeam Polti-VisitMalta, received a provisional sanction for an alleged violation. He has insisted on his innocence.

Colombian racer German Dario Gómez has been provisionally suspended by the UCI and by his team, Polti VisitMalta, following his positive test in an anti-doping control.

According to a UCI statement Gómez returned an Adverse Analytical Finding (AAF) for an anabolic steroid, Boldenone, and one of its metabolites – a substance produced during metabolism – in a sample collected during an out-of-competition test on December 28, 2025.

The UCI also indicated that, as is standard procedure, "the rider has been provisionally suspended and has the right to request the analysis of the B sample."

In turn, Polti VisitMalta then produced their own statement, pointing out they, too, had provisionally suspended the rider from his contract.

"In adherence to this policy and the UCI’s decision, we have also suspended the rider’s contract, and he will be excluded from all team activities pending the resolution of the proceedings," the team said.

Originally produced for use on horses, Boldenone is reportedly very similar to testosterone in its composition.

Gómez, 24, turned pro for the small Colombian Continental outfit Colombia Tierra de Atletas-GW Bicicletas-Shimano in 2022 prior to moving up a league to the Pro Team Polti-Kometa in 2024. His contract with the team runs out at the end of this season.

Fourth in the Giro NextGen in 2023, Gómez has few standout results to date after moving into the ranks of the professionals, with one of the best so far sixth place overall in the Tour of Türkiye last year. He was also sixth in last year's Colombian National Time Trial Championships.

In December 2025, Gómez was hit by a driver when training, with the Colombian suffering several fractures as a result.

Gómez was training in Santa Rosa de Viterbo in Boyacá, Colombia, on December 5 when he was hit by a van driver. He suffered fractures to his left clavicle and the first metacarpal of his left hand as a result of the collision. As a result, he missed a team training camp in Spain.

Back in 2019, Gómez also briefly hit the cycling headlines in the World Championships junior road race when he was forced to advance on foot, in tears, after being stranded with a mechanical problem.

The 1998 Tour de France represented a turning point in the history of professional cycling. Nothing would ever be the same after the so-called 'Festina Affair' and the downfall of French national hero Richard Virenque. The race somehow made it to Paris with Marco Pantani pulling on the winner's yellow jersey, but the widespread use of doping in cycling had finally been revealed.

The early 1990s are often regarded as a dark era for the sport. The spread of the blood-boosting drug EPO transformed performances and the balance of power in the peloton, with Italian and Spanish cycling enjoying a renaissance before Festina resurged to defend French pride and Jan Ullrich emerged to boost cycling in Germany.

EPO use and abuse were rampant in the 1990s until the French police discovered a car full of phials and other drugs in the Festina team car of soigneur Willy Voet as he crossed the border between Belgium and France on his way to the Grand Depart in Dublin. The French government was attempting to pass a law against doping in sport, but there has never been any evidence that Voet's arrest was part of a wider strategy to clean up cycling and sports.

Reuters journalist Francois Thomazeau first broke the news of Voet's arrest, sparking a cascade of denials, the flushing of drugs down toilets, police raids, protests, doping revelations and riders fleeing the Tour. Virenque and his Festina teammates were eventually expelled from the race before stage 7, with Virenque making a tearful plea of innocence.

More rider protests and more police raids followed, creating a global sporting scandal, with many believing the Tour would not make it to Paris. Pantani managed to crack Jan Ullrich in the Alps and so won the Tour, but his own downfall began a year later when he failed a blood haematocrit test at the 1999 Giro d'Italia.

The team staff involved in the Festina Affair eventually went on trial and were given suspended prison sentences, while the riders were banned for nine months or less, the usual sentence for doping at the time.

Some riders confessed immediately, but Virenque raced on with the Polti team in 1999 and continued to deny any wrongdoing until he went on trial in 2000. He was not found guilty of any crime but was banned for a year. He stayed defiant and came back with the Domo-Farm Frites team and then QuickStep, winning several stages at the Tour.

A French parliamentary investigation eventually published the results of retroactive testing of anti-doping samples from the 1998 Tour, revealing that Pantani, Ullrich and many others tested positive for EPO. The French inquiry alleged 18 riders had traces of EPO in their tests and said another 12 had suspicious tests.

Cyclingnews' Alasdair Fotheringham wrote the defining account of the 'Festina Affair' in 2016; his book is titled: 'The End of the Road - The Festina Affair and the Tour that almost wrecked cycling.' Of course, Lance Armstrong returned from testicular cancer to win the 1999 Tour and create a new era of hero worship and doping in the sport. However, the 1998 Tour was a watershed moment for French cycling, for the Festina team and the riders who raced the Tour that year.

Respected French journalist Pierre Carrey was racing as a teenager in 1998. He was shocked when the dark side of professional cycling was revealed after years of adoration for Virenque, but it sparked a wave of change.

"The Festina Affair opened people's eyes to EPO doping in cycling. During the 1998 Tour, the news was more and more about doping and less and less about cycling," Carrey tells Cyclingnews.

"I was in school and my classmates called me a 'doper' because of the doping discovered at the 1998 Tour. It created a decade of what they called 'cyclisme à deux vitesses' as French teams struggled to compete with their doped rivals, but it perhaps saved cycling in France.

"Riders like Thibaut Pinot grew up with posters of Virenque on the walls of their bedrooms, dreaming of winning mountain stages like him. The Festina Affair helped them understand the dark reality of cycling in the 1990s and afterwards gave them some moral guidance. The Festina Affair almost killed French cycling, but was a blessing in disguise too."

This is what happened to the 1998 Tour de France Festina team after the raids. Virenque's crocodile tears and denials made him a pariah, but other riders quietly served their bans, other teams signed them, and some even raced the 1999 Tour de France. However, the Festina Affair did change the perception of doping in cycling and of the abuse of EPO.

Richard Virenque

Richard Virenque was the poster boy of Festina and a French national hero because of his success at the Tour de France. Many had hoped he could deliver a home victory at the Tour after he first pulled on the yellow in 1992, aged just 23, but he quickly became a 'chaudiere' who demanded the latest medical help.

The Festina team developed around him and was one of the best teams in the world in 1998. Virenque was convinced it was his year after finishing third at the Tour behind Bjarne Riis in 1996 and second to Jan Ullrich in 1997.

When the Festina Affair exploded, Virenque opted to go into denial rather than confess, playing the role of the sacrificial lamb. He only confessed under oath, but then denied it all again to help him race on again.

After the 1998 Tour, the Italian Polti team signed him, quick to take advantage of his huge public persona. He won a stage at the 1999 Giro and finished eighth overall in the 1999 Tour de France. After eventually serving a nine-month ban, Virenque came back and won four other stages - including stages atop Mont Ventoux and in Morzine in 2003 - but was never an overall contender again. He won the King of the Mountains jersey in 2003 and 2004 while riding for QuickStep.

Virenque retired after the 2004 season and worked as a television commentator for Eurosport for a number of years. He also took part in the French version of 'I'm a Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here!' in 2006, but was also ridiculed by the French version of the Spitting Image puppet show for having admitted he doped but "without his full knowledge and consent."

Virenque has always lamented that he is the scapegoat for the Festina Affair and always complained that he was never allowed to fully return to the sport like so many other former dopers.

He has occasionally given interviews to those who would listen to him, and in 2025, he stood on the finish line at the summit of Mont Ventoux and even talked to French stage winner Valentin Paret-Peintre, who, for a day, like Virenque in 2002, had saved French pride by winning a mountain stage of the Tour de France.

"Nothing could have stopped me from winning," the now 55-year-old, silver haird Virenque said of the 1998 Tour to Belgian newspaper La Dernière Heure, claiming his downfall came due to a political battle to discredit the cycling-loving former French president Jacques Chirac.

Laurent Brochard

Laurent Brochard was famous for his long mullet as much as his surprise world title in 1997 in San Sebastian. He raced for Festina between 1995 and 1999, the peak years of the team's doping programme.

In 2023, the UCI admitted that they wrongly accepted a backdated medical prescription for lidocaine to explain Brochard's positive anti-doping test.

Brochard quickly confessed to his doping during the summer of 1998 and was banned for nine months, like many of his teammates. He returned to racing in the spring of 1999 with the new-look and supposedly clean Festina team. He even rode the Tour and won a stage at the 1999 Vuelta.

He always tried to avoid talking about the Festina Affair and raced until 2007 for Jean Delatour, AG2R Prévoyance and Bouygues Telecom. He settled in the Auvergne region of France in 2015. His mullet has gone, but Brochard still rides frequently and organises an annual cyclosportive ride called the La Sancy Arc-en-Ciel By Laurent Brochard.

In recent years, Brochard has driven a VIP car at the Tour for sponsor Mondial Relay.

Laurent Dufaux

Laurent Dufaux was one of three Swiss riders in the Festina team for the 1998 Tour. From near Aigle, where the UCI is based, Dufaux used his charm and positive outlook on life to quickly move on from his doping confession and seven-month ban.

He raced for Saeco between 1999 and 2001, then Alessio and QuickStep. He rode a final Tour and won a stage of his local race, the Tour de Romandie, in 2004. Since then, he has worked for the Craft cycling and winter sports brand, managing accounts in France and then near home in the French-speaking region of Switzerland. He is also a sports director with the Swiss Elite Fondations Continental team that aims to help young Swiss riders and gradually develop into a professional team.

Pascal Hervé

Hervé had the same air of confidence and denial as Richard Virenque during the Festina Affair.

The two raced together for over 300 racedays, often sharing a room, with Hervé able to calm and inspire Virenque to his biggest victories. Hervé was the last to admit to doping, getting away with just a two-month ban. Virenque helped Hervé join him at Team Polti in 2000, but he then tested positive during the 2001 Giro d'Italia and retired.

"When it all came to light, I played the tough guy. It was my young, jerk phase. Looking back, I should have confessed right away and said that the whole peloton was doing the same thing," Hervé told La Parisien in 2018 after moving to Québec, Canada, where he was a sports director with the Garneau-Quebecor continental team.

He was diagnosed with aggressive stomach cancer and passed away, aged 60, on Christmas Eve 2024.

Armin Meier

Like fellow Swiss rider Laurent Dufaux, Armin Meier opted to confess to doping quickly when taken into custody by French police during the 1998 Tour. He served his ban and returned to racing, winning the Swiss national title and returning to the Tour in 1999 while riding for Saeco.

He retired aged 31 in 2001 and quickly moved into sports management with IMG Switzerland, helped by his former agent Jean-Marc Biver, who was later involved in the BMC and Astana teams.

Meier rose to become the managing director at InfrontRingier Sports & Entertainment in Switzerland, but left to create Human Sports Management AG, which organises numerous cycling and running events. In 2025, the company was sold to the far bigger Belgian company Golazo, which works with the UCI to run the Gravel World Series and other events.

Christophe Moreau

Christophe Moreau raced on until 2010 after serving his ban for the Festina Affair in 1998; his results, smile and silence about his past meant his doping was soon forgotten.

"I paid for what I did. All I know is that I came out of it stronger. It transformed my life," he said.

Moreau won the prologue of the 2001 Tour de France and used his stage racing prowess to twice win the Critérium du Dauphiné Libére. He was also fourth overall in the 2000 Tour.

After retirement, Moreau worked for Eurosport France until 2015 and moved to Switzerland with his partner, whom he had met at the 2000 Tour.

According to the Swiss newspaper Le Matin, he was arrested in early 2023 on suspicion of threats of violence against his wife and daughters. He was reportedly under the influence of alcohol during his arrest and was held for a month before beginning treatment for addiction. He later admitted his threats of aggression but claimed he would never have carried them out.

"Today, when you Google 'Christophe Moreau,' I'm perceived as a murderer who wants to kill his wife by chasing her through the streets with a gun, which is completely untrue," he told Swiss newspaper Blick.

Didier Rous

Rous' career went full circle, with the Frenchman's last victory at the 2006 Paris-Corrèze race, close to the bar-tabac where he, Virenque and the other Festina riders spoke after being kicked out of the 1998 Tour de France.

The Frenchman raced on after his ban, apparently regretting his past and racing clean, joining Jean-René Bernaudeau's team until 2007. He has worked as a sports director since then, spending 2025 with the Arkéa-B&B Hotels team.

"The Festina Affair was important because it began to change attitudes. It has become increasingly more difficult and that's a good thing," he said.

Neil Stephens

Australia's Neil Stephens followed the Virenque playbook when the Festina Affair exploded. He denied doping and claimed he thought the injections he was given by team doctors were just legal vitamins.

Stephen retired in 1998. He continued to live in the Basque Country in northern Spain and worked for a cycling holiday company. He had raced for the ONCE team in the early 1990s alongside Alex Zülle and Laurent Jalabert, and rejoined the team when US insurance company Liberty Mutual became a title sponsor in 2004.

He has worked as a sports director ever since, first with the GreenEdge team, then UAE Team Emirates and Bahrain-Victorious. He has rejoined the Australian team for 2026.

"I’m thankful to the teams I’ve been with, I’ve had some great experiences, and it’s helped to shape me in my professional career," 62-year-old Stephens said.

Alex Zülle

The Swiss rider was best known for his years racing in the ONCE yellow and only joined Festina in 1998, as they aimed for overall victory at the Tour. He had won the Vuelta a España in 1996 and 1997, and Festina considered him an alternative GC leader if he could avoid crashing.

Zülle confessed to doping and returned to the peloton with Banesto, and then the troubled Team Coast outfit built around Jan Ullrich. He ended his career at Phonak, where other doping problems would emerge when Floyd Landis was there.

"I used EPO for about four years. The first time was when I was riding for the ONCE team," Zülle told French police in 1998.

"At Festina, EPO was used in the same way, and about 20 riders took EPO under the supervision of the doctor. I can’t prove it, but I think that EPO can be found in all the major cycling teams."

Zülle has kept a low profile since retiring in 2004, but like the other Swiss riders managed by Jean-Marc Biver, he had a role in the Tour de Suisse organisation via the Infront events management company.

Bruno Roussel

The Festina team manager, Bruno Roussel, denied there was an organised doping programme in the team for the first week of the 1998 Tour. Upon being taken into custody by French police, he eventually confessed during a three-week stint in jail. He claimed the programme was carefully managed to limit the risk of being caught and to limit the risk to the riders' health.

Like other staff and team doctors, Roussel was given a suspended prison sentence and banned for five years. He became a property developer at home in Brittany and briefly worked with the Mexican national team.

He wrote a book confessing his central role in the Festina Affair, but also suggesting a series of actions that were needed to clean up professional cycling. Some have since been done, others remain and are important if another Festina Affair is to be avoided.

Willy Voet

Team soigneur Willy Voet, whose arrest sparked the whole Festina Affair, also wrote a book after being found guilty and given a suspended prison sentence.

Called 'Massacre à la Chaine,' the book reportedly sold 300,000 copies and was translated into English. Voet revealed every sordid detail of how he helped riders dope during the 1980s and 1990s, and how riders began to use EPO in the mid-1990s. He suggested that trying to convince riders not to take drugs was "like telling children not to touch chocolate."

Voet was banned for three years; however, unlike many of the riders he helped dope, he never returned to cycling and confessed to everything he did wrong. He became a bus driver before retiring. He is now 80.

2025 Tour de France stage winner and race leader Ben Healy has highlighted the limitations anti-doping measures have to face, while he also pointed out that cyclists are tested "thoroughly and pretty often" as a major part of the struggle against banned drugs in sport.

In a lengthy interview with The Irish Mirror, Healy pointed to the recent Oier Lazkano case as one of the examples where testing has proved effective in rooting out a potential doping case.

Lazkano has been provisionally suspended and lost his place at Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe for unexplained abnormalities in his biological passport. Lazkano has insisted on his innocence.

In the wide-ranging interview, the EF Education-Easy Post racer also discussed his goals for 2026, saying that after his bronze medal in the World Championships in Rwanda last September, the rainbow jersey in Canada this autumn was a major target. As for the Tour de France, while he did say that every cyclist dreams of winning it, he recognised that for now "it's potentially a bit of a stretch."

Asked about the current state of the anti-doping battle in sport, Healy made it clear that absolute certainty that a sport was completely clean was all but impossible. "In any sport I think it’s impossible to go, ‘Oh yeah, the sport is 100% clean,'" Healy told the Irish Mirror.

"That’s not to take away from anything that the sport and the governing bodies are doing to try and keep it clean and catch people out.

"Look at Oier Lazkano, everyone’s being tested thoroughly and pretty often, to be honest, potentially even more than other sports."

Healy pointed to the vast improvements in equipment in recent years as a key reason why the average speed in the Tour de France continues to rise relentlessly.

"I think the biggest thing to attribute to why racing is so fast now – look at the equipment that we’re using now to even when I was racing first year at Under-23, which is only five years ago.

"The bikes are night and day different almost, that’s the first thing. And then just the way that we’re racing now.

"Look at UAE" – four-times winner and defending champion Tadej Pogačar's squad – "they just set up their train and one by one the riders pull the race along at maximum speed possible. That makes a big difference."

As for Healy and the Tour de France himself, according to the newspaper, Healy's main spring goals will be Strade Bianche and the Ardennes, prior to a return to cycling's biggest stage race in July.

Then he'll be heading for the Worlds again. Healy's stand-out result in Rwanda, where he became the first Irish rider to win an elite men's road race medal at the World Championships since Sean Kelly in 1989, has given him high hopes of more success. For the next two years, he said, he'll be making that a major focus.

"If you think one thing is going to keep on working forever, then you’re only fooling yourself, so it’s just a natural progression to different things," he said.

"But nothing major is going to change in 2026. I’ll probably have a pretty similar calendar."

Cycling's independent anti-doping advocacy group, the Mouvement pour un Cyclisme Crédible (MPCC), has released a statement calling on the UCI to 'stop the escalating medicalisation of the sport' and establish firmer rules around products cyclists can use.

The statement cites products like ketones, which the MPCC outlaws but the UCI recently recommended against without formally banning, and the opioid painkiller Tapendatol, which the group describes as "up to ten times stronger than Tramadol [a banned substance]".

The MPCC was set up in 2007 and operates as an independent body looking to end the 'grey area' around doping and medicine in cycling to improve the sports credibility. They set stricter rules which teams can voluntarily adhere to – currently seven WorldTour teams and four Women's WorldTour teams are members.

The group recently welcomed a new president, with Picnic PostNL's Head of Communications Emily Brammeier taking over from long-standing president Roger Legeay.

Currently, the UCI follows the anti-doping regulations set by the World Anti-Doping Association (WADA), meaning they do not set their own rules on banned drugs like they do with equipment and other areas. However, the MPCC is pushing for the governing body to set firmer boundaries.

"The MPCC is becoming increasingly concerned about an excessive use of medicine in the sport and calls upon its governing body to take action against the expansion of the so-called grey area," the organisation said in a statement released on Monday.

"This grey area includes substances and medical treatments not yet banned by WADA, but which raise serious ethical questions when used by healthy athletes, rather than the sick patients they were developed to treat. Cycling needs the UCI to act quickly and decisively to protect both the sport’s credibility and the health of the peloton – so that no athlete feels forced to take questionable products merely to keep up."

According to the MPCC, the speed of action from the UCI is a problem, saying that "lengthy timelines of anti-doping processes without quick and concrete action leave space for various substances to be debated each year, allowing athletes to continue using them despite the unanswered questions surrounding their health or performance-enhancing effects." The organisation also asked whether it may be safer to ban products under investigation, and then reinstate them if they are found not to be dangerous.

The MPCC is also critical about the UCI's recent "non-recommendation" of the use of ketones. The UCI made the recommendation based on research that found the product to not be effective in enhancing performance, but the MPCC reaffirms that it is strictly against ketone use as a product that undermines cycling's credibility.

On the topic of the painkiller Tapendatol, the MPCC again questioned the UCI's sense of urgency in reviewing regulations around new products.

"The UCI now has this specific substance under monitoring, but must we wait for the result of another lengthy analysis while riders’ health is at risk and crashes are becoming even more prominent?" they asked.

The MPCC called on the UCI to move more quickly in their decision-making, citng the example of carbon monoxide use and its subsequent ban as proof that the body can act swiftly, and to take decisive action that closes debate around contested products.

"What is clear is that, as long as the grey area remains, the credibility of cycling will continue to suffer and riders' health is at risk," they said.

"The MPCC’s position has not changed: the endless medicalisation of riders is a major problem and requires action. The MPCC urges the UCI to establish a clear and regulated position on a range of (medical) products in the grey area or other specific products (such as ketones). The MPCC stands ready to work closely with the UCI and support progress in this crucial area for the future of our sport."

The UCI has banned Portuguese rider António Carvalho Ferreira for four years over abnormalities in his biological passport values, the federation announced on Wednesday. The 36-year-old was provisionally suspended in November for anomalies in his passport during 2018, 2020 and 2022.

Carvalho's ban began on November 4, 2025 and runs through November 3, 2029.

The case is the eighth bio passport case of the year, with recent suspensions being levied on Spaniards Oier Lazkano (from his days with Movistar) and Delio Fernández Cruz, and Italian Giovanni Carboni (from his time with JCL Team UKYO).

Fernandez's case and that of ex-rider Venceslau Fernandes led to a 20-day ban for their AP Hotels and Resorts-Tavira-SC Farense team.

Other passport cases from this year came from Portugal, involving Luís Mendoça and Luís Fernandes (Radio Popular-Boavista), and follow 2024 cases involving Portuguese riders Luís Gomes, Nuno Meireles, and Federico Figueiredo.

There have been more passport cases coming out of Portugal, where the fallout from a doping ring uncovered by the 'Operação Prova Limpa' investigation continues. The inquiry started in 2022 when police raided the W52-FC Porto team's hotel during a race in Portugal.

Carvalho raced with the W52 team from 2015 to 2019 before moving onto other Portuguese continental teams. His palmares include three stages of the Volta a Portugal (2019, 2020, 2022) and two overall podiums in the race (2022 and 2023).

Last week, in the criminal case stemming from Provo Limpa, the former boss of the W52-FC Porto team, Adriano Quintanilha, and sports director Nuno Ribeiro, were sentenced to four years and nine months for doping riders on the team between 2020 and 2022.

Former riders João Rodrigues, Rui Vinhas, Ricardo Mestre, Samuel Caldeira, Daniel Mestre, José Neves, Ricardo Vilela, Joni Brandão, José Gonçalves, Jorge Magalhães and André Freitas were tried for trafficking of substances and prohibited methods, and received suspended sentences for two and a half years or less.

Unibet Rose Rockets have announced that they have terminated Giovanni Carboni's contract following the Italian racer's suspension from racing in September.

Thirty-year-old Carboni had been part of the French squad in 2025 after joining from Japanese Continental squad JCL Team Ukyo. He was provisionally suspended by the UCI on September 11 over "unexplained abnormalities" in his biological passport dating to the 2024 season.

His team, then known as Unibet Tietema Rockets, swiftly confirmed that they had also suspended him. Now, two months on, Unibet have announced the termination of Carboni's deal, stating that he had violated team principles regarding transparency and loyalty.

"After careful consideration, we have decided to terminate our collaboration with Giovanni Carboni early," the team announced on Saturday evening.

"The decision follows notification received on September 11, 2025, regarding a provisional suspension issued by the UCI for facts pending investigation prior to his arrival on our team on January 1, 2025. Upon receiving this information, we initiated a dialogue with the rider.

"Notwithstanding the presumption of innocence regarding the UCI matter, our internal review confirmed a violation of the rider's duty of transparency and loyalty."

The team went on to underline their status as a member of the Movement For Credible Cycling (MPCC), noting that their decision stands in line with their own values, regardless of the UCI's eventual decision.

"While this decision stands apart from UCI's disciplinary process, it underlines our uncompromising commitment to integrity, transparency and open communication, in line with our values and our status as an MPCC member."

Carboni's provisional suspension is one of a flurry of recent biological passport cases in cycling, including that of now ex-Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe racer Oier Lazkano, who was suspended at the end of October over biological passport abnormalities dating back to his time before joining the team.

Portuguese racer António Carvalho was also provisionally suspended last month, while Frenchman Franck Bonnamour was handed a four-year ban in August.

The UCI have announced that Azerbaijani racer Artyom Proskuryakov has tested positive for methamphetamine in two samples collected at the 2025 UCI Road World Championships in Rwanda.

The 18-year-old competed in the junior men's road race and time trial in Kigali, taking 41st place in the latter and not finishing the former.

Proskuryakov's samples were taken as a result of "intelligence-led testing", the UCI said, on September 23, 2025, the day of the junior time trial.

Earlier in the year, he won the Azerbaijani junior road and time trial titles, and later competed in the junior races at the UEC European Road Championships.

He has now been provisionally suspended from racing pending possible analysis of B samples.

Methamphetamine is banned under class S6 of the WADA Code, which prohibits various stimulants – including cocaine, cathinones, and strychnine, among others.

"The UCI announces that Azerbaijani rider Artyom Proskuryakov has been notified of an Adverse Analytical Finding for Methamfetamine (D-) and its metabolites* in two samples collected – as a result of intelligence-led-testing – during the 2025 UCI Road World Championships (Men Junior road race) on 23 September 2025," the UCI announced on Tuesday.

"In accordance with the UCI Anti-Doping Rules, the rider has been provisionally suspended. He has the right to request the analysis of the B samples.

"The UCI will not comment further while the proceedings are ongoing."

Emotions were running high for Toon Aerts after he won the men's elite race at the European Cyclocross Championships on Sunday, not just because he had taken a major win, but because it was his biggest, landmark win after returning from a doping suspension.

Aerts, 32, returned to competition in February of 2024 after being banned for two years after the banned substance letrozole was found in his system in 2022. The Belgian spent more than a year trying to fight the provisional suspension, arguing that the substance came into his body via a contaminated substance.

The argument saw his ban lessened from a potential four years to two, but he was still suspended in 2023.

He made a return to road and cyclocross racing in 2024, and took one minor win during the 2024-25 season, but on Sunday, he soared to his biggest result since his return, out-sprinting the defending champion Thibau Nys to claim the European title.

Aerts could not hold back his tears as he was interviewed after the race and on the podium, explaining that the win marked a turning point in his career.

"My second career begins today," he said. "A lot has happened in recent years. I didn't expect it all to fall into place. It hasn't been an easy time, but I made all those sacrifices for this."

Aerts was previously European champion in 2016 and has taken three World Cup victories during his career. Though he has won since his return and taken countless top 10s, Sunday's win was a particular high point.

"This is different. Perhaps the greatest victory of my career," he said to Het Laatste Nieuws.

"I'm proud of the story I have to tell here. Of course, it hasn't been easy. And at times I pushed through against my better judgment. But for this, I gritted my teeth. At times, I was at my wit's end. But I kept my head above water."

Aerts has faced other setbacks since the start of this year's cyclocross season, with a crash and a broken chain disrupting his efforts at the Superprestige rounds in Ruddervoorde and Overijse, but spoke about how ending up on the back foot actually helped on Sunday.

"I was racing too much based on aggression, which I'd built up over the previous years. That's not always helpful, you're more likely to make mistakes," he said. "I had to fight back from a losing position. Then you're not thinking, 'I'm going to win here.' It's more like, 'Oh dear, what else can I do?'

"And suddenly, just two minutes from the finish, my feeling shifted to 'maybe it's my turn today'," he continued. "I thought: 'Come on, Toon, this is your moment, seize it.'"

Seize it he did, edging out the faster on paper Nys to claim the win in Middelkerke.

"When it comes to the win, I've learned not to give it up," he said.

Aerts will now wear the white and blue stars jersey for the rest of the cyclocross season, where he is expected to race a full campaign with the Deschacht-Hens-FSP team.

"Tadej Pogačar doesn't need help from a TV moto, he's already fast enough and already wins enough…"

Before the start of Il Lombardia, the frustrations of a respected sports director were clear when they spoke to Cyclingnews, and not just because Pogačar had won the Tre Valli Varesine with a downhill attack and a little 'help' from a TV motorbike and because he was about to win a fifth consecutive Lombardia. The 2025 season was coming to an end, but the impact of television and race motorbikes affecting the outcome of major races is still a major problem.

"TV motorbikes have a big impact on race outcomes. We must do something about this, both for fairness and for safety," Adam Hansen, the president of the CPA riders association tells Cyclingnews, when discussing the wider issue.

"It's something we talk about in the peloton all the time," a rider, who preferred not to be named, says.

Pogačar didn't do anything illegal at Tre Valli Varesine; he just attacked off the front when the motorbike was close to him, dived into the slipstream on a fast downhill section and never looked back.

Angry waving from Afonso Eulálio (Bahrain Victorious) and a chase by Quinn Simmons (Lidl-Trek) were too little and too late. Pogačar got a gap, took advantage of a few more moments of motorbike slipstreaming and was never seen again.

It wasn't the first moment of apparent race interference and surely won't be the last.

Simmons missed a chance of a result at Tre Valli Varesine, but another rider suggested he perhaps got a slipstream benefit during his long breakaway at Il Lombardia. On the flip side, the American missed out on success on stage 15 of the Tour de France to Carcassonne after Tim Wellens got the jump on him and other riders in the break.

"It was about the strongest guy and the best moment with the moto," Simmons claimed after that stage in July.

"If you're the lucky one and get away, you get this advantage and there's no chance for the group behind. It's not given for free, you still have to be super strong, but it [the motorbike] is definitely a factor."

"I don’t think the moto played a part in my victory. I hope not," Wellens replied. "But if it were the case, Quinn could also have attacked first and taken the help of the moto…"

A grey area, or even a dark art in racing

Slipstreaming and in-race vehicle help have long been a contentious issue in pro cycling, as long as the sport has existed. Sticky bottles are now frowned upon, but many riders still believe it's fine to sit in team car slipstreams when you're chasing back onto the peloton, especially after a crash or mechanical problem. Using a TV motorbike slipstream is just one of the dark arts of professional cycling and one of the grey areas in the UCI rule book, which leaves room for explanation.

"It's part of the game," one rider tells Cyclingnews.

"It does have a big impact. Aerodynamics is such a huge part of cycling now. If you get the TV moto slipstream when you attack, you can go so much faster. Even just for a few seconds can help you get a decisive gap."

"It's the riders' nature to do everything they can to save energy," Hansen says.

"Energy efficiency wins races and riders will try to find any edge to save energy, be that an aero position, fast wheels, a skinsuit or a motorbike in front of the offering a slipstream. It's not the riders' fault. It's the moto that should not be in front of the riders."

Until the late nineties, on the Poggio in the final kilometres of Milan-San Remo, a pack of television and photographer motorbikes used to sit waiting to capture the moment. Teams and riders knew that the first to attack could get dragged away by the massive motorbike slipstream.

Now, race organisers only allow a so-called 'pool' process, of one television camera and one photographer ahead of the riders during key moments of a race, or sometimes not even that. The television motorbike is no longer allowed to shoot the attacks on the final part of the Poggio, and fixed television cameras and helicopter shots are used on major climbs in other races, even if that reduces the quality of the television footage.

However, the problem of slipstreaming remains an issue in other race situations, especially during long breakaway attacks and peloton chases, especially in stage races. Live television coverage has also been extended for the biggest races, with TV motorbikes capturing the action all day long, from start to finish of races, rather than just the last 90 minutes

"When you're in the middle of the peloton, you can feel when the TV moto is close to the front because the speed goes up like crazy. In the middle of the bunch, you don't get anything like the same draft," a rider tells Cyclingnews.

The same rider recalled how a rival attacked him in a breakaway using a motorbike slipstream out of a corner and stayed away to win the race, while on another occasion, a TV motorbike was so close to a break that it helped them stay away from the chasing peloton.

A source, who preferred not to be identified, claimed that a television motorbike had a huge impact during a stage of the 2016 Vuelta a Espana, slipstreaming a major breakaway that included several GC contenders for several hours. Team Sky tried to lead the chase of the peloton but eventually blew up. Half the peloton finished outside the time limit, with the Sky riders, but the race commissaries extended the time limit to allow them to stay in the race.

Quantifying the slipstream advantage

The advantages of a TV motorbike slipstream have been scientifically quantified.

In 2020, Belgian researcher Bert Blocken and several colleagues at the Eindhoven University analysed and calculated the aerodynamic benefits of drafting behind a bulky TV motorbike equipped with a camera and the data transmission equipment. They carried out simulations in the wind tunnel and made Computational Fluid Dynamics simulations, publishing their results in the Sports Engineering journal.

"For drafting distances of 2.64, 10, 30 and 50m, the drag reductions were 48, 23, 12 and 7%, respectively. The associated time gains were 12.7, 5.4, 2.7 and 1.6 seconds per km," Blocken made clear in his research conclusions.

"Because cycling races are sometimes won by a few seconds or less, these time gains can influence the outcome of the races. Therefore, the common concern in the cycling community that drafting behind motorcycles can influence the outcome of races is correct."

Renaat Schotte is one of the most respected television journalists in professional cycling. He works for Sporza in Belgium and spends hundreds of hours a year commentating on races and reports on the biggest Belgian classics from a Sporza motorbike. He sees the racing in three dimensions from the motorbike; he is inside the race convoy and feels how the wind impacts and changes the racing.

Schotte respects Blocken's research but thinks the real impact on races is exaggerated.

"It's easy to calculate the theoretical advantage of a motorbike slipstream in the wind tunnel, but it's then different out on the open road," Schotte suggests to Cyclingnews.

"A cross or tail wind changes everything in a race, but a lot of people don't see that. Out on the road is not like a wind tunnel; it's real, three-dimensional and is always changing.

"I think the effect of a TV motorbike is more of a placebo effect in the riders' minds. You can see that when you follow a time trial and the sports director shouts at a rider to follow a motorbike. They do it, but often the motorbike is too far ahead to make a difference."

The UCI is aware of the problem of TV motorbikes and slipstreams, but struggles to control and regulate it. The UCI guidelines are not very detailed.

"A TV motorcycle at the front of the peloton moves in front of the riders while respecting a safety buffer and filming from ¾ [at an angle, not head on] in front of riders," the guidelines say.

"They must never interfere with the progress of the race nor allow riders to benefit from their slipstream, especially when the riders’ speed is high."

Cyclingnews reached out to the governing body for comment on the issue of motorbike slipstreaming, but we're yet to get a response.

The UCI and SafeR, the dedicated structure created by cycling's stakeholders to study and improve safety in races, implemented a yellow card system in 2025 to dissuade behaviour in the race convoy that could impact safety. A total of 270 yellow cards were issued this year. Many were for riders deviating from their line in sprints, but 39 yellow cards were issued to photo and TV motorbikes. Some were for slipstreaming, even if the exact information is scarce.

Riders and teams believe that the TV motorbikes in some races and some countries behave worse than others, offering more slipstreaming opportunities. There are even suspicions that a few may act maliciously.

"Sometimes it does seem very blatant and so people get suspicious that there's some kind of plot to get a certain winner or result," a rider tells Cyclingnews.

Another source reveals that riders have allegedly given gifts to motorbike pilots in the hope of getting some slipstream help when they attack.

Is there a solution?

Blocken calculated that TV motorbikes generally maintain a gap ahead of the riders of between 10 and 30 metres when they are shooting a breakaway or the peloton. When the gap is consistently less, the aerodynamic benefits for the riders become far greater. He suggests a minimum of 25 metres to greatly reduce the aerodynamic benefit.

"The current rules and guidelines of the International Cycling Union (UCI) do not prevent situations where drafting can occur. The rules and guidelines need to be adjusted to prevent these undesired aerodynamic benefits," he says in his research conclusions.

Most motorbike pilots and the camera crews are experts and highly experienced at what they do. They also have UCI licences to operate in the race convoy and have completed UCI safety courses.

Of course, the TV motorbikes are expected to get the best shot possible, especially in key moments of a race, when the big-name riders are attacking. Everyone watching on television loves to see close-up race action, to see riders' faces as they suffer or distance a rival. The host broadcast director talks to the camera crews via radio, no doubt demanding the best close-up shots. It is a high-pressure situation, which can naturally lead to TV motorbikes going close to the riders to get the shot everyone wants to see.

Schotte explains the need for race motorbikes.

"I know that the whole debate about motorbikes in races can be controversial, but people in their armchairs watching on television don't often understand the importance of race motorbikes and especially TV motorbikes," he tells Cyclingnews.

"I have to defend the TV moto pilots, especially the Belgians, they're really good at what they do. That's not always the case in every country and even amongst the photographers motorbike pilots, but all the motorbike pilots are all human. Riders make mistakes and cause crashes, and moto pilots make mistakes too.

"Deliberately interfering is different and shouldn't happen and punishment has to follow, but there has to be trust between everyone in the race convey, we're all there for a reason."

The cases Cyclingnews has highlighted and the comments from riders, teams and Adam Hansen of the CPA confirm that there is a problem with TV motorbike slipstreaming. It is impacting races – in the eyes of everyone involved. Professional cycling has many other complex problems, but slipstreaming seems avoidable and should surely be resolved.

A solution could be to introduce and then enforce a minimum distance between the riders and the TV motorbikes and any other motorbikes that can provide a slipstream effect. It may impact the quality of the television coverage, but the racing would be fairer. Such a rule has already been introduced in time trials, where team cars have to stay a set distance behind the rider to reduce aerodynamic benefits.

One sports director suggested using the same experienced TV motorbike for all of the races and the best possible high-definition lenses with built-in image stabilisation technology. The VAR (video assistant referee) system could also be used more often to spot and punish TV motorbikes or anyone who gets too close to the riders, especially in parts of the race designated as strategic. Drones may one day replace the need for TV motorbikes, but this technology still needs more development and may create other safety issues.

A rider tells Cyclingnews of how endurance triathlon events, where drafting is illegal, use a sensor system to calculate drafting distances and then highlight them with a series of coloured lights on the device.

The Race Ranger pods are similar in size to the data devices used to transmit live rider data and use WiFi, Bluetooth, GPS and UltraWideBand signals to calculate the drafting distance. They could be fitted to the TV motorbikes and other race convoy motorbikes. The measurements could be used to audibly warn the TV motorbikes if they get too close to riders, informing a race commissaire via the VAR system. The lights would indicate to riders if a TV motorbike is at a correct, non-slipstreaming distance.

A sports director suggests that the riders also have to play their part.

"My riders often lament about the TV motorbikes to me via our team radio and I often go to the race commissaire to complain about it," he tells Cyclingnews.

"I tell them to go to the front and wave away the TV motorbikes, but they don't like to be seen doing that. But they have to act and stand up for themselves because they are the ones who lose out if the racing isn't fair."

Adam Hansen believes a solution to the problem of TV motorbikes is needed as part of a wider strategy to improve race safety, even if it impacts the quality of the television footage.

"At SafeR the major discussion is about how to slow down the peloton because the speeds are getting faster and faster, but the TV motorbikes are one of the main factors for increased race speeds," Hansen argues.

"One of the SafeR deliverables for 2026 suggested by the CPA is ensuring the TV moto is further from the riders to make racing fairer. If the UCI really wants to lower the average race speed, we have to do something about the motorbikes influencing the racing."

The UCI has provisionally suspended another rider due to unexplained abnormalities in his Athlete Biological Passport (ABP), Portugal's António Carvalho, in 2018, 2023 and 2024.

Ferreira follows on from similar ABP-related suspensions, a week after Spanish Classics specialist Oier Lazkano and less than two months after Italian rider Giovanni Carboni were also suspended.

The 36-year-old Portuguese rider rode for several teams before violating the UCI Anti-Doping Rules, and in the years in question, he raced for W52/FC Porto and ABTF Betão-Feirense, with the latter being the team he raced for in 2025 as Feirense-Beeceler.

Amid continued doping scandals in Portuguese cycling over the past decade, W52/FC Porto had seven riders banned in 2022, and the team were eventually disbanded after their licence was revoked.

Carvalho left the team in 2020, but has now joined the list of anti-doping coming out of Portuguese cycling, which also included a 20-day ban for Continental team APHotels & Resorts-Tavira-SC Farense in October due to"unexplained abnormalities" in the ABPs of two riders.

Having spent the vast majority of his racing career competing in Portugal, Carvalho managed to win three stages of his home Volta a Portugal in 2019, 2020 and 2022, also finishing third on GC on two occasions, in 2022 and 2023.

The ABP, which began in the early 2000s, measures athletes' blood values over time as a way to indirectly detect signs of blood doping. In the years since this rollout, the anti-doping authorities have added other modules to detect the use of anabolic steroids, measuring testosterone ratios, and an endocrine module that can detect signs of the use of Human Growth Hormone.

The UCI, as was the case for Lazkano last week, did not specify which module contained the anomalous values.

Unlike the Basque rider, who protested his innocence via a statement in the Spanish media, neither Carvahlo nor his team from 2025 have yet issued a statement or response to his suspension.

Spanish Classics specialist Oier Lazkano has declared his innocence after being suspended from racing by the UCI due to irregularities in his Biological Passport between 2022 and 2024.

The now-former Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe rider was provisionally suspended by the sport's governing body last week over "unexplained abnormalities" in his Biological Passport in the years 2022, 2023, and 2024 while he raced for Movistar.

Lazkano – who finished on the podium of Kuurne-Brussel-Kuurne and Dwars door Vlaanderen during his time at Movistar – hadn't raced since Paris-Roubaix in April. Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe swiftly moved to terminate his contract, stating, "We confirm that Oier Lazkano will no longer be part of our team."

Now, Lazkano has issued a statement of his own, with Spanish newspaper AS reporting that he has denied any suggestion of doping or rule-breaking.

"I have never used doping substances or prohibited methods," Lazkano said. "I am a clean athlete and a person of integrity. I will continue, with determination and transparency, to defend my name and professional dignity. My career has been built on effort, dedication, honesty, and daily work."

Lazkano added that he has put his faith "in the truth and in sporting justice", adding that he will battle to clear his name "with all necessary actions."

Lazkano, who turns 26 later this week, made headlines in the spring Classics season of 2023 when he raced in the breakaway almost all day long at Dwars door Vlaanderen to take second place at the line, later going on to win Boucles de la Mayenne, the Spanish national road title, and a stage of the Vuelta a Burgos.

In 2024, he won the Clásica Jaén, finished third at Kuurne, and took a surprise top 10 overall at the Critérium du Dauphiné before making his Tour de France debut.

He made a slow start to life at Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe, recording a string of anonymous results and DNFs through the early part of 2025 before his final race to date at Paris-Roubaix.

Spanish team Movistar has claimed that it was only made aware of the anti-doping case against Oier Lazkano on Thursday, and that he had passed all internal doping tests during his time with the squad.

The announcement comes after the UCI confirmed a provisional suspension for Lazkano, after detecting abnormal results in his ABP (Athlete Biological Passport) in 2022, 2023 and 2024, the three years he was contracted by the team.

Lazkano left Movistar at the end of the 2024 season and was contracted to Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe in 2025.

Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe also announced on Thursday that they had ended the Spaniard's contract, though they distanced themselves from the case, highlighting that the abnormal values were all recorded whilst he was with a different team.

The way the ABP works is by recording athletes' blood values over time to establish base levels and then highlight any unusual or anomalous results, which is why the abnormalities may not have been understood until this year.

The ABP system can detect signs of blood doping, anabolic steroids, testosterone and human growth hormone, though the UCI has not specified what kind of abnormalities Lazkano showed.

Lazkano has not raced since April and had largely disappeared from the public eye, with the decision on his case by a panel decided on October 23. Lazkano was able to provide an explanation and evidence in his defence before the decision was taken.

Despite the fact that the case has likely been taking place in the background for some time, Movistar released a statement on Friday claiming that they had only been made aware of the situation on Thursday, via a notification from the UCI.

“At this stage and until this notification, the UCI had to keep the matter confidential beyond the Anti-Doping Organizations as per the applicable regulations," the letter from the UCI said, according to Movistar.

The team then went on to deny any prior knowledge of the abnormalities in Lazkano's ABP, and underlined that their own internal tests had not shown any issues.

"First of all, that it is not until yesterday afternoon, October 30, 2025, that [Movistar] has become aware of this situation," the team said.

"Secondly, that during the three seasons of contractual relationship with Mr. Lazkano (of the five to which the UCI study refers) all the controls to which he was subjected by the different national and international organizations, as well as internal to the team itself, yielded a negative result. By virtue of this, it was materially impossible to know, or even intuit, any anomaly such as the one now presented in the procedure opened by the International Cycling Union.

"And thirdly and most importantly, Abarca Sports [the owners of the Movistar team] reiterates once again with absolute firmness its unwavering commitment to a clean and transparent sport. To this end, we will redouble with absolute determination all the efforts, controls and measures that we have been promoting to date."

The Spanish rider joined Movistar in 2022 after signing from Caja Rural, and enjoyed an upward trajectory with top results in the Classics and stage races, earning himself a contract with Red Bull for 2025.

Notably, this is the second former Movistar rider in a matter of days to be handed a suspension over anti-doping violations.

On Tuesday, Vinícius Rangel, who rode for the team until August 2024, was given a 20-month suspension over repeated failures in the Whereabouts protocol, where riders are required to make themselves available for out-of-competition tests. Riders can be suspended for missing these tests or for failing to share their location.

At present, Lazkano is only provisionally suspended, and the length of his sentence is likely to be determined by which values in his ABP were deemed to be off.

Oier Lazkano, who showed promise as a Classics rider with podiums in Dwars door Vlaanderen in 2023 and Kuurne-Brussel-Kuurne in 2024, has been provisionally suspended and has lost his position with Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe over abnormalities in his Athlete Biological Passport (ABP).

Lazkano's ABP case is the second to be announced in the last two months after Giovanni Carboni (Unibet Tietema Rockets) was provisionally suspended in September.

The UCI announced on Thursday that Lazkano was provisionally suspended for "unexplained abnormalities" in 2022, 2023, and 2024 – the years he spent racing for the Movistar Team. During that time, Lazkano won the Clásica Jaén (2024), a stage and the overall classification of the Boucles de la Mayenne (2023), and a stage of the Tour de Wallonie (2022).

Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe distanced themselves from Lazkano in an announcement, stating, "We confirm that Oier Lazkano will no longer be part of our team. This follows the decision of the UCI to provisionally suspend him. The matter concerns the seasons 2022-2024 – a time before he joined our team."

Lazkano signed with the team on the back of his one-day race performances, but has not raced since finishing an anonymous 117th in Paris-Roubaix in April, closing out a disastrous Spring Classics campaign where his best results was 108th in the Scheldeprijs.

He hasn't posted to his social media channels since commenting on his spring, stating, "It hasn't been the classic season we wanted and planned, but I'm taking quite a few notes on the list. Thank you all for the support these months. Now, a little rest and back to the heights to prepare for the summer season."

The ABP, which began in the early 2000s, measures athletes' blood values over time as a way to indirectly detect signs of blood doping. In the years since its successful rollout, the anti-doping authorities have added other modules to detect the use of anabolic steroids, measuring testosterone ratios, and an endocrine module that can detect signs of the use of Human Growth Hormone.

The UCI did not specify which module contained the anomalous values.

The UCI announced on Tuesday the suspension of Brazil's Vinicius Rangel Costa, 24, due to failures to report his whereabouts for anti-doping controls.

Rangel, who raced with the Movistar team from 2022 to 2024, last competed at a sanctioned event in 2024 when he represented Brazil in the men's road race at the Summer Olympic Games in Paris. His last race with Movistar was months earlier, when he competed in Eschborn-Frankfurt on May 1, 2024.

According to the press release, Rangel had three whereabouts failures in a 12-month period, but the announcement did not specify when that period was. Rangel accepted a 20-month suspension from August 27, 2025, to April 26, 2027.

Since leaving the Movistar Team, Rangel joined a Brazilian continental team, Swift Pro Cycling, and has competed only in national-level races in South America. He won a stage of the Vuelta del Uruguay in April and finished second overall.

Sanctions for whereabouts failures have been rare since the implementation of the ADAMS (Anti-Doping Administration & Management System) in 2004, which, according to WADA, "is designed to be a secure and cost-free web-based system that centralizes doping control-related information such as athlete whereabouts, testing history, laboratory results, the Athlete Biological Passport (ABP), Therapeutic Use Exemptions (TUEs) and information on Anti-Doping Rule Violations (ADRVs)."

French and Belgian athletes have challenged the whereabouts requirements, arguing it violated the European Convention on Human Rights, but the case was rejected by unanimous decision.

The most recent suspension for multiple whereabouts violations was in 2012, when Alex Rasmussen missed three in an 18-month period. He was given an 18-month ban.

The most famous whereabouts case was that of Michael Rasmussen (no relation), who was fired from the Rabobank team and pulled from the Tour de France while leading the race in 2007 over dishonesty over his whereabouts during the period leading up to the Tour.

On Monday, the UCI did something very unusual. They issued a press release on the issue of ketones, finally weighing in on the supplement that has been causing consternation and conversation in cycling for at least five years, once touted as a performance 'wonder drink' and now slightly more doubted.

As the sport's governing body, which literally writes the rules about everything to do with cycling, it's not unusual for the UCI to weigh in on what riders and teams are allowed to do. But what was unusual about Monday's statement was the content of it.

The rule-making body neither gave the green light on ketones, which are still legal under WADA, nor set out any intent to legislate against them. They simply said that they "[see] no reason for them to be used" and "does not recommend the inclusion of such supplements in riders' nutritional plans".

Now, as far as I'm aware, there are no products that the UCI does recommend in riders' nutritional plans, not water nor caffeine nor literal essential vitamins. What legal products or supplements riders should or shouldn't use has never been the business of the governing body, who deal in rules and regulations over dietary recommendations.

The reason ketones have entered the UCI's consciousness is because, more than just a nutritional supplement, they have been considered as part of the anti-doping conversation.

Initial research into ketone supplements – which add to the levels of naturally-occurring ketones in the body – showed they could significantly aid performance and recovery, and even boost EPO response in the body. With these kinds of claims, many were concerned that the product might cross the line into being too performance-enhancing.

That's a line that all sport is always trying to navigate, because of course almost all the supplements athletes take are for the purpose of enhancing performance, but there is a line between improving natural ability, and giving an unfair, unnatural advantage.

Now, since ketones first came to prominence, with many riders adopting their use, the consensus has changed. The efficacy of the product has been questioned in later studies, and some of the teams that used ketones subsequently stopped, finding – of their own accord – that the benefit wasn't worth it.

Weirdly, it's on this basis that the UCI has recommended against their use. Not because they think ketones are akin to doping, or because they have been seen to have any harmful effects, but because they just don't think they work. Which isn't usually something that the UCI would weigh in on – again, as a colleague pointed out to me, they've never come out and said multivitamins aren't worth taking, or weighed in on how effective nasal strips are.

Monday's statement was an unusual step from the UCI, but more than just being strange, it was possibly even counterproductive in the fight against doping and the push to make cycling more trustworthy.

Grey areas don't help the fight against doping

The MPCC (Mouvement Pour un Cyclisme Crédible), an independent body that teams and riders sign up to and they set stricter rules on anti-doping, aiming to make the sport more credible and eliminate the grey areas when it comes to performance enhancement.

They routinely 'ban' things that the UCI or WADA don't, allowing teams to subscribe to a supposedly more credible ethos. They have been talking about ketones for years, and in 2024, they officially added the product to the list of things their members are not to use.

For the MPCC, this is about clearly defining the line between fair and unfair performance enhancers. They don't want grey areas or room for interpretation; they want clear rules that are the same for everyone so the sport is fair and credible.

At the time of making their decision on ketones, they criticised the UCI for still not taking a stance on the product and leaving a potential grey area.

"We cannot accept such long delays, given the public health issues at stake and the credibility of our sport," the MPCC said.

"The managers and referring doctors of the MPCC member teams are seeing their positions, those guided by caution, weakened by an endless wait for clarification and a clear position. Either the UCI is certain that the use of ketones is acceptable and must make this known in a clear and precise communication. Or it is not and must state loud and clear that the institution does not recommend their use, or even that it prohibits it."

The UCI had said at the time that they were going to announce the results of an "impact assessment of ketones on health and performance" at the end of 2025.

Many assumed this meant they would carry out their own research or at least a thorough, evidence-based assessment, because surely reading some studies does not take a year. But, reading only what they put in their press release, it doesn't really seem like they did much more than look into existing research.

Whatever they did, the UCI did come to a conclusion about ketones, and – perhaps because they'd promised to do it, or because of the pressure on them – they published that conclusion. And in many ways, they did what the MPCC asked for and recommended against their use.

But in reality, this does exactly what the MPCC works against: it created a grey area. Non-MPCC teams and riders are still completely free to use ketones, according to WADA, but they're not recommended by the UCI. The UCI may think that by coming out against them on grounds of a lack of efficacy makes it okay – they aren't suggesting that they're akin to using doping products – but the nuance is likely to be forgotten easily. People won't remember that, but they'll remember that the UCI is against ketones.

Instead, the issue of ketones being seen as a doping-adjacent, morally murky product is only going to continue. Teams that aren't part of the MPCC are likely to continue making their own decisions on the product, as they do with everything from what a rider has for breakfast to what medicines they take, so a UCI statement isn't going to actually change anything materially, but it does darken the perception of the products.

The statement opens up teams that do keep using ketones to more criticism and skepticism. They'll be seen as doing something that the governing body sees as bad, which adds to the belief among many that cycling is always pushing the limit with doping, and often going over it. It turns something that is currently perfectly legal into a questionable behaviour.

If the UCI thinks a product should be banned, they should say that. If they don't think it gives an unfair advantage, they could say that too. A middle-of-the-road, vague position helps no one and changes nothing.

Grey areas are the reason why cycling got into such a dark place with doping, as nefarious figures have always tried to exploit those blurred boundaries as much as possible, whilst those who want to follow the rules do, and get beaten by performance-enhanced athletes.

If the UCI is serious about wiping out doping – which it obviously should be – these grey areas need to be eliminated as much as possible. Rules should be rules, in one direction or another, not recommendations.

Cycling's governing body, the UCI, has today set out its position against the use of ketone supplements for the first time, saying it "sees no reason for them to be used" by professional cyclists.

Ketone supplement use has become increasingly popular among cyclists and endurance athletes, with riders openly drinking from small bottles of ketone supplements after races, as casually as they would ingest cherry juice or a sugary recovery drink.

However, the UCI has now come out against their use, not because they are too performance enhancing, but in fact because their benefits are not proven.

Ketones are chemicals that the liver produces that can then be used by the muscles instead of glucose when there in insufficient glucose in the body. Though naturally produced by the body, ketone levels can be increased by taking ketone supplements, which may offer increased performance and recovery.

These supplements are currently legal in sport and not on WADA's banned substance list, and have become increasingly popular in cycling in the last five years, but also a cause of division, with some embracing their use and others warning against them.

In 2024, the MPCC – the Mouvement Pour un Cyclisme Crédible, a group cycling teams voluntarily sign up to and exists to clarify the grey areas around doping – set out their position on ketones, recommending against their use.

The MPCC urged the UCI to state their position on ketones too, and criticised the fact that the governing body did not intend to publish their assessment on the supplement until 2025.

Despite the MPCC's request, the UCI only published their statement on the topic on Monday, stating that due to recent studies contradicting the early studies outlining the benefits of ketones,

"The use of dietary supplements containing ketone bodies (ketones) has become popular in endurance sports, particularly road cycling, since the publication of scientific findings of a study carried out in 2016. Results of the study suggested that ketones taken before or during exercise could improve cycling performance," the statement read.

"However, these results were not confirmed by subsequent studies, and there is now a consensus that such supplements have no effect on performance during endurance exercise.

"However, several ensuing studies then drew attention to the potential benefits of ketones when it comes to the rapidity and quality of post-exercise recovery. Ketones were found to have added value in terms of the speed of muscle glycogen resynthesis and endogenous EPO production.

"More recently, research has now contradicted these earlier findings. The results of a very comprehensive, high-quality study show that taking ketones after competition or high-intensity training sessions has no effect on the quality of recovery."

As a result of the studies on ketone use for both performance enhancement and recovery improvement, the UCI concluded against their usefulness.

"As there is no compelling evidence that ketone supplements enhance performance or recovery, the UCI sees no reason for them to be used," the statement said. "Therefore, the UCI does not recommend the inclusion of such supplements in riders' nutritional plans."

As a governing body that is part of the WADA system, the UCI's position is not legally and formally binding in any way, and only a recommendation – ketone supplements remain legal. They will not be tested for as a banned substance, nor will the UCI, at present, regulate against their use.

The MPCC's ruling against ketones is in some ways more binding, as the teams that are part of the organisation (including eight WorldTour teams and four Women's WorldTour teams) are obliged to follow their rules or face penalties. However, Cyclingnews understands that some MPCC-affiliated riders have continued to use ketones.

Despite many bodies coming out against ketone use, they have become an increasingly popular and mainstream sports supplement, with sponsorships and adverts from ketone brands appearing on riders' social media channels and some cycling podcasts in recent years.

After his second disqualification in five years from a road race for setups deemed illegal by the UCI, Dutch rider Jan-Willem van Schip says he is mulling over which direction to take his career, with participation in gravel races amongst his various options.

Already disqualified from the 2021 Baloise Belgium Tour for using handlebars deemed illegal by the UCI, earlier this week Van Schip found himself in the firing line of cycling's governing body again when he was disqualified from stage 1 of the Tour of Holland.

This time round, Van Schip was expelled because of an apparently illegal seatpost, a decision appealed by his team, Parkhotel Valkenburg.

"His seatpost allegedly does not meet UCI requirements," Parkhotel Valkenburg team manager Paul Tabak said in a statement to WielerFlits. "But he has been riding with one for several years and has documentation that it is permitted."

In photos shared to X, his seatpost is shown with a clear kink forwards, steepening the angle between his bottom bracket and his saddle and putting him in a much more forward position over the bike

Van Schip himself did not talk to the press after his expulsion, but he has now opted to make a lengthy post about it on social media. Whilst not criticising the UCI directly, he did make the point that "being rejected because you're chasing your dream hurts", that "Being the outcast that tackles things differently leads to gigantic unnecessary friction and that "The contrast of what you need to do to perform in cycling and what cycling culture encourages you [to do] cannot be greater."

As for where he goes from here, Van Schip, a former winner of the Ronde van Drenthe in Holland and stage of the Tour of Belgium, said he will be looking at a potential ride in gravel races, as well as on the track. Even a ride in gravel's best-known one-day event, Unbound, was not off his radar, he said.

"Six-Day Rotterdam (come and see! ), try gravel, do Unbound, does anyone have a gravel bike/team on offer?" he asked rhetorically.

Other career options, he said, were giving conferences - " Does anyone want a custom talk about dealing with pressure?"- coaching, and "Keeping supporting myself to keep trying and exploring."

The 31-year-old also thanked the public for what he said was support on the roadside in his cycling endeavours, saying "I am really thankful [...] that so many people on rainy Thursdays shouted - Go Willem. I keep feeling that people are worried about me and want me to be okay. That moves me."

Meanwhile the Tour of Holland continues, with Ethan Hayter (Soudal-QuickStep) leading after three stages. The race is due to finish on Sunday in Arnhem.

Jan-Willem van Schip (Parkhotel Valkenburg), infamously disqualified from the 2021 Baloise Belgium Tour for using handlebars the UCI deemed illegal, has found himself in the firing line of cycling's governing body once again.

This week, after stage 1 of the NIBC Tour of Holland, the Dutchman has been disqualified again.

Unlike his prior transgression relating to handlebars, and despite running wild handlebars that will almost certainly fall foul of the UCI's minimum width rule set to come into force in 2026, the apparent reason for this week's ruling surrounds his seatpost.

"His seatpost allegedly does not meet UCI requirements," Parkhotel Valkenburg team manager Paul Tabak said in a statement to WielerFlits. "But he has been riding with one for several years and has documentation that it is permitted."

In photos shared to X, his seatpost is shown with a clear kink forwards, steepening the angle between his bottom bracket and his saddle and putting him in a much more forward position over the bike.

He has paired this with an extremely long stem, its exact length is unconfirmed, but it is easily longer than the usual 130mm used by riders in the pro peloton.

Notably, according to Tabak, the decision wasn't made by commissaires on the ground, but came directly from the UCI headquarters in Switzerland.

"The UCI commissaires in the NIBC Tour of Holland did not disqualify Jan-Willem. They were overruled by Switzerland. The UCI said they had to disqualify Van Schip because he was riding with an illegal seatpost."

As is common, Van Schip – who once had a photo of the legendarily maverick Scottish racer Graham Obree, who also fell foul of UCI equipment regulations back in the day, on the wall in a house he shared with Taco Van der Hoorn – adopts a position that pushes the rules to the extreme. Although unconfirmed, Cyclingnews understands the UCI's motivations relate to how his seatpost affects his centre of gravity on the bike.

Sources close to Cyclingnews have confirmed that the UCI has been researching rider centre of gravity in relation to bike design, as a means to offset to the trend towards more aggressive, forward-leaning positions on bikes, essentially to reduce the chance of over-the-bar crashes in the event of hitting potholes or road furniture when racing.

Wielerflits also reports that Parkhotel Valkenburg has appealed the ruling, citing documentation that proves the seatpost is approved by the UCI.

"Together with Toot Engineering [the manufacturer of the handlebar] and Tavelo [the team's bike sponsor], we are in discussions with [the UCI in] Switzerland. They will review our arguments," Tabak explained after the ban.

Cyclingnews reached out to Toot Engineering, who confirmed the handlebar - its Marassha model - is UCI approved and legal, but that the seatpost, made by Tavelo, wasn't registered with the UCI as part of the frame's homologation.

Ahead of the release of his new book, Bradley Wiggins has spoken about his drug addiction and recovery, bankruptcy, and doping allegations at Team Sky.

The former Olympic and Tour de France champion spoke to The Times in a wide-ranging interview ahead of the release of his book, The Chain, admitting that, during one low point, he had snorted cocaine off his Olympic gold medal.

He also spoke about the doping accusations that were levelled against him and Team Sky during his career, in particular the corticosteroid therapeutic use exemptions (TUEs) used by the team at the 2011 and 2012 Tours de France and 2013 and the Jiffy bag delivered to the team at the Critérium du Dauphiné in 2011.

"There was something greater going on. [Sky] chucked me under a bus," Wiggins said in response to a question about the allegations, before intimating that the team were looking to protect someone else.

"It'll come out," he added.

Since retiring from racing in 2016, Wiggins has suffered from a cocaine addiction, which led him to dark places, including staying in "a crack house in Middlesbrough" and sleeping on park benches. An extract from The Chain reveals one low point of his addiction.

"Hundreds of thousands of people roaring me on, millions more watching at home. One of the great moments of London 2012, and there I am in a wardrobe, snorting cocaine [off my gold medal], mocking my achievement, hating it for what I believed it had brought me," Wiggins wrote.

"It was the equivalent of pissing on someone's grave, and in that moment, I was pissing on my own. The gold medal, the Tour de France… All of it was dead to me. The person I'd been in Paris and London was dead to me, too."

He has now been in recovery from cocaine for a year and is in Narcotics Anonymous, while former racer Lance Armstrong has also helped, flying him to the USA to join a rehabilitation programme.

Wiggins said that his new book is part of the 'apology and accountability' phase of Narcotics Anonymous, telling The Times, "I wanted to be the teller of my own story. Good and bad."

He has also stopped drinking, an act which helps resist the temptation to fall off the wagon, and has put in place a daily routine "like a professional athlete", he says.

"If I had three pints now and then someone put a line in front of me, I would probably… Well, I don't know. But I don't drink any more," Wiggins said. "I could go for a month, you know, and not … And then it could just hit me like a fucking brick."

"Gym [helps]. I go every day. I have a daily routine that starts at 6.15. I've made my bed by seven. Immaculate. And I plan my meals for the day. I live like I'm a professional athlete."

Wiggins has also put his bankruptcy behind him, getting back to working again as well as getting somewhere to live. He's also taken up cycling recreationally – something he had stopped after retirement due to the long memories of childhood sexual abuse at the hands of his then-coach, Stan Knight.

Wiggins said that he's "out of bankruptcy, with more work than I can cope with.

"I'm earning more money than I've earned in the past six years. I've got my own house. I'm not homeless any more. A year ago, I was homeless.

"I associated every aspect of [cycling] with Stan. If I hadn't taken up cycling, I'd never have met that man.

"I love going on my bike at the weekends. It's phenomenal. That sense of escapism I had as a kid. Freedom. Yes."

Knight died in 2003, meaning that he never faced justice for the abuse carried out on Wiggins and other young cyclists. Wiggins said that there's "a peace" that he's gone and that what he did is public, even if Knight was never punished for what he did.

"I'm not sure. I've thought about it. There's a peace that it's gone and it's out, because I don't know what can of worms it would open in terms of how many others?" He said.

"If he were still alive, he'd be nearly 100 now. Putting a 100-year-old man in the dock? I know [what he did] is terrible, but I kind of feel, the way it is, it's the easiest and quickest ending to that saga. And the big thing that will face you with someone who's still alive is the denial.

"No one's come forward from his side of the family… I assume that they knew. I don't need an apology from them. It's not their [responsibility]."

French ultra-distance rider Sofiane Sehili is set to remain under arrest in eastern Russia after a local court rejected his appeal against charges of an attempted illegal border crossing during his Eurasia World Record bid.

Sehili began his attempt to conquer the Eurasia World Record – the fastest person to cycle across both continents in one go – in Portugal on July 8. But having reached the far east of Russia by early September, he was then arrested on charges that could see him in prison for up to two years.

In early October, a court in the eastern region of Primorié rejected his appeal, according to Russian news agencies, and his lawyer will now reportedly take his case to a higher legal authority.

According to the Russian authorities, Sehili, 44, wanted to use a frontier post to re-enter Russia from China via a frontier that was only crossable by train or bus – a transport option that would have invalidated his record bid in its third and final month.

Sehili was refused permission to cross by the Chinese authorities unless he travelled by train for the minimum possible journey of 20 kilometres between two stations on different sides of the border, according to L'Équipe. So the Frenchman opted to use his bike to reach Russia, first through rough woodland and then riding alongside the railway line to the equivalent Russian customs post. But when he got there, he was arrested.

At the time of his arrest, Sehili had been close to claiming the record for the Eurasian crossing, currently standing at 64 days and two hours and held by Germany's Jonas Deichmann. Sehili had reached a total of 17,600 kilometres when he was stopped by the Russian authorities, an average of 280 kilometres a day. The frontier represented his last major obstacle prior to reaching Vladivostok, just 170 kilometres further on.

Sehili will now remain in prison until at least November 8 while the appeals continue.

The UCI has announced that it has handed a 20-day suspension from racing to Portuguese Continental team APHotels & Resorts-Tavira-SC Farense after two of the team's riders returned anti-doping rule violations within a 12-month period.

The suspension will run from October 23, 2025, to November 11, 2025, the UCI stated, following two instances of "unexplained abnormalities" in the athlete biological passport of two riders on the team.

Portuguese rider Venceslau Fernandes was notified by the Portuguese Anti-Doping Agency (ADoP) of an anti-doping rule violation on November 7, 2024, while Spanish racer Delio Fernández was notified by the UCI of one earlier this year, on July 7, 2025.

39-year-old Delio Fernández retired from racing in April and remains on the UCI's provisional suspensions list, while 29-year-old Venceslau Fernandes hasn't raced professionally since the end of 2024. The team has continued racing through the summer, with Jesús Peña delivering fourth overall at the Volta ao Portugal in August.

"The Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI) announces that the UCI Disciplinary Commission has decided to suspend the Portuguese Team APHotels & Resorts-Tavira-SC Farense, for a period of 20 days, starting on 23 October 2025 and effective until 11 November 2025, in accordance with Article 11.3 of the UCI Anti-Doping Rules (UCI ADR)," the UCI announced on Tuesday.

"The UCI ADR provides for the suspension of a team when two of its riders receive notice of an asserted anti-doping rule violation (ADRV) arising from an Adverse Passport Finding which occurred during the same 12-month period.

"In this context, the relevant dates to determine if the commission of the two violations occurred within the same twelve-month period shall be the period of time during which the riders used a Prohibited Method or a Prohibited Substance according to the Expert Panel’s evaluation of the Athlete Biological Passport (ABP).

"Since the results management procedures are still ongoing with the UCI and ADoP, the UCI will not comment further on this matter."

Bernard Sainz, the French sports medicine advisor, has been handed a two-year sentence – with one year suspended – for illegal practice of medicine, and the use of prohibited substances or methods in the context of a sporting event.

The 82-year-old will serve a year of his sentence under an electronic tag.

Sainz, who describes himself as a 'naturopath' and who has a long history of involvement in cycling, will also have to pay a €20,000 fine and is banned from engaging in any sporting activities. He was acquitted, however, of incitement to doping.

Sainz, who is known as 'Dr Mabuse', was placed under house arrest for a year in 2022 and has been barred from practising medicine after being found guilty of illegal practice of medicine and incitement to doping in 2013 and 2017.

"If someone wants to dope, they don't need me, they can find it all on the Internet," Sainz told the court during his trial in March, where he appealed against his 2022 sentence.

"I have a different vision [than that of] to traditional medicine, I treat the cause and not the symptoms."

His involvement in cycling dates back to the 1970s, though he has never held a medical degree or worked as a doctor in any official capacity. In the 1970s he advised several riders, including one rider whom he gave 'a second youth' to be able to win Paris-Nice. Since then, Sainz has been involved in advising other riders, most famously Frank Vandenbroucke and several riders from Cofidis and Française des Jeux in the 1990s.

More recently, Sainz has been the subject of several journalistic investigations by Le Monde, the television programme Cash Investigation, and a book called The Masked Cyclist.

According to L'Equipe, the investigations prompted further police investigations, including wiretapping, hidden camera surveillance and searches. The newspaper cites conversations between Sainz and several cyclists – including Peter Pouly and Pierre-Henri Lecuisinier – as major evidence in his recent trial and conviction.

L'Equipe reported that Sainz has told Pouly, "you're going to do Kenacort [corticosteroids]", while discussing "syringes" with Lecuisinier.

Sainz will be banned from any sporting activities as a result of his latest conviction. He is not expected to appeal the sentencing.

Gran Fondos: you’ve possibly raced one, and almost certainly heard of them. Big events, essentially timed sportives, that take place most weekends across Europe, and increasingly more so across the rest of the world. The biggest ones bring thousands of riders together, and can generate significant revenues for organisers. It’s little wonder that each year there are more of them, and that the UCI have jumped on the bandwagon – the sport’s world governing body now has a successful Gran Fondo World Series of 25-35 qualifier events that culminate in the UCI Gran Fondo World Championships.

Just one problem: doping. And a lot of it. Second problem: almost all of it goes undetected.

While professional cycling appears to have a grip on doping, with the number of positive tests among UCI-registered riders hovering around the 15-25 range for most of the past decade, doping cases at age-category amateur levels are becoming more and more prevalent.

Just this summer alone there has been a spate of athletes, many of them successful on the amateur scene, who have been charged with anti-doping violations and been provisionally suspended: French rider Stephane Cognet, who won the 2024 edition of the Fausto Coppi Gran Fondo, tested positive for the steroid Betamethasone; an Italian Masters champion returned a positive test for seven banned drugs, as did another Masters winner for EPO; and one other Italian rider who finished second at the Gran Fondo Sestriere Colle delle Finestre failed to provide an anti-doping sample.

But with the costs of tests north of €1,000, and no mandatory testing place other than at the aforementioned UCI Gran Fondo World Championships, few organisers have the desire to invest significant sums into their events to deter the cheaters. It has led to a situation where, according to one Gran Fondo organiser in Italy, “every weekend we just know that there are people on the start grid of these events who are doping. We just know it.”

What, if anything, can be done about it?

Reward often outweighs the risks

According to the website CycloWorld, which tracks mass participation events across the world, there were over 700 road bike Gran Fondos slated to take place in 2025. Of those, France (116), Italy (96), the United States (93), and Spain (82) lead the way. An estimated 444 of those events – or 62.5% – were in Europe, where world-famous events like the Marmotte, Maratona, Mallorca 312 and Quebrantahuesos are held.

Major race organisers have stepped into the landscape in recent years, too, with the Tour de France promoters ASO now running in excess of 30 events across the globe as part of their L’Étape Series. Gran Fondos linked to races like the Tour of Flanders and Strade Bianche are also big revenue drivers, and have been singled out by the sport’s powerbrokers as essential to the sport’s economy in future years.

In almost all Gran Fondo events, riders are given an overall time and an age group time, with riders finishing in the top three in each category presented on the podium afterwards. In most events, however, prize money is limited – if it even exists. There are some exceptions, though, such as the Levi’s Gran Fondo in the United States that had a total prize pot of $156,000 USD this year, and the Gran Fondo World Tour that had a payout of $36,000 USD until it stopped financially rewarding competitors in 2020. Most incredible is the Abu Dhabi Gran Fondo in the UAE that has a prize purse of AED 2 million, roughly €465,000 – that’s five times more than the prize money on offer at the men’s Paris-Roubaix.

'It's a wild west'

There appears to be an omertà in place when it comes to doping within Gran Fondo racing. Cyclingnews contacted multiple male and female athletes who have finished on the podium of UCI Gran Fondo World Series events in the past two years to discuss the presence of doping, but no one wanted to speak.

John Woodson has been writing about amateur doping for Gran Fondo Daily since 2019. He started to do so after he participated in the UCI Gran Fondo World Championships in 2018, where Spanish rider Raúl Portillo, who won two gold medals at the event, tested positive for doping. “It piqued my interest as to how prevalent it is, and the more I dug into it, the more I realised that amateur doping is this dirty little secret behind the scenes that has been happening all along but is barely communicated,” Woodson said. “You get into the age category events, Masters and Gran Fondos, and it’s a wild west of doping activity.”

Through his years of reporting and research, Woodson has established that three categories of performance-enhancing drugs are most common among amateur athletes: EPO and human growth hormones; testosterone; and contaminated supplements, such as dietary medication and off-label products. “Some of them are taking medication which they’re unaware might contain products that are on the prohibited list,” Woodson said. EPO and testosterone, however, is not a mistake – that is blatant and knowing cheating. “Cases of EPO have been increasing as it’s easily available – there’s definitely a trend of people gravitating towards that,” Woodson added.

Gran Fondos attract riders of all demographics, with age categories starting at 19-34, and then going up every five years. Sources who Cyclingnews spoke to all said that the majority of people who dope are aged between 40 and 60. In 2024, Woodson spoke with an Italian amateur rider who was banned for failing an anti-doping test. Asked how he obtained the prohibited products, the rider – who wished to remain anonymous – said: “I would prefer not to answer how I found the products. [But] not from people in the [cycling] group, even if at the time it was not difficult to find [products] in the group.” The rider’s words speak of a doping epidemic in the amateur ranks.

Cyclingnews contacted both the UCI and the International Testing Agency for this article to gauge how concerned they are about amateur doping and what they’re doing to combat the problem, but both organisations referred the request to the other. “We focus on international-level cyclists,” the ITA said.

It therefore falls to the national anti-doping federations (NADAs) to administer and process tests of amateur athletes in their own countries. But with NADAs being poorly funded – UK Anti-doping (UKAD) recorded a total expenditure of £11.7m in 2023-24 – and the priority being on testing professional athletes, most amateur riders know that the chances of evading detection for doping are high. “It’s like whack-a-mole,” Woodson said. “Think about how many amateur events there are, and each one has thousands of riders. It’s simply impossible for NADAs to get around and test even every winner of each category.”

Allegations of technological fraud – or motor doping – have also surfaced in the past decade. In 2022, the winner of the Maratona, Stefano Stagni, was accused of having a concealed motor, something he denied. But Italian newspaper Corriera Della Sera went in hard. “Stagni had a motor in his bike and cheated… the climbing times on the great Dolomite passes are surreal,” they wrote. Stagni refuted the accusation.

One person with extensive insider knowledge of motor doping told Cyclingnews: “It’s common, it’s everywhere. There is a lot of money in Gran Fondo racing, and people are happy to pay €5,000 to €10,000 for a motor or some assistance. The producers have a lot of clients riding these events.”

The level at some of these Gran Fondo events is high – it’s not uncommon for the average speed of the winners to be similar to what would be expected in WorldTour racing. The top 10% are all fit athletes, many of whom have previously competed in Continental or even professional teams. Knowing that the standard is high is one incentive to dope for some.

“Riders treat each Gran Fondo like a World Championships – they’re all out to compete,” Woodson said. “For whatever reason, they have this overarching need to win, even if there is no money involved. It’s not like a pro whose career depends on results – it’s purely for their ego. And in Italy especially, you’re presented on the podium, with podium girls hugging you, flowers, and then your picture is in the paper the next day. You’d think it was a World Tour-level race.”

Separating competitiveness from cheating

Marco Pavarini is the organiser of the L’Étape Parma Gran Fondo, which takes place in the Emilia-Romagna region of Italy in May. He concurs with Woodson. “I was hopeful that after Covid, people’s competitiveness would have decreased, and for a few years this did happen, but now the level of competitiveness among amateurs is very, very high," Pavarini said. “And this is a problem for us because we know there are a lot of athletes pushing their limits, doping, using too many supplements.” Pavarini and his team trialled a new approach at the 2025 event to encourage less aggressive racing. “We didn’t have a starting grid based on a rider’s previous ranking, and we only took times on the climbs, not for the whole course,” he said.

Italy has one of the largest numbers of confirmed cases of amateur doping, but that is largely because it’s one of the few countries that takes the issue seriously. Indeed, wrote the Movement for Credible Cycling in September 2024, “Italy’s standing deserves particular attention… its amateur circuit raises questions since, according to the Italian Federation, more than 700 people (amateur and professional athletes, club officials) are serving [doping - ed] suspensions, from Gran Fondos to professional UCI events and local road races.”

In a bid to clamp down on dopers and to deter them, the Federazione Ciclistica Italiana – or the Italian Cycling Federation – have instructed all Gran Fondos that want support from them that they have to insert a clause in the subscription that states any rider who is caught doping within six months of the event could be fined up to €50,000 for the damage done to the brand. Most Italian events now test up to 10 athletes on event day.

“We need to have these rules and penalties to give the message clearly that doping is a big problem and isn’t tolerated,” Pavarini said. “You cannot delete the past if your event is associated with doping. And events lose sponsors because companies don’t want to be linked with these kinds of athletes.”

Pavarini believes – and certainly hopes – that the deterrent is working. “You agree to the rule when you sign up, and if there’s evidence that you doped, it is simple: we write you a legal letter and ask you to pay this amount for the damage you have done to our brand awareness. Afterwards, there is a judge who makes the final decision.”

Cyclingnews reached out to the Federazione Ciclistica Italiana to confirm if any Gran Fondos have ever taken action against riders suspended for doping, but did not receive a response in time for publication.

Fighting a battle that's already lost?

Deterrence might not be enough, however. And neither is the reality of so little prize money being up for grabs. The simple truth is that there are a lot of highly competitive amateur cyclists who are prepared to go to extremes to reach their own personal goals. They are not ashamed to dope and show no remorse if caught. When they also know that most NADAs won’t even bother sending anti-doping testers to events, many understandably presume that they’ll never get caught.

The unidentified rider whom Woodson interviewed spoke about how “I want to race again because I am a masochist. I love competing.” And one race organiser told Cyclingnews that even banned athletes find a way around the rules. “They participate in races with other federations, or even turn up with their own electronic chip. They don’t want to stop racing.”

Unless significant funds are invested into stopping doping in amateur races – and the UCI nor national governing bodies, with the exception of Italy’s, have shown any desire to do so – then the omertà will persist: doping in amateur cycling will remain an unspoken epidemic.

The UCI Anti-Doping Tribunal has handed now-retired cyclist Franck Bonnamour a four-year ban due to an 'unexplained abnormality' in his Athlete Biological Passport dating back to 2022.

The UCI confirmed the decision in a press release issued on Thursday, which stated that the suspension would be backdated to begin February 5, 2024, and will remain enforced until February 4, 2028.

"The Tribunal found that Franck Bonnamour had committed an Anti-Doping Rule Violation (ADRV) for use of a prohibited substance or a prohibited method due to an unexplained abnormality in his Athlete Biological Passport (*) in 2022. As a consequence, the Tribunal has imposed a four-year period of ineligibility on the rider," the statement read.

The UCI confirmed that Bonnamour's athlete's biological passport, which can be used to detect signs of doping over time, showed abnormal readings in 2022. Bonnamour completed the Tour de France in that year while racing for B&B Hotels-KTM.

However, it was earlier reported that Bonnamour's case was based on a test taken during the penultimate stage of the 2022 Tour de France – when Bonnamour is claimed to have been suffering COVID-19 symptoms and dehydration – and an out-of-competition test from October 2018.

The sport governing body first announced his provisional suspension in February 2024, while he was in his second year of a contract with Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale, and no specifics were given on what aspect of the biological passport in which his values deviated from the norm.

Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale fired Bonnamour in late March 2024, citing the case that dated to "checks carried out before his arrival in the team on January 1, 2023."

In the meantime, Bonnamour continued to fight his case, insisting that he was innocent of the charges. However, he later announced his retirement during the investigation and stated that he ended his fight against the ban, citing financial strain.

"It's too costly in financial terms, so I'm stopping. We had to start proceedings before the UCI tribunal before going to the Court of Arbitration for Sport," Bonnamour told Ouest-Francein November of 2024.

"If we had been successful, the UCI would have appealed, which would have pushed back the deadline by a year and a half, increasing the costs. I can't afford to lose everything, and that's holding me back financially."

Lizzy Banks has made an emotional call for change in the way contamination cases are managed and judged by anti-doping authorities after losing a two-year battle to clear her name.

The 34-year-old former British rider, who raced for EF Education and won two stages of the Giro d'Italia Women, tested positive for traces of the diuretic Chlortalidone in July 2023. She was cleared by the UK Anti-Doping Agency (UKAD) after it was accepted that the substance entered her system through contamination, but the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) appealed her case to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) and eventually won.

Banks had to fight for a back-dated two-year suspension, which ended on 22 June 2025.

She has spent the last few weeks writing a 13,000-word update on her situation, which was published on Tuesday. Banks first revealed details of her then-on-going case in May 2024 and said the ordeal had left her with suicidal thoughts. Now she feels "empty", but called for change in the way contamination cases are judged.

"I desperately want and need to move on from this now, to put this torrid chapter to bed, forever. To try to rebuild my health and career, to be able to work again and to rediscover the person I used to be before this process sucked the life and happiness from me," Banks wrote after revealing every detail of her case and the way WADA delayed the whole process.

"I’m not sure yet whether I regret having carried on the fight. I am so empty right now that I barely know what I feel anymore. But this is what they do to people like me. They crush us. They expect that we will just walk away and they will never have any consequences. But there must be consequences."

Banks suggested UKAD, British Cycling and the French, German and US anti-doping agencies agree with her and called out for influential bodies and authorities to help make the change happen.

"I implore these bodies to stand with me that rules surrounding contamination must change. The rules and the system are simply not good enough and as it stands are not fit for purpose. Unless we fight for it, nothing will ever change. I have done my bit and now it is your turn."

Banks was able to convince UKAD that her positive test was likely caused by a contaminated tablet she took for asthma. She underwent a hair test that showed no trace of chlortalidone before and after her positive sample. However, WADA appealed the UKAD verdict, despite growing concerns about contamination cases.

The CAS panel eventually ruled that Banks had ultimately failed to prove the source of the contamination and so banned her for two years.

“In no way did WADA make light of Ms. Banks’ case," a WADA spokesperson told Cycling Weekly when asked for a reaction.

"WADA diligently prosecuted the appeal based on the facts and in compliance with the rules, with the assistance of external counsel, and was ultimately successful before the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS).

“WADA appealed this case to CAS because it felt that the terms of the World Anti-Doping Code had not been implemented appropriately at first instance.”

"Speaking generally, the principle of strict liability is crucially important to uphold fairness in sport. Without it the anti-doping system would be inoperative. As the CAS panel observed in its final decision, there is a duty to apply the rules, which were enacted to safeguard the important principle of ensuring a level playing field and fairness to all athletes.”

Banks' 13,000-word post can be read in full on her website.

Former Tour de France champion Chris Froome (Israel–Premier Tech) has said his only source of information regarding the International Testing Association (ITA) enquiry into Team Sky and Team Ineos Grenadiers soigneur David Rozman has been via media reports.

Speaking publicly about the case for the first time at a race since news broke about the enquiry, when asked for his thoughts about it, Froome told journalists before the Tour de Pologne, "I've only seen what's been in the media, I only know as much as you guys."

At the beginning of the Tour de France, Rozman was linked to convicted doping doctor Mark Schmidt through texts from 2012 that were revealed in a 2020 court case surrounding the Operation Aderlass drugs probe.

The Slovenian soigneur, who has been with Team Sky and then Team Ineos Grenadiers since 2011, was then called to attend a fresh interview with the International Testing Association (ITA), and left the Tour mid-race.

Team Ineos Grenadiers said in a statement at the time they had received "no evidence from any relevant authority", and the court case texts remain the only thing linking Rozman to the Aderlass case at present.

Froome joined Team Sky in 2010, with his run of Grand Tour victories beginning at the 2011 Vuelta a España and continuing through four Tour de France races from 2013 to 2017. His last Grand Tour win was the Giro d'Italia in 2018.

In his fleeting encounter with journalists at the foot of the sign-on podium before stage 1 of the Tour de Pologne in Wrocław, Froome also denied reports that he had removed any images of himself with David Rozman from his social accounts after the story broke.

"That's not true. Go on my social media. Go on my social media, they're all there," he insisted.

Froome confirmed he had not spoken to Rozman since the case emerged, and then ended the interview with a perfunctory 'Cheers, guys' before riding away.

Before being asked about Rozman, Froome also answered questions from Polish television regarding his participation in Pologne, a race in which he last took part in 2011, shortly before winning the Vuelta a España, his first ever Grand Tour.

This year, Froome most recently took part in the Sibiu Tour, where he played a key role in helping Matthew Riccitello (Israel–Premier Tech) to victory in the five-day race, and he says he hopes to play a similar role for his teammates in the week-long Tour of Pologne.

"It's an important race, it's been almost 15 years since I was last here, but I'm looking forward to this week," Froome told Polish TV.

"This is potentially my last season racing, so my motivation is high and I want to try and do the best I can this week.

"We've got some good opportunities both with sprinters and guys for the breakaways with my teammates.

"So I'm here very much in a supportive role to help them, guide them and use my experience to read the race."

Ineos Grenadiers soigneur David Rozman, who has recently been linked to the doctor at the centre of the Operation Aderlass doping case, spent a brief period working at Manchester United football club in 2024, according to reports in The Guardian and The Times.

At the beginning of the Tour de France, Rozman was linked to convicted doping doctor Mark Schmidt through texts from 2012 that were revealed in a 2020 court case surrounding Operation Aderlass.

The Slovenian soigneur, who has been with Team Sky and then Ineos since 2011, was then called to attend a fresh interview with the International Testing Association (ITA), and left the Tour mid-race.

Ineos said in a statement at the time they had received "no evidence from any relevant authority", and the court case texts remain the only thing linking Rozman to the Aderlass case at present.

However, the story is rumbling on, and on Thursday, The Guardian and The Times reported that Rozman spent a month working at Manchester United last year, while Ineos director of sport Dave Brailsford was working closely with the club.

The two papers say that sources at the club have confirmed that Rozman spent four weeks working with the team's soft tissue therapists, as part of a programme that saw staff members from Ineos' various sports teams spend time working in a different sport.

The Guardian refers to the scheme as a "knowledge exchange", meaning Rozman was likely at United on a placement basis, rather than having any formal or employment relationship with the club.

It is not clear exactly when in 2024 the placement happened, though it pre-dates the first media allegations of a link between Rozman and the Operation Aderlass court case, and pre-dates United having any knowledge of any link, according to The Times.

Dave Brailsford, who helped found Team Sky, worked as the team's principal for several years and was named director of sport at Ineos in 2021, which latterly saw him become involved with operations at Manchester United following Ineos' investment in the club in 2021.

In June, it was revealed that Brailsford would be taking a step back from the football team, and in July, he joined Ineos Grenadiers at the Tour de France as he returned to a more involved role in the cycling arm of Ineos Sport.

As team principal, when the alleged texts between Rozman and Schmidt were sent – and, it is now suggested, a senior figure at Manchester United when Rozman spent time there – Brailsford has been a subject of questioning by the press, but has so far declined to speak publicly on the matter, with Ineos instead responding via team statements.

Cyclingnews has contacted Ineos Grenadiers for comment regarding David Rozman's time at Manchester United.

The science of carbohydrate intake has been a fascinating and fast-paced topic over recent years, and it's showing no signs of slowing down. A new test, developed by WorldTour nutritionists and seen in action by Cyclingnews, looks set to overhaul our understanding of how to fuel athletic performance.

It allows individuals to quantify their own rate of 'exogenous carbohydrate oxidation', or more simply, the amount of carbohydrates consumed during exercise that the body sends to the working muscles, and it is set to be made available to the general public.

The test comes about in response to fast-rising carbohydrate intake rates during exercise, and the need to understand where the limit lies. Carbohydrates are essential for performance, and consuming more is intrinsically tied to improved performance, but there's a tipping point. Consume so many that your body can't oxidise them, and you risk symptoms of GI distress such as stomach pain and diarrhoea.

The background

In recent years, pro cyclists have been pushing their carb intake higher and higher, far above the ceiling that the literature suggests our bodies can handle.

In the late '90s, research said our bodies could transport 60 grams of carbohydrates per hour, as this was the maximum amount of glucose the relevant transporter, known as SGLT1, could take out of our small intestine before it became saturated.

A paper by well known nutritionist, Dr Asker Jeukendrup in 2000 floated the idea that multiple transportable carbohydrates might increase this, and scientists later realised that our body could concurrently transport fructose via a different transporter, known as GLUT5, at a rate of around 30 grams per hour, and for a while this total of 90 grams per hour, using the 2:1 ratio of glucose and fructose, was the accepted 'ceiling' of what to eat when exercising.

More recently again, scientists – again, with Jeukendrup at the fore – trialled higher doses of fructose, and a new ratio of 1:0.8 was touted as optimal, equating to a total intake of 108 grams per hour, still with 60g from glucose, although this was loosely applied, and many just moved to around 110-120g per hour.

Then the notion of 'training your gut' became known, and nowadays the majority of the WorldTour peloton is taking in 120 grams per hour, and it's not uncommon to hear of stories of athletes taking on 50% more again.

Former Ineos Grenadiers rider and Ironman athlete, Cameron Wurf, recently confirmed to Cyclingnews that he took on over 200g per hour during the bike leg of a recent triathlon. And the biggest single-day intake I've seen to date was 2025 Unbound Gravel winner, Cameron Jones, who took on board 190 grams per hour for over nine hours straight.

The test

The test is non-invasive, and after a 48-hour period of slight dietary restriction, simply involves cycling on a smart trainer at a low zone two power for 90 minutes, while consuming a specially concocted formula of carbohydrates at 15-minute intervals.

These carbs look just like your typical drink mix sachet, but they're formulated using something called a carbon-13 isotope.

Almost 99% of all carbon on Earth is carbon-12, made up of six protons and six neutrons, whereas carbon-13 makes up just over 1% of carbon, and is named as such because it has six protons and seven neutrons.

Once these carbohydrates in the drink mix have been consumed, oxidised and utilised, the carbon-13 isotope is detectable in the carbon dioxide in your breath, which allows the testers to see what portion of the drink mix contributed to the effort.

At the end of the 90 minutes, with all the carbon-13 concoction consumed, samples of your breath are taken and shipped off to a lab to be analysed.

The test has long been used in a research setting in the lab, but Jamie Pugh, a Senior Lecturer in Sports Physiology and Metabolism at Liverpool John Moores University, has developed it into an at-home kit, allowing pro teams and amateur cyclists access to perform the test themselves.

His new company, ExoAnalytics Data, will soon make the testing kit available to the public, but at the time of writing has already sold 24 testing kits to one pro team - who must remain unnamed - and is in "final discussions" with a couple of others.

Pugh, alongside Dr Sam Impey, the former Team GB and Jayco Alula nutritionist who helps out alongside his full-time role at cycling nutrition app Hexis, has also been to Andorra, testing two athletes from the unnamed team in person, resulting in some research-defyingly high oxidation rates.

These results, which were confirmed to Cyclingnews by Impey, show WorldTour-level cyclists successfully oxidising more than 180 grams per hour.

For comparison, having been offered the chance to undergo the test myself, my result was 89g per hour, while Impey himself had a result of 69g per hour. Prior to the test, we had both been able to consume 120g per hour without discomfort.

Why is this key?

This test and the remarkable results it has already found could change how pro and amateur athletes approach fuelling athletic performance.

From a research level it has proven that oxidising 180g per hour is possible, but as yet we don't know if that's a genetic fluke, a result of long-term adaptation, or something else entirely. If this test gets taken up by pro and amateur cyclists over the coming years, then the data pool for individualised oxidation rates will grow to the point where trends may become noticeable.

Secondly, individuals could also be tested multiple times over the course of a season, perhaps coinciding with a gut training protocol, to see whether the oxidation rate is trainable.

"What we've always said is, if you feed more, does that reduce the GI symptoms?" Impey explained. "That's kind of been our barometer of being better at absorbing and oxidising it. [However,] what I think will be really interesting is if actually, we feed more and it only moves [the test result] a little bit, we realise that what we're actually training is our body's ability to tolerate discomfort in the gut."

Thirdly, at both an amateur and professional level, even though the test won't be cheap – I'm told somewhere in the region of £400 per test – this could enable a significant shift in optimising an individual's fuelling plan for a race.

Take Impey's result as an example. He was comfortable consuming 120g per hour, but was only actually oxidising 69g of that. This meant a 51-gram surplus each hour, which wasn't actively contributing to the task at hand.

First and foremost, that's both a waste of money and a lot of extra energy gels or bars to carry on long races.

But when you also consider it in the wider picture of day-to-day training, it's a calorie intake that could be cut down or at least improved from a nourishment standpoint.

For an athlete fuelling their training but trying to nourish and recover appropriately while maintaining a caloric balance, such a surplus of pure sugar in each training session is unnecessary.

And from an amateur's standpoint, perhaps a calorie intake that could simply be cut from the diet altogether. Or, as Impey succinctly puts it: "those are the calories I can't afford to have."

Where do they go?

According to Impey, "there's no easy answer."

"There are a couple of things that can happen to it. It could just not be absorbed, staying in your gut, and that's generally where people would find stomach issues or GI discomfort.

"It could get absorbed into your body and stored as glycogen. Or, while unlikely, it could potentially be stored as fat, or it can either just sit in different pools of the body for a little while, so it might be taken up into your liver and go through some other processes."

Interestingly, Impey caveats all this by adding that we're not 100% efficient, more like 80%, and so despite knowing he can only oxidise 69g per hour, his personal intake will now sit at around 85g, while my recommended intake is 110g, despite only oxidising 89.

This leads me on to the first of many questions that remain unanswered.

The future

We've already touched on training your gut, and the question of whether we're simply just training our gut's ability to tolerate discomfort, but coincidentally, my result is pretty much exactly what I've spent the past 12 months training at. I fuel at around 110g per hour, and with the 80% efficiency taken into account, I couldn't have oxidised any more.

It could be a pure fluke, or it could be indicative of my body having adapted to the fuel it was receiving; it's too soon to say for sure. Perhaps I ought to spend the next 12 months fuelling at 180g per hour, and test again to see what happens.

"The magnitude of change we honestly don't know yet," Impey said when asked how trainable it might be. "You're operating at the edge of our research there, so there's no definitive number on how that will play out just yet. We're hoping we have the first sets of data that look at, if you do a strategic period of high carb fueling, or use of certain probiotics, or changing the way that you fuel on bike, etc, how does that actually influence your body's ability to burn exogenous sources."

Another question includes whether the optimal glucose-fructose ratio remains at a fixed level, or whether this too is individual. With access to regular tests and the commitment to trial different mixes, the brand and its WorldTour team partnership(s) could be the key to unlocking this.

Other questions include whether there's a genetic difference between the oxidation capacity of pro athletes versus amateurs, and whether it's somehow tied to other 'good genes' that pro athletes are fortunate enough to possess.

One question that does have an answer, though, is whether the oxidation rate is linked to athlete size. While protein intake is often quoted in grams per kilo of bodyweight, carbohydrate recommendations were largely set as a fixed limit for all. But a 2025 paper by Dr Javier Gonzalez at Bath University found "large positive correlations" between body weight and oxidation rates.

A soigneur for Ineos Grenadiers has left the Tour de France a week after being named in an alleged connection with Erfurt-based German physician Mark Schmidt, who was at the centre of the Operation Aderlass doping investigation in 2019.

Reports first aired in a documentary by ARD , before the Slovenian soigneur for Ineos, David Rozman, was named in subsequent stories by the Irish Independent and Sunday Times as having sent text messages to Schmidt.

"Following recent media allegations, David has now received a request from the ITA to attend an interview," the Ineos Grenadiers said in a statement released on Thursday.

"Accordingly, he has stepped back from race duties and has left the Tour [de France].

"To date, the team has received no evidence from any relevant authority. In response to the team’s request for information, the ITA has advised the team that it cannot share any further information due to legal and confidentiality restrictions.

"Both David and the Team will of course cooperate with the ITA and any other authority.

"The team reiterates its zero-tolerance policy and is unable to comment further at this time."

The Operation Aderlass investigation emerged in February of 2019, when the Austrian Federal Criminal Police Office raided the hotels of skiers at the Nordic World Ski Championships, leading to the arrest of nine individuals.

When investigators dug deeper, they found a clinic in Erfurt with illegal performance-enhancing substances, equipment for transfusions and a centrifuge. At the centre of the inquiry was Schmidt, who was a team doctor for the Gerolsteiner and Milram teams in the early 2000s.

The inquiry led to charges against 50 individuals from nine countries, and suspensions for riders such as Georg Preidler, Stefan Denifl, Kristijan Koren, Kristijan Durasek, Borut Bozic, Alessandro Petacchi, Pirmin Lang, Björn Thurau and mountain biker Christina Kollman-Forstner.

Petacchi, who had already retired, was handed a retroactive ban based on testimony from his former teammate Danilo Hondo, who alleged that he used Schmidt to receive blood transfusions along with Petacchi in the same room in 2012, accusations that Petacchi denied.

It was around the same time that Rozman, a staff member for Team Sky, was alleged to have exchanged text messages with Schmidt, which the ARD journalists found suspicious.

When the reports of Rozman's connections to Schmidt surfaced at the Tour de France last week, Ineos Grenadiers stated they had not been informed of any allegations "by an appropriate authority".

On Thursday, the team reiterated the sentiment in a statement to the media and added that they have not been asked to participate in any inquiry.

However, the team confirmed that Rozman was contacted in April "informally" by the International Testing Agency, the independent anti-doping authority that performs testing and intelligence-led investigations for cycling at the behest of the UCI.

"David immediately notified the Team of his meeting with the ITA and his recollection of the contents of the meeting," the team statement read. "Although the ITA assured David at the time that he was not under investigation, Ineos promptly commissioned a thorough review by an external law firm.

"The Team has acted responsibly and with due process, taking the allegations seriously whilst acknowledging that David is a long-standing, dedicated member of the Team. The Team continues to assess the circumstances and any relevant developments, and has formally requested any relevant information from the ITA."

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Shortly after the biggest win of his career on stage 14 of the Tour de France, Thymen Arensman faced questions related to reports of an Ineos Grenadiers staff member's alleged links to a historic doping ring that have swirled in the German, British and Irish media during the race.

Reports, first aired in a documentary by ARD and then expanded upon by The Irish Independent and The Sunday Times, allege that a member of Ineos Grenadiers staff – who appears to be still employed by the team – was named in a court case surrounding Operation Aderlass.

The Irish Independent first reported that the trial, held in 2020, revealed text messages between the Ineos Grenadiers – then Team Sky – staff member and Mark Schmidt, the doctor who admitted to helping riders to dope, in 2012.

Team Sky won the Tour de France in 2012 with Bradley Wiggins; however, it is not suggested that Wiggins, or any other Team Sky rider, had knowledge of or was involved in the alleged activities of the staff member.

Since these reports have emerged, various publications at the Tour de France have attempted to ask Ineos management for comment. On Thursday, the team released a statement:

"INEOS Grenadiers Cycling Team is aware of recent media allegations relating to the 2012 season and a member of its staff," it read.

"These allegations have not to date been presented to the team by any appropriate authority, however the team has made a formal request to the International Testing Agency (ITA) to request any information it considers relevant. The team reiterates its policy of zero tolerance to any breach of the applicable WADA codes, historic or current."

However, senior members of staff, including the returning Dave Brailsford, have declined to speak directly to the media at all.

Various Ineos Grenadiers riders have been speaking to the press throughout the race, but after Arensman won the stage to Superbagnères-Luchon on Friday, he faced direct questions about the recent reports.

Initially, a request was made that the press conference questions be solely race-related, but when Arensman did arrive for his press conference – after a considerable delay – Julien Prétot of Reuters and Chris Marshall-Bell of Cycling Weekly both asked questions on the topic. This was after an ASO employee had checked the accreditations and noted the publications of the journalists who expressed a desire to ask about the issue. The press conference lasted less than four minutes, with just four questions asked.

"I have no idea about this," Arensman said when asked if the staff member in question was at the Tour.

"You'd have to ask the management to be honest. I'm just focused on my job and doing my own thing, so I don't really know, to be honest. You'd have to ask about the management, they are there for it."

He was then asked if he felt it was fair that he was facing these questions straight after his stage win, whilst Ineos management did not respond to such questions.

"I don't know. If you're trying to ask the management, then it's – I don't know – weird that they don't really answer you," he said. "But like I said, I'm just focused on my job, and I just won the biggest thing in my career, so I'm trying to enjoy that."

Arensman's answers did not reveal any new information on the topic at hand, but ensured that the topic will roll on as journalists seek clear answers from Ineos Grenadiers.

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The UCI has suspended Antwan Tolhoek for four years after the former Lidl-Trek and Jumbo-Visma rider tested positive for anabolic androgenic steroids in November 2023.

News of the South African's positive test was announced last February, after he had signed for the Portuguese Continental team Sabgal-Anicolor. He had previously raced for Jumbo-Visma from 2017 to 2021 before racing for Lidl-Trek in 2022 and 2023.

Former speed skater Tolhoek's positive sample was returned in an out-of-competition test on November 27, 2023. He was subsequently provisionally suspended by the UCI and fired by Sabgal-Anicolor.

On Wednesday, the UCI announced that the 31-year-old will serve a four-year ban, running from February 7, 2024, to February 6, 2028.

"The Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI) announces that the UCI Anti-Doping Tribunal has rendered a decision against Dutch rider Antwan Tolhoek," the UCI announced.

"The Tribunal found the rider guilty of an anti-doping rule violation (presence of Anabolic Androgenic Steroids) and imposed a four-year period of ineligibility on the rider.

"In accordance with the World Anti-Doping Code and the UCI Anti-Doping Rules, the period of ineligibility started on 7 February 2024 and will remain in force until 6 February 2028."

The UCI stated that Tolhoek may appeal the decision to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) within a month.

"In line with the Procedural Rules of the Tribunal, the decision will be published on the UCI website. This decision may be appealed before the CAS within one month.

"The UCI will not comment further on the matter."

Tolhoek turned pro with Roompot in 2016, having only taken up road racing two years earlier. He scored a single victory during his career, beating Egan Bernal to win stage 6 of the 2019 Tour de Suisse.

In 2017, he was suspended for two months by Jumbo-Visma after he and two teammates, Pascal Eenkhoorn and Juan José Lobato, were found to have taken sleeping medication outside the team's supervision while at training camp.

Cyclingnews has reached out to Tolhoek's former team, Lidl-Trek, for comment on the matter.

The UCI rolled out its plan to detect and deter doping and technological fraud during the 2025 Tour de France, revealing that its independent testing organisation, the International Testing Agency (ITA) will be combining "data-driven" methods with its anti-doping controls to ensure a level playing field.

The UCI outsourced its doping controls to the ITA starting in 2021, with some of the federation's Cycling Anti-Doping Foundation employees moving across to a dedicated cycling unit. The ITA said it doubled the resources devoted to cycling last year, using "enhanced investigative powers" to lead data-driven investigations.

For the Tour de France, the ITA has increased its traditional urine and blood doping controls and analysis to detect performance-enhancing drugs directly. They will also be emphasizing longitudinal analysis (changes over time) by expanding the blood biological passport to include steroid and hormone levels to detect markers of abuse of difficult-to-detect substances such as human Growth Hormone (hGH).

The ITA is also adding longitudinal analysis of power data from the men's pro peloton as a way to "guide targeted testing and advanced laboratory analysis, prioritise investigations and refine its long-term sample storage".

During the Tour de France, ITA expects to collect upwards of 600 urine and blood samples, with 350 coming as out-of-competition tests before the Grand Depart in Lille on Saturday. They will also use data and intelligence to select samples to be retained for long-term storage and re-analysis during the allowed 10-year window. The ITA re-analysed 490 samples collected in 2015 and all came back negative.

Doping controls during the three-week Tour de France will automatically include the yellow jersey wearer and stage winner each day, but will also include pre-race controls and random testing outside of the usual post-stage period.

"The Tour de France is not only one of the most iconic events in sport, it is also a key moment for protecting the integrity of cycling," ITA Director General Benjamin Cohen said.

"Our approach in 2025 reflects a continued commitment to intelligent, data-driven anti-doping strategies grounded in science, collaboration and continuous improvement.

"By combining targeted testing with advanced analytical tools such as the endocrine module, long-term sample storage and performance monitoring initiatives, we aim to ensure that this prestigious race is contested on a level playing field. We are proud to lead these efforts on behalf of the UCI and in close coordination with all our trusted partners."

Drugs aren't the only concern when it comes to rooting out cheaters. The UCI will increase its targeted checks for technological fraud by 17% compared to the 192 X-ray checks performed at the 2024 Tour de France, carrying out pre-stage checks using magnetic tablets and other methods.

The UCI will also employ their Video Commissaire and in-race officials to look for "anything that arouses suspicion" to target further checks. They are also continuing their "Rewards Programme" which offers "incentives" for "actionable information and intelligence on technological fraud".

UCI Director General Amina Lanaya said: "The UCI once again has a comprehensive programme in place to fight against technological fraud at the Tour de France. It is important that everyone can be sure that the athletes' performances are due to their personal physical performance – not motors. Our responsibility is to stay ahead of any threat to the fairness of competition, and we continue to invest in robust detection systems and intelligence frameworks to ensure all riders and teams compete on equal terms."

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Greek track sprinter Christos Volikákis has been banned from racing for three years after he tested positive for Ligandrol (LGD-4033), the UCI has announced.

The 37-year-old was provisionally suspended last March following re-analysis of doping controls taken at the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

Volikákis raced in the men's keirin in Rio, finishing 12th and last in the finals as Jason Kenny (Great Britain) took home gold ahead of Matthijs Büchli (Netherlands) and Azizulhasni Awang (Malaysia).

His positive sample was collected on the same day of the race, August 16, 2016, and was held in storage under WADA rules, which allow for samples to be retested using newly developed methods.

The retest of Volikákis' sample showed the presence of Ligandol, an experimental drug which falls under the Selective Androgen Receptor Modulators (SARMs) class of drugs, providing the same benefits as anabolic steroids without the side effects on reproductive organs.

"The Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI) announces that the Greek rider Christos Volikákis has been sanctioned with a period of ineligibility of three years following an Anti-Doping Rule Violation (ADRV) for the presence of Selective Androgen Receptor Modulators (SARMs) of LGD-4033 metabolite," the UCI announced on Friday.

"In accordance with the World Anti-Doping Code (the Code) and the UCI Anti-Doping Regulations (UCI ADR), the period of ineligibility started on 15 March 2024 and is effective until 14 March 2027."

Volikákis had previously competed at the 2008 and 2012 Olympic Games, but didn't medal in either. He was knocked out in the repechage rounds in Beijing 2008, and finished ninth in the final in London 2012. He raced the omnium at the 2020 Olympic Games in Tokyo, finishing bottom of the standings.

He found more success elsewhere in his career, however, winning 17 national titles across various track disciplines between 2004 and 2011.

In 2008, he won a kierin bronze at the Track World Championships in Manchester, and he also picked up three silver and one bronze medal in various disciplines at the Track European Championships between 2011 and 2019.

The UCI has referred the matter of Dries De Bondt (Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale) reportedly 'deliberately' helping non-teammate Richard Carapaz (EF Education-EasyPost) at the Giro d'Italia to its Ethics Commission.

De Bondt's actions will be investigated further by the independent body, after the UCI deemed that the Belgian's actions on stage 20 called "into question the integrity of competition", after he told media that he pulled on the front for the GC challenger with an eye on securing employment for 2026.

"Following a preliminary investigation into comments made at the end of the 20th stage of the Giro d'Italia (31 May) by the Belgian Dries De Bondt, rider for UCI WorldTeam Decathlon-AG2R La Mondiale, the Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI) has deemed that they were clearly of a nature to call into question the integrity of the competition," read a UCI statement on Friday.

"According to his comments, reported by several media, Dries De Bondt deliberately helped a rider from the EF Education-Easy Post team following a suggestion from one of that team's Sport Directors that this could help the rider secure a contract offer for next season."

De Bondt confirmed the reason for his long pull on the front over the Colle delle Finestre to WielerFlits, leaving no ambiguity in his desire to express his availability on the market for next season.

"I still haven't received clarity from my team whether I will be allowed to stay in 2026. So, it seemed like a good idea to market myself during the Giro," De Bondt told WielerFlits, explaining that he told fellow Belgian, EF Education-EasyPost coach Ken Vanmarcke, during the race, "If you're looking for riders for 2026, I'm still on the market."

Vanmarcke then reportedly asked whether the 33-year-old was going to try and get into the day's break, telling De Bondt, "If you're in there and you can play a role somewhere that's important in the final result, something serious can come from that."

"That's what inspired me to do what I did for Carapaz," said De Bondt, with his comments now landing him in hot water with the sport's governing body.

"On this basis, the UCI has decided to refer the matter to its Ethics Commission for a ruling on the facts and to consider possible sanctions against the rider and/or the Sport Director if their behaviour is found to be in breach of the UCI Code of Ethics, in particular Articles 8.1 and 2 of Annex 2," said the UCI, referring to the 'Manipulation of cycling events' section of the Code.

"No further comment will be made until the conclusion of the proceedings."

The UCI has revealed details of their latest techniques and strategy to detect and deter mechanical doping in cycling, with bikes now checked using a handheld backscatter x-ray device that can see what is hidden inside frames, wheels and any part of a bike.

Cyclingnews and a select group of other media were allowed into the protected anti-doping and technological fraud compound at the finish of stage 18 of the Giro d'Italia in Cesano Moderno to see how the UCI carry out their checks.  

The UCI appointed former US Homeland Security Investigator Nick Raudenski a year ago to lead the strategy for the fight against technological fraud. It was seen as a bold appointment by UCI president Davd Lappartient and perhaps a sign of the need to ensure hidden motors are not used to falsify results. Lappartient has admitted that a high-profile mechanical doping case would "destroy the sport."

Raudenski is using his experience investigating match-fixing and corruption for FIFA and UEFA, and more recent work as Head of Intelligence & Investigations at the anti-doping International Testing Agency, to combine bike checks with intelligence and whistleblowing.

"We're in a technological arms race," Raudenski admitted to Cyclingnews in an interview after the backscatter x-ray device presentation.  

"Components are getting lighter and smaller and so easier to conceal and harder to detect. We're up against the challenge of trying to stay out in front or at least not so far behind in the cat and mouse game of what is the new way that people could potentially try to cheat."  

It is not only equipment. Raudenski, like many people, is often suspicious of riders' performances in certain races. It sparks the natural investigator in him.    

"It's about looking at the overall picture, watching how performances happen, watching biomechanical behaviour, watching how riders are acting and how they react to us when we do a bike check," he explained.

"Most are actually happy and thank us because they want to be sure they're not riding against somebody that is trying to cheat."

Cyclocross rider Femke Van den Driessche remains the only athlete ever to be caught and sanctioned for motor doping back in 2016.

British journalist Chris Marshall Bell has investigated mechanical doping a length for his Ghost in the Machine podcast and also written about motor doping for Cyclingnews on the subject. There are suspicions that hidden motors and even magnetic devices in wheels may have been used in major professional races, as far back as 1999, but no cases have ever been irrefutably proven or a disciplinary process opened.

"I and my team challenge ourselves to ask where we are at now and why we aren't finding anything," Raudenski said.

"We question if our tools are up to date, is the process right, is there new technology out there or new components that we are not seeing. It's a continued evolution to make our test and technology better. To make sure we're not missing something."

Inside the UCI  technological fraud tent

The UCI has bike inspector technicians and the backscatter x-ray device at a number of major cycling and mountain bike races, to check bikes and create a strong sense of deterrence.

The UCI has three of the devices, which cost €45,000 each, with a considerable budget allocated to what the UCI prefers to call 'technological fraud' rather than mechanical doping.

Based on specific information and intelligence, suspicions or just a randomly selected process, riders are stopped beyond the finish line, a special red UCI tag is attached to their frame, and then taken to the anti-doping area for inspection. Riders who are selected for anti-doping testing usually face a bike check alongside random and targeted tests.  

The UCI still uses the tablet device to check bikes at race starts, despite doubts about its ability to detect magnetic activity. They now combine that with between seven and 15 backscatter x-ray checks per day.  

In the black UCI tent in the protected Giro d'Italia anti-doping compound, Cyclingnews saw how the UCI technicians weigh the bikes to detect any extra hidden equipment and then slowly scan the bike with the backscatter x-ray device.

The screen captures an X-ray image and clearly shows' inside the frame and wheels. The technicians are trained and experienced in differentiating between the batteries and wires of electronic gear systems and any hidden devices.

"We can see everything and every aspect, and we can look at specific areas and zoom in on details to highlight certain things," Raudenski said, insisting the process and technology are robust.

Riders and team staff are allowed to watch the process and then sign an official document saying the bike was checked on a specific day and time. The UCI keeps records of bikes tested and cross-checks that with bikes and frames registered with the UCI.  

When David Lappartient was elected as UCI president in 2017, he said he didn't want technological fraud to continue as 'a hot topic' and he personally presented a mobile X-ray cabinet in 2018.

The use of the backscatter x-ray device is the latest step in the 'technological arms race.'

Cyclingnews has seen Raudenski at major race finishes as he supervises the bike check process. He keeps a low profile, but most teams already know who is and the vital work he does.

At recent Giro d'Italia stage finishes, Cyclingnews saw Raudenski point a handheld device, perhaps a heat gun of some kind, at riders' bikes slowing beyond the finish line. However, he refused to comment on the device or other technologies he and the UCI may use in the future.

The UCI are also apparently considering the use of power and cadence data, combined with AI, to produce a rider's "power passport" similar to the Athlete Biological Passport that is used to fight blood doping after the EPO era.

Raudenski admits that the UCI's work is mostly about acting as a deterrent. However, he is not afraid to investigate previous suspicious performances and equipment. They will be hard to prove but could help in the future to understand mechanical doping.    

"People understand that if I cross the finish line with a motor on my bike, there's a high probability that there's going to be a check. So there is a deterrent effect," Raudenski said.

"We're making sure that we have robust processes, that our legal frameworks and the regulations are up to date, that the equipment regulations are up to date, and that we're staying ahead of what can and what can't be used."

Last September, the UCI launched a specific mechanical doping whistleblower rewards programme, saying that information to help target testing and investigations would be “facilitated through financial motivation, assistance, and/or reward for information".

Raudenski sees and studies all the rumours about hidden motors but focuses on the facts.

"Do I wake up sweating in the middle of the night, fearing that I'm missing something? Not at the moment," he told Cyclingnews.

"You have to separate fact from fiction, evidence from rumours. That's where I spend the majority of my time.

"It's not about what I think. It's about what I can prove. I'm driven by evidence, by things that I feel we take tangible actions on.

"Of course, we're not blind, we're not deaf to rumours and allegations that have happened in the past. I'm not shying away from  anything that I feel is going to continue to promote the credibility of cycling."

The Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) has rejected Miguel Angel López's appeal against a four-year doping ban handed to him last year.

The Colombian racer was given a retroactive ban by the UCI, dating from July 25, 2023, after being found guilty of 'use and possession of a prohibited substance, Menotropin' during the 2022 Giro d'Italia.

The drug is used to treat fertility disturbances, stimulating the production of testosterone in men.

After leaving Astana at the end of 2022, he raced on with Colombian team Medellin-EPM in 2023, winning the Vuelta a San Juan, Vuelta al Tachira, and Vuelta a Colombia before he was banned and his results dating back to the 2022 Giro stripped.

On Wednesday, CAS announced that López's appeal had been dismissed following a hearing on November 21, 2024. CAS stated that its panel had made several findings during the hearing.

"Mr López was in possession of Menotropin in violation of the UCI Anti-Doping Rules and took delivery of the substance sometime between May 1-5, 2022," the ruling stated.

"Mr López suffered swelling in his leg just before the start of the Giro d'Italia 2022 and his doctor proceeded on the assumed basis that Mr López had used Menotropin and that it was the cause of the swelling," and "Mr López used the substance sometime between May 1-5, 2022."

CAS stated that it was "satisfied the UCI has discharged its burden of proof", unanimously ruling that López had possessed and used the prohibited substance in breach of UCI regulations.

As such, his appeal has been rejected, and he remains suspended for the original period of ineligibility.

The UCI's suspension was handed down as the result of an investigation by the International Testing Agency (ITA), the organisation stated at the time.

The investigation was "based on evidence from the Spanish Guardia Civil and the Spanish Anti-Doping Organisation (CELAD) in the so-called Operation Ilex" – based around University of Extremadura professor Dr Marcos Maynar.

López swiftly announced that he would appeal the ban to CAS, stating that his suspension was based on an incorrect interpretation of "manipulated phone call transcripts".

"The offence does not exist, and the ban is unjustified," he wrote. "I will appeal immediately, and I will defend my innocence. I hope to be able to return to the world of competitive cycling."

His appeal has now failed, meaning that the former Giro d'Italia and Vuelta a España podium finisher won't be eligible to return to racing before 24 July 2027, when he'll be 33 years old.

The UCI issued a response to the CAS decision, stating, "The UCI and the ITA welcome this ruling, which reflects their commitment to protecting the integrity of cycling."

Shari Bossuyt is returning to the peloton with AG Insurance-Soudal after her two-year suspension following a positive test for Letrozole.

The Belgian rider, now 24, was handed the ban from racing in June 2023 after both her A and B samples from a test carried out at March's Tour de Normandie Féminin contained traces of the drug.

She pursued a contamination defence and blamed dairy products made with milk from French cows. Bossuyt's lawyer claimed that Letrozole entered the bodies of both her and Toon Aerts – who was banned in August 2023 after testing positive for the same substance – after the pair consumed dairy while racing in France.

Bossuyt was handed a two-year ban from racing beginning on June 13, 2023, meaning she'll be eligible to return on June 13 this year. Aerts was also banned for two years.

Bossuyt has already started training with her new team.

"After careful consideration by the team's performance staff, and several conversations with Shari and her management, the team decided to supporting Shari as she rebuilds her career," said AG Insurance-Soudal CEO Jurgen Foré.

"Shari is determined to show what she's capable of and very hungry to race with the team.  We believe that Shari has a great future ahead of her, and that the team can be a perfect environment for her to make this happen."

Bossuyt, who raced for Canyon-Sram prior to her ban, called the opportunity a "fresh start" while noting that she had missed being part of a team as well as the rhythm of the racing season.

"This is a fresh start, and I’m incredibly grateful for the opportunity. I’ve missed the rhythm of racing, being part of a team and the challenge, and I’m ready to give it everything."

Colombian doctor Fredy Alexander Gonzales Torres has received a six-month suspended prison sentence and a €15,000 fine for possession and administration of doping substances during the 2020 Tour de France.

Gonzales Torres was not present in the Marseille court for the verdict, remaining in Colombia for the month-long trial. His lawyer has already confirmed he will appeal the sentence.

The Colombian acted as doctor for Nairo Quintana and his brother Dayer during the 2020 Tour France, as well as being a stand-in for the Arkéa-Samsic squad in the race after their usual doctor had fallen ill with COVID-19. 

Gonzales Torres was accused of possessing an intravenous drip during that year's Tour, discovered by police when they searched his room at one of the hotels used by the team on the COVID-delayed race that year.

Neither of the Quintana brothers tested positive during the race and they both vigorously insisted to police that they were innocent of any wrongdoing.  In a statement in 2020, after he was questioned by legal authorities, Quintana claimed only legal vitamins were seized and that he "had nothing to hide"

"I would like to confirm that no doping substances were ever found," Quintana stated. "It must be stressed that I have not been the subject of any accusation by the authorities."

During the trial, according to AFP, Gonzales Torres lawyer Mohamed El Yousfi said that 'no doping product' had 'ever been seized' by police during their three-investigation and called for an acquittal.

According to AFP, the court described the doctor as a 'guru-like guide' who used magnets, nocturnal body rubs with lemon, garlic and coffee as well as the use of numerical mantras to enable riders to get better mental rest.

Two years later, Nairo Quintana tested positive for tramadol during the 2022 Tour de France. He was stripped of his results as a result of an in-competition ban, although at the time tramadol was still not fully prohibited by the UCI.

Having abruptly pulled out of the Vuelta a España when news of the tramadol positive broke, Quintana then parted ways with Arkéa at the end of that season. The former Giro d'Italia and Vuelta a España winner subsequently spent a year without racing before rejoining the professional peloton for his previous team, Movistar at the start of 2024.

The 35-year-old is set to ride the Giro d'Italia and Vuelta a España in 2025, but not the Tour de France, where he is a three-time podium finisher and multiple-stage winner. Dayer Quintana, 32, retired at the end of 2023 after a year of racing for a small Colombian squad.

Gonzales Torres was also ordered by the Marseille court to pay €60,000 to Arkéa-Samsic for reputational damages.

The Executive Vice President of US cycling giant Specialized Bicycle Components has leant on the Trump administration to crack down on cheap bicycle imports, citing billions of dollars in missed tariffs and the illegal import of Fentanyl as key factors.

A change of trade policy with an incoming new administration is nothing new and is to be expected. It’s far from newsworthy to point out that the Trump administration has a far more protectionist and isolationist trade policy than the previous Biden administration did.

New trade policies often come with a period of public consultation. A chance for individuals and businesses alike to air their grievances on the current system, suggest alternatives, and outline the impacts. 

These comments are a matter of public record, and it's come to the attention of Cyclingnews that Specialized's Executive Vice President, Robert Margevicius - or at least someone using his name - is among the 768 reports lobbying the Trump administration, in which he calls for stricter import regulations. 

While this is entirely reasonable for a business or individual to do, the reasons stated are slightly harder to square, given they are coming from a bicycle componentry business. 

As well as pointing out reasons relating to port of counterfeit goods and an unfair tariff imbalance, the submission under Margevicius' name also levelled the accusation that the current trade policy allows international sellers to "Import undetected drugs (fentanyl and many others), without detection."

When approached for comment, a Specialized spokesperson called it an "industry wide position that is aligned with PeopleForBikes."

PeopleForBikes is a USA-based nonprofit organization that advocates for better cycling infrastructure and policies. Its board counts prominent figures from over 20 well-known brands, including SRAM, Giant, Cycling Sports Group, Trek and more. 

According to the public docket, however, no other cycling brand has lobbied the Trump administration on this matter, although a percentage of submissions have the name and organisation redacted for confidentiality. 

While the import of fentanyl is no doubt a pressing issue in the United States, the overwhelming majority of it enters the country via the southern border, and not in the packaging of imported bicycle components. 

Given that this is a cycling website, not normally given over to discussions of trade policy, there is an amount of background that is necessary before we approach the public comments. 

The America First Trade Policy

On January 20th, the Trump administration released its ‘America First Trade Policy’ on the White House website, in which it sets out in broad terms the work that will be undertaken by the Secretary of Commerce, the Secretary of the Treasury, and the United States Trade Representative, as well the Secretaries of Defense and Homeland Security.

Within the America First Trade Policy, the United States Trade Representative (USTR) has a remit to assess trade agreements with other countries, but to also embark on public consultation pursuant to any change in trade policy. 

In its own words, it is exists to “negotiate directly with foreign governments to create trade agreements, to resolve disputes, and to participate in global trade policy organizations” as well as to “meet with governments, with business groups, with legislators and with public interest groups to gather input on trade issues and to discuss the President's trade policy positions.”

Within the body of the America First Trade Policy, in section 2 (Addressing Unfair and Unbalanced Trade), subsection i states that the USTR in collaboration with several of the Secretaries, shall “assess the loss of tariff revenues and the risks from importing counterfeit products and contraband drugs, e.g., fentanyl, that each result from the current implementation of the $800 or less, duty-free de minimis exemption under section 1321 of title 19, United States Code, and shall recommend modifications as warranted to protect both the revenue of the United States and the public health by preventing unlawful importations.”

The de minimis exemption

The de minimis threshold, in import/export terms, is simply the level each nation sets as a goods value below which import duties are not applied. The latin translation is, in non legalese, ‘too small to bother with’. 

As it stands at the time of writing the United States of America has a de minimis threshold of $800 per shipment per person per day. 

To contextualise this, the de minimis thresholds of other nations have been shown below according to Zonos, a company providing international commerce and shipping solutions, adjusted using the exchange rate at the time of writing to an equivalent US dollar value:

• Australia - $630
• Canada - $14
• China - $0
• France - $161
• Germany - $162
• Japan - $66
• New Zealand - $573
• Singapore - $298
• United Kingdom - $174

From this we can see that the United States has a very generous de minimis threshold, something the Trump administration wants to lower to bring in line with other nations to address what it sees as an unfair imbalance. 

The threshold was previously set at $200, but was raised in 2016 to $800 as part of the Trade Facilitation and Trade Enforcement Act of 2015. 

Public consultation and Specialized Bicycle Components

Following the publication of the America First Trade Policy, the USTR, on February 20th, sought public comment relating to the policy, stating that “These comments will assist the U.S. Trade Representative in reviewing and identifying any unfair trade or non-reciprocal foreign trade practices.”

Public consultation comments are a matter of public record, and Cyclingnews has seen that Robert Margevicius, on behalf of Specialized Bicycle Components, (or at least somebody entering that name and company, as the system requires no verification), lobbied the USTR to impose stricter import tariffs.

The request focussed on the reduction of the de minimis threshold, citing three key reasons: Impact on US small businesses, competitive disadvantage for domestic businesses, and a lack of oversight of what is physically entering the country.

The Specialized spokesperson did not deny that Margevicius was indeed behind the submission, and instead clarified the submission's motives, saying the "de minimis exemption has opened the door to varying problems that include unsafe products and intellectual property violation," adding that "[The] EU and most developed countries have either eliminated de minimis or limit it strictly."

Impact on small businesses

Relating to the impact of the United States’ generous de minimis threshold, the submission entered the following comment:

“While U.S. small businesses face strict regulations and high costs when exporting to countries with low de minimis thresholds, foreign sellers can freely ship products into the U.S. without equivalent restrictions.”

Given the imbalances of de minimis thresholds, it is perhaps fair to say that small US domestic businesses have an unfair deal. 

United States producers of boutique bicycle parts could not easily sell them to the UK, while UK businesses could on the face of it send products to customers in the USA without exceeding the threshold. 

Specialized Bicycle Components is not a small business, however, but a multinational retailer of bicycles and parts, and so is likely to see more of its products exceed the de minimis threshold of any nation.

In addition, Specialized's sheer scale likely means the majority of its imports exceed the existing $800 de minimis threshold, and so a lower one wouldn't have an impact. 

Though some large US businesses sell or import strategically to fall within de minimis, it is largely a loophole exploited by overseas platforms selling at more competitive prices.

Competitive disadvantage for domestic businesses

Why would a giant corporation like Specialized be sticking up for smaller domestic businesses, which are ultimately competitors? It could be altruism, but Margivicius' comments on competitive disadvantage are more revealing: 

“This policy gives international marketplace sellers an unfair edge over American retailers, many of whom have been driven out of business due to the cost disparity and lack of regulatory enforcement. De minimis is one of the most damaging trade policies currently in place, undermining U.S. businesses while allowing foreign sellers to exploit regulatory loopholes.”

International marketplaces, the likes of eBay and AliExpress, give customers in the United States access to bicycle parts under the value of $800 without having to pay import duties. 

Reducing the de minimis threshold would therefore be advantageous to Specialized to encourage more customers to buy domestic products (even if they themselves have been produced overseas), and it is entirely reasonable that a business should lobby a government in its own interests.

While the submission in Margevicius' name doesn’t put a monetary value on the potential revenue from the import of bicycle products alone, he states that the potential harm caused by the current de minimis threshold as “Billions [of dollars] of collectable tariffs”. 

The reality of greater tariffs is a little more complex, though, and greater tariffs do not necessarily lead to greater tax receipts. 

Whether lowering the threshold would result in the same level of imports but with people paying tariffs, or whether it would simply discourage these smaller imports and encourage more domestic business remains to be seen. 

Lack of oversight and fentanyl imports

With a high de minimis threshold, it’s not unreasonable to suggest that more packages and parcels enter the USA unchecked. To this end, the submission made the following comments to the USTA:

“The current de minimis policy allows overseas sellers to: Avoid tariffs, imposed sanctions, countervailing duties (CVDs), and anti-dumping duties. Bypass intellectual property protections. Import products that fail to meet U.S. regulatory and safety standards. Import undetected drugs (fentanyl and many others), without detection.”

It’s impossible to blame any business for lobbying to protect its intellectual property. One only has to browse the aforementioned marketplaces to find counterfeit goods, despite the best efforts of the marketplaces in question. 

Are illegal drugs coming into the United States in packages of bicycle products? While lower cost imports may be subject to fewer trade inspections, it's important to keep in mind that drug trafficking is a matter of law enforcement rather than trade regulation. 

As for whether this is a practice likely to be present in the bicycle industry – the submission kept its comments broad, relating to all imported goods, though it is of course lobbying on behalf of a bicycle and bicycle components business.

According to a declassified 2020 Drug Enforcement Agency report on the imports of Fentanyl: 

“Currently, China remains the primary source of fentanyl and fentanyl-related substances trafficked through international mail and express consignment operations environment, as well as the main source for all fentanyl-related substances trafficked into the United States. Seizures of fentanyl sourced from China average less than one kilogram in weight, and often test above 90 per cent concentration of pure fentanyl.”

However, according to BBC Verify, the broadcaster’s fact-checking service, most fentanyl by quantity (98%) enters the USA via the southern USA-Mexico border with less than 1% entering via its northern border with Canada and the remainder coming via sea routes. 

While China certainly does export chemicals from which fentanyl can be produced (the legality of which can vary depending on the chemical in question), Mexico is still the overwhelming route of entry for the drug, and not via small mail packages.

With that in mind, the impact of untaxed low-cost bicycle product imports on Fentanyl trafficking is an unusual line of argument for one of the world's most prominent bicycle manufacturers to pursue. 

Update: April 2 tariffs target de minimis 

As part of the April 2 White House announcement, which included sweeping tariffs for countries the world over, the de minimis rule was targeted, and the apparent 'loophole' closed. 

Although the threshold of $800 has not been reduced, anything below will, from now on, be subject to a duty of either 30% of its value, or $25 per item. 

This is set to rise to $50 per item from June 1. 

Bernard Sainz, the 81-year-old French sports medicine advisor appealing against a conviction for 'incitation to doping' has defended his work in a Paris court by saying it was "not doping, just different to traditional medicine."

Sainz, who describes himself as a 'naturopath' but who is not a qualified doctor, is currently appealing against the 2022 conviction.  He has always asserted his innocence against accusations of illegal medical practice.

"If someone wants to dope, they don't need me, they can find it all on the Internet," Sainz told the court earlier this week, according to L'Équipe.

"I have a different vision [than that of] to traditional medicine, I treat the cause and not the symptoms."

Known widely as 'Dr. Mabuse', in 2022 Sainz was placed under house arrest for a year as well as being barred from practicing medicine, after being found guilty of illegal medical practices and incitement to doping between 2013 and 2017. He could not receive a suspended sentence because he had already had prior convictions for anti-doping legislation violations. 

On the third day of the current appeal trial, the Paris court was reminded that Sainz's long history of involvement in professional cycling dates back to at least the 1970s, after it was claimed that during that decade he had given one former aging local racer 'a second youth' to be able to win Paris-Nice.

Rather than doping riders, Sainz said, according to L'Équipe, riders called him to try and improve their performance through alternative, but not illicit, forms of nutrition and health practices.

These apparently included healthy lifestyle choices ranging from getting up just before sunrise and going to bed at 10:30 pm, as well as the extensive use of fasting, raw vegetables and citrus fruits, such as grapefruits and tomatoes – as has emerged in previous cases involving Sainz.

Saiz already received a €3,000 fine in 2013 in a case linked to horse doping, as well as receiving a two-year prison sentence in 2014 for incitation to doping in cycling and illegal medical practices in the 1990s. In 2017, he got another nine-month suspended sentence after he was accused of providing doping plans and illegal medical practices.

The trial continues.