Picnic PostNL team owner Iwan Spekenbrink has spoken out following allegations of "a culture of fear" within the team, refuting the claims brought forward by an investigation conducted by Dutch media outlets NOS Sport and In De Waaier. Initially reported in October, the investigation, which heard testimony from 71 individuals employed by Picnic PostNL, alleged an "unsafe working situation."

In an interview with Dutch newspaper De Telegraaf, Spekenbrink rejected the investigation’s accusations, calling them "misleading" though he accepted that certain former employees had negative experiences, with one former coach, Adriaan Helmantel, describing the team’s organisation as "a dictatorship."

"There is a group that experienced it differently," Spekenbrink stated. He references an article in which Marcel Kittel, Tom Veelers and Kirsten Wild share their experiences. "They are critical, and that is their right, but none of the three confirms the picture being painted," he said. "Yes, a number of sources have expressed that, and I regret that, because you always want a safe working environment for everyone. Nevertheless, a one-sided story has been told."

In his conversation with De Telegraaf, Spekenbrink also accuses journalist Thijs Zonneveld of a lack of impartiality, given his role as part of the team management at the BEAT Cycling team. “This is like having Grolsch conduct an investigation into Heineken,” he said. He went on to express disappointment that more current employees were not asked for their opinion. "When you walk through the paddock, you always see a lot of fun and camaraderie within our team," Spekenbrink stated. "Teamwork comes first for us."

Since the original story broke in October, a number of former and present riders have responded to the claims laid out in the NOS investigation, with the likes of John Degenkolb defending the team, while Martin Tusveld and Esmée Peperkamp have been among those sharing their own negative experiences of the team’s culture.

Sports director Rudi Kemna was the first in the team’s leadership to respond to the allegations, which were the conclusion of an investigation carried out over several months earlier in 2026. Kemna said he was "deeply upset" by the allegations. The team’s initial statement in response to the investigation said: "we do not recognise ourselves in the overall picture presented in the publications", but nevertheless acknowledging that "it is important to take a critical look at ourselves" in light of the reported findings. The team have since commissioned an "independent, professional investigation into our team culture".

Spekenbrink has stated, “It will take a while before we have the results of that," adding that, "We do not shy away from mistakes, because they are made by everyone, everywhere. When you read that it has really affected people, you have to be honest, because that is not pleasant. We do not want employees to leave with a bitter taste in their mouths.”

The uncertainty surrounding the ongoing investigations runs concurrently with the delay in the team being issued with a WorldTour license for 2027. This is in relation to financial troubles surrounding their bike supplier Lapierre, with a replacement supplier on board but contracts awaiting finalisation, delaying submission of the relevant paperwork to the UCI.

Despite his reservations about the balanced nature of the investigation, Spekenbrink admits that some of the issues raised are worth taking into consideration, particularly the way the team approaches riders who are not used to the style of the team's approach.

“Apparently, we haven't always explained our story clearly enough upfront," he said. "We will have to do a better job of explaining how we view collaboration and sometimes say a bit sooner that it isn't a 'match'.” He offers the example of new riders looking to work with their own support staff, for example, trainers and dietitians.

Spekenbrink said that he believes in the team's ethos. “We still believe in our way of working together. Teamwork is our foundation, with mutual respect."

He concludes: “It is a difficult time right now, but we will emerge from this stronger.”

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In unveiling what he described as a ‘modern’ route for the 2027 edition, the new Giro d’Italia boss Luca Guercilena highlighted a few striking details, one of which was the presence of not one, not two, but three motor racing circuits.

One of them, the iconic Monza track, will host the start of the all-important stage 15 time trial, but the other two – the Marco Simoncelli circuit on stage 4 and the Mugello circuit on stage 11 – are set to play host to big bunch sprint finishes.

This, said Guercilena, who took up his role as cycling director of RCS Sports following his departure as Lidl-Trek team manager this summer, was a deliberate ploy in the ever-more-urgent push for rider safety.

"The initiative stems from listening to athletes and teams regarding the need for safe finishes," he said on stage during the presentation of the route on Tuesday.

"This ties into the broader requirement for environments where even children can train securely. We believe that the Giro d’Italia, which also has a role in fostering cycling culture, can promote the use of motor racing circuits as new hubs for youth teams, allowing young riders to train in a safe setting. This offers families peace of mind, knowing their children can cycle in a secure environment.

"From a competitive standpoint, it also ensures that athletes have a very wide finish area, enabling them to perform at their best, and, above all, safely," he added.

The use of motor racing circuits, which have wide tracks and smooth surfaces, would intuitively appear to make sense when it comes to safety, avoiding the road furniture and pinch points associated with city-centre finishes on public roads.

However, the evidence – admittedly very limited – is not so supportive, with the last Grand Tour sprint finish on a motor track resulting in a slew of crashes and several riders airing safety concerns.

The 2023 Tour de France example

That last example came at the 2023 Tour de France, where the fourth stage finished on the Paul Armagnac circuit in Nogaro.

The first crash occurred on one of the straights with 1.7km to go, with a bump of shoulders sending multiple riders to the ground, including a stage favourite, Fabio Jakobsen. A second crash through a left-hand bend inside the final kilometre sent more sprawling and further fragmented the bunch, leaving only around 25 riders to play out the sprint. Another crash against the barriers in the full swing of the sprint capped off a finale that was remembered more for the spills and less for the thrills.

The crashes were not all necessarily linked to the fact this finale was taking place on a motor racing track, but there were interesting comments from several riders suggesting this might indeed have had something to do with it.

"A circuit is not safer than a road to finish, I can tell you this,” said Mathieu van der Poel, who provided the lead-out for the day’s winner, Jasper Philipsen. "It was really fast and the corners are quite difficult to judge in the bunch and you also have nowhere to go so I'm really happy I managed to stay upright."

Philipsen himself cited the bends in expressing his surprise at how unsafe it felt, while his rival's lead-out man, Jasper De Buyst, expanded on why motor racing tracks might not be so safe as you might think.

"None of us are used to finishing on such a wide course, the entrance which is pretty small, then big lanes again. These kind of corners, everybody can keep pedalling and you can just take them 10 next to each other. In the end it’s like having a long straight but even more dangerous," he said.

"Sometimes people think the wider we make the roads and the more we go on circuits and whatever, the safer it becomes. But today we see the opposite. I think sometimes what makes it more safe is when you stretch out the bunch, like yesterday for example with the U-turn. Then the bunch gets stretched out, and from there on everybody keeps his position or kind of keeps his position, and then you get safer sprints."

It remains to be seen which exact sections of the two circuits are used at next year's Giro d'Italia, and crucially how many corners are involved, while various other factors naturally come into play as well – it's worth pointing out that some of that Tour de France chaos was attributed to the relative freshness after a very slow day until that finale.

But until everyone arrives safely and securely on stages 4 and 11, there might still be some holding of breath and some reserving of judgement when it comes to the suitability of motor tracks for cycling sprint finales.

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The International Testing Agency (ITA) have announced that French cyclist Thomas Peyroton-Dartet has tested positive for Erythropoietin (EPO).

41-year-old Peyroton-Dartet returned the adverse analytical finding on September 5 at the 2026 UCI Para-cycling Road World Championships in Huntsville, Alabama, USA, where he won gold in the C3 road race two days later.

"The ITA reports that a sample collected during an in-competition testing mission conducted by the ITA on 5 September 2026 during the 2026 UCI Para-cycling Road World Championships in Huntsville, Alabama, USA, from French rider Thomas Peyroton-Dartet has returned an AAF for EPO," the ITA announced on Friday, adding that Peyroton-Dartet has been provisionally suspended from racing as a result.

EPO is a well-known substance in cycling, having come to prominence during the 1990s. EPO stimulates red blood cell production, increasing an athlete's oxygen-carrying capacity, and so is incredibly effective in endurance sports such as cycling. The EPO test was introduced at the 2000 Olympic Games in Sydney and was first carried out in road cycling at La Flèche Wallonne a year later.

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

"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."

Peyroton-Dartet's gold this year wasn't the first medal of his career. He won the C3 road race at the 2022 and 2023 UEC Para-Cycling European Championships and took road race silver at the 2025 Worlds. His biggest triumph, however, came in 2024 at his home Paralympic Games in Paris, where he scored gold in the C3 time trial and silver in the C1-3 road race.

Peyroton-Dartet has been competing in para-cycling since 2021, when he hit a car while on a training ride. Since then, he has suffered from cerebellar ataxia, a neurological condition resulting in a loss of balance, poor coordination, and difficulties with speech and eye movements.

As well as competing in para-cycling events, Peyroton-Dartet has raced on the road with the EuroCyclingTrips-CCN Continental team at races around the world, including the Chrono des Nations, Tour de Taiwan, Vuelta Asturias, Tour de Beauce, and Tour du Maroc.

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Paul Seixas has continued the call for better safety in the peloton following the death of British rider Finlay Tarling at the Volta a Portugal in August, who was killed after colliding with a non-race vehicle that had entered the course.

Speaking on Canal+ show 'Clique', Seixas reiterated much of the words of Remco Evenepoel at Il Lombardia, who spoke as the peloton carried out a five-minute protest before the final Monument of the year after several more incidents involving vehicles on the race route occurred in the back end of the racing calendar.

These included Coppa Bernocchi – where a DHL delivery van driver turned onto the course – and Tre Valli Varesine – where a police motorbike hit two Pinarello Q36.5 riders – two of the Italian Autumn Classics that serve as the build-up to Il Lombardia, where Seixas made history as the youngest-ever winner.

The young French superstar got emotional as he emphasised the need for better safety standards once more, having raced against Tarling several times, including at the junior World Championships and junior Liège-Bastogne-Liège as they both developed towards professional careers.

"Honestly, it's terrible. The problem is, he's not the only one," said Seixas.

"What's more, I raced with him, and it really affects me. It really affected me at the time, because what's terrible is that we'll be thinking: 'This is yet another cyclist who has died in a race this year.'"

The protest at Il Lombardia came about through a WhatsApp group with Tom Pidcock and Ben Healy spearheading the idea, which was kept quiet from teams and the CPA – the rider union – and coincided with a statement being released en masse by riders on social media.

Seixas didn't mince his words as he detailed how serious the call is for greater safety, admitting just how scary bike racing can be when incidents like what happened in Portugal are still possible.

"I think it really affected everyone, all the riders. That's when you realise that sometimes there are real organisational problems; the organisers do their best, that's not what we're saying, but sometimes there should be more strict standards," he said.

"We protested about it at Lombardia, at the beginning of the race, for five minutes. What happened is extremely serious. Families are affected. It's very serious that it happened during a race. A professional organisation, riders losing their lives; it's frightening."

Seixas talked about how while he hasn't had a major crash himself, the risks of racing can enter a rider's mind at the most dangerous parts of a race, and while noting that accidents and crashes are unfortunately part and parcel of professional bike racing, a death like Tarling's simply should not happen.

"Let's just say that sometimes you get a little stressed, but you don't think it's for your life either. When you're in a peloton, there's a false flat downhill, and you're going 80 kph, sometimes you're still a little scared," said the Frenchman.

"You think to yourself: 'Now, it could be… Serious', but you must not think about it; that's the thing. And you know that everyone else is aware of it too, so they're not going to do anything reckless either. Then, sometimes there's nervousness; that's what can make everyone tense and create danger.

"When there are falls, yes, you get injured, but on the road, I've never had a fracture or a sprain; I've never had anything. Scratches, that's happened to me, several times, many times even. But you always come out of it well. Afterwards, there have been very serious falls in history, but riders who find their death like that in a race, that shouldn't happen."

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"It was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us." - A Tale of Two Cities

Chris Froome was coming off a career high. His stage win on Mont Ventoux had laid the way for a first Tour de France victory in 2013.

The problem was that his emphatic performance coincided with an all-time low in trust in pro cycling; scandal after scandal, lie after lie, burned its followers.

The next morning, a hundred members of the media crammed into a conference room at the Park Inn Hotel in Orange to bury the yellow jersey with demanding questions, not to praise him.

The bombardment began: "What plan do you have to answer the critics suggesting doping may be behind his performance?"

"Yesterday you said you were 'honoured' by the comparison with Lance Armstrong. How can you be honoured given he got all his titles with doping?"

Sat next to him, Team Sky principal Dave Brailsford was also in the crosshairs.

"Dave, can you provide me with your most compelling reason why we should believe not just Chris but every single member of your team?"

The kicker at the end to the race leader: "Is all this beginning to tarnish the whole experience for you?"

"I just think it’s quite sad that we're sitting here the day after the biggest victory of my life, quite a historic win, talking about doping," Froome said. "Quite frankly, my teammates and I have slept on volcanoes to get ready for this, been away for months working our arses off to get here. And here I am basically being accused of being a cheat and a liar. And that's not cool."

With that, the mild-mannered Briton got up and strode out of the room. That spicy 15-minute press conference was a memorable indictment of the crippling lack of belief in the sport.

How could we not talk about doping? The Festina Affair in 1998, Operation Puerto and the Floyd Landis testosterone Tour in 2006, Michael Rasmussen's dramatic departure from the race twelve months later, Alberto Contador's drawn-out clenbuterol ban in 2010, then, perhaps most egregiously, the fall of Lance Armstrong and the USADA Reasoned Decision in late 2012.

There was the same cycle after every scandal: talk of rebirth, springs of hope leading to more controversy and winters of despair. Being a cycling fan, let alone a journalist, who believed wholeheartedly in what they were seeing play out on the road was like outing yourself as someone who also thought the Tooth Fairy, Father Christmas and flying pigs existed.

Back then, the sport seemed irredeemably rotten. Every record-breaking ascent raised eyebrows; many superhuman performances were treated as guilty until proven clean, with the baseline assumption that most racers were on something. Doping talk – pharmaceutical and mechanical – was a constant background thrum, asked about in every long-form interview. And if I had a pound for every time I heard or read the going-through-the-motions answer from a bike racer: "the sport is much cleaner now..."

At the pinnacle of performance, Team Sky, Froome and company preached pristine values and zero tolerance to a crowd of angry non-believers. No wonder it occasionally got ugly.

At times, the racing was like a sideshow to the volatile atmosphere between the peloton, spectators and media. Riders felt the frustration and distrust, sometimes physically: Froome had urine thrown at him, was slapped and spat at, super-domestique Richie Porte was punched, and the Sky team car was battered and rocked by spectators on Alpe d'Huez.

Fast forward a decade and it feels like a wholly different discourse. The way races are taken on has changed, and so has the paradigm. There is a lot less adversarial feeling: the worst 'bad blood' Tadej Pogačar has experienced is scattered boos on a few Tour de France stages or, bizarrely, getting crisps thrown in his face.

Yet the peloton is going faster, breaking climbing records from the bad old EPO days. Seven watts per kilo appears to be the new frontier for stage-ending Grand Tour climbs. Rather than police raids on team hotels or a positive test revealed on a rest day, as used to be habitual, the Tour de France's big doping story this summer surrounded nighttime testing. Some observers expressed outrage at waking up Pogačar and Jonas Vingegaard in the middle of the night before a key Alpine stage.

The sport is moving from being mired in doubt and traumatised scepticism to a more protective level of fandom – and one of the reasons for that has little to do with pro cycling.

Social media and our parasocial relationship with the sport's stars

Not so long ago, a rider's primary means of self-expression was limited to interviews with online cycling media or magazines, perhaps a brief appearance on Eurosport. A comparatively limited output, a slow-burn way of getting to know them.

The digital media landscape has transformed. Social media and video-sharing platforms allow an infinite scroll of unfettered, unfiltered-appearing access, leading to a closer, more parasocial relationship with the sport’s protagonists.

Consequently, traditional print media is no longer the primary storyteller; control of the message has shifted to top riders, squads and brands. Short-form video is king, whether that’s from racers like Victor Campenaerts vlogging authentically pre-race on Instagram or sizable in-house media teams posting curated content for YouTube and other platforms.

With all the proximity over the months and years, a passive, subconscious background swell of positive feeling washes over some followers, driven by personality and good vibes. Doping never comes up organically in their narratives; why on earth would it? Positivity sells – they want your love, but don’t forget that in a sport bankrolled by businesses, the sponsors or partner cycling brands also want your money – not thorny stories lacking in digestibility.

That shift means the d-word is more likely to be further out of sight and mind, alongside the fact that it has been almost ten years since a seismic cycling scandal. It is easier than ever for doping, the sport’s number one enemy in the 21st century, to slide into the collective mental background.

The sport appears cleaner too. Empirically, there has been a fall in the number of positive doping tests, going from 29 in 2022 to 20 last year. It is over a decade since a rider was thrown off the Tour de France – Luca Paolini, for a cocaine positive in 2015.

Of course, most cycling fans are not naive. They know an apparent lull does not mean doping is a vanquished scourge. After all, it’s only been three weeks since Alberto Bruttomesso (Bahrain Victorious) was suspended for anti-doping rule violations.

But it takes a big champion to get caught in the net to register with a whole community, and that last happened in 2017, when Chris Froome registered an Adverse Analytical Finding for salbutamol, ultimately being cleared of wrongdoing.

Some modern sport fans' battlegrounds have also moved from doping doubt onto personality, beliefs or politics. In the polarised world of social media, where opinions fly around as freely as leaves in an autumn gale, I see both greater warmth and protectiveness towards some racers and a more deeply reinforced negativity against others.

Take Lidl-Trek rider Quinn Simmons, who told me in December 2025 for Cyclist that certain people have "harassed" him his whole career, but that for every negative comment, he gets ten positive ones. Real life is very different to the online world's vocal, invisible minority: the American champion turned up to a 2026 Tour de France stage start in the town of Aurillac (i.e. the middle of nowhere) and encountered a French fan who had driven six hours to be there, wearing his team kit and impressively recreating his hair, beard and moustache combo.

Can Pogačar and today's peloton make reparations for previous errors?

Figurehead riders or squads tend to set the tone of every era, and Team Sky came to embody a lot of the previous era’s ills, as well as bringing a few of their own. Sharing Chris Froome's 2013 Tour power data with French newspaper L'Equipe – an act which is seemingly more than any leading contemporary team has done – did not quieten the questioning voices. The issue put forward remains the same as now: how do you prove a negative?

Ultimately, the zero tolerance team did not break the toxic cycle or cleanse themselves of the whiff of wrongdoing. In 2018, a British parliamentary committee found that the team "crossed an ethical line" over the use of medical exemptions for banned drugs, related to the jiffy bag farrago.

The drift away from traumatised scepticism has probably been helped by the changing of the guard: Sky is no longer the sponsor, and current incarnation Netcompany Ineos does not rule the roost.

After the transition of cycling power, new bosses UAE Team Emirates-XRG are not so different on the face of things. The probable richest team in the sport, winning Grand Tours repeatedly with a coterie of well-paid helpers, most of whom could be leaders in their own right – check, check and check again, straight from the "Death Star" playbook.

Associations with doping? They have a few. Mauro Gianetti and Matxin Fernández were managers of Saunier Duval, the team embroiled in doping scandals at the 2008 Tour de France. Kristijan Durasek was suspended after being named in Operation Aderlass in 2019, and rider Marc Soler's father Jaume received a (now overturned) suspension in February 2026 for working with banned ex-US Postal doctor Pepe Martí (there is no suggestion of wrongdoing by Marc Soler himself). Some fans may also look negatively upon the team's close association with the United Arab Emirates, a Middle East oil giant with a "dismal" human rights record, according to Amnesty International.

But none of this mud sticks, and that has much to do with the individual who defines this decade in pro cycling. Tadej Pogačar holds a lot of soft power, not just as an exemplar of spectacle and excellence, but as a transmitter of sympathetic feeling and good vibes to his team and the sport as a whole from his own actions and image.

To paraphrase Mads Pedersen, if the modern peloton feels like repairmen for their predecessors' wrongdoings, Pogačar is the inadvertent head fixer in this move from embattled past to a present of fragile hope.

Though he has not faced the Spanish Inquisition level of questioning that Team Sky and its leaders encountered, Pogačar has quickly learned to answer challenging questions better than "I’ve never tested positive", his 2021 groan-worthy echo of a Lance Armstrong answer.

He has faced down queries about doping, his credibility and UAE's connections to the sport, never flying off the handle or pouring fuel on the fire like more combative superstars of recent generations. He understands that such inquiries are the lot of every new world-beater in this day and age "because cycling was so damaged in the past, before my time".

Generations change, but professional sport doesn't. Those seeking optimal performance will still use any legal method – such as carbon monoxide rebreathing, grubby but lawful – and some will inevitably go over the ethical and permissible line. Anti-doping agencies are historically under-funded and invariably playing catch-up against the next doping advances. It takes a long time for a culture to alter and, as a product of my time, scepticism is baked into me.

But I think some cycling fans have moved on, allowing themselves to be more cautiously hopeful – to believe again. That’s something to be cheerful about, with a caveat: after a good while without a sport-shaking controversy, the shock and damage will likely be even greater if an epochal racer is caught in the net. We aren’t out of the woods yet, just in a clearing.

A new wearable airbag safety device for cyclists has made it onto Time magazine's list of best inventions in 2026.

Belgian company Aerobag's device is among 15 entries in the magazine's list under the 'sports & fitness' category, among a total of 300 inventions "making the world better, smarter, and more fun" this year, Time say.

Aerobag is a system fitted into the straps of bib shorts which, according to the company, "uses nine sensors scanning 200 times per second to monitor body dynamics and detect crash anomalies". The airbag "deploys in 100 milliseconds" when it's triggered before folding back into place, allowing the rider to continue racing afterwards.

The Aerobag team, headed by Bert Celis, spent six years developing the Aerobag. They began work on the device after Bjorg Lambrecht's death at the 2019 Tour de Pologne.

"It was a fairly innocuous kind of accident, the sort of thing that could happen, and does happen, literally, in every race," Aerobag co-founder Quinton Van Loggerenberg told Cyclingnews in January.

"You're sending athletes down the road at 60, 70, 90k an hour in lycra. And that was it. That was the catalyst. My mission, my absolute mission, is that you, as a rider, wake up at home. You don't wake up in the back of an ambulance."

It remains to be seen whether wearable airbags such as Aerobag will make it to professional cycling.

The brand is are already working with several kit manufacturers including Nalini, Nimbl, and MOA, with Picnic PostNL and Visma-Lease a Bike having already tested the device.

Meanwhile, back in February, the UCI launched a consultation on the use of wearable safety technology. The governing body invited 'expressions of interest' from relevant parties to form working groups.

"Already in contact with several players in the sector, the UCI now wishes to broaden the initiative to the greatest number possible of manufacturers and institutes working on the development of airbags and technical apparel for cyclists," the UCI stated at the time.

"The objectives of this initiative are as follows... Regarding airbag systems: to define a clear framework and appropriate standards to enable the development and integration of such devices into cycling (in competition and training); Regarding technical apparel: to study the integration of airbag solutions into clothing and to identify ways to further strengthen the protection offered by textiles."

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The International Testing Agency (ITA) has revealed a backdated 18-month suspension for Polish rider Daria Pikulik, who committed three whereabouts failures in a period of 12 months.

Pikulik has accepted the suspension, which stretches back from December 9, 2024 to June 8 this year, and the disqualification of all her results in that period.

Riders on the UCI’s Registered Testing Pool, which is administered by the ITA, are required to provide their whereabouts to make themselves available for testing for a period of each day. Failure to do this three times in a rolling period of 12 months is an anti-doping rule violation (ADRV), and it is this regulation the 29-year-old has breached.

Riders are able to challenge ADRV decisions in the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS), but Pikulik chose not to do so, accepting the sanction.

"The rider did not challenge the ADRV and agreed with the consequences proposed by the ITA. Accordingly, the case was resolved via an acceptance of consequences," read a statement on the ITA’s website.

Pikulik is best known for her silver medal in the Omnium at the 2024 Paris Olympics, and has achieved a handful of other top 5 results in endurance track events, including winning the Omnium and Madison with her sister Wiktoria at the Cali World Cup in 2021. As a result of her ban starting after August 2024, Pikulik keeps her silver medal, having lost out to US rider Jennifer Valente.

On the road, she is known as a strong sprinter and rode for Women’s WorldTeam Human Powered Health from January 2023 until leaving the team in March 2026 after only five race days, riding the same amount as the previous season.

She has nine professional race wins to her name, including stage 1 of the 2023 Tour Down Under, her first race for the team, and the Tour of Guangxi at the end of that season. The team have made no comment.

In a statement written in her native language on her Instagram account, Pikulik explained both her absence from competition and the missed tests.

"I would like to explain why you haven't seen me at races since March. I was suspended for missing three doping control tests," she wrote.

"This happened to me twice in September 2023 and October 2023. Realising the seriousness of the situation, I tried to systematically update my whereabouts data in the system; however, due to my oversight and a significantly higher workload/obligations, it happened for the 3rd time in September 2024.

"I spent the last two years trying to defend my good name, and ultimately CAS issued a ruling in March 2026 without imposing a penalty, finding me guilty of missing a test.

"In September, I was ultimately suspended for the period from December 2024 to June 2026. It was a terribly difficult time for me and my loved ones. My intention was never to violate anti-doping regulations.

"In my entire career, I have had dozens of problem-free doping tests. However, I must accept what happened and put it behind me. I apologise to everyone I disappointed and thank everyone who was with me during this period."

Pikulik does not have a team for 2027 and has not raced on the track since her silver medal in Paris, so her future in the sport is unclear.

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Former Paris-Roubaix winner John Degenkolb took to Instagram on Monday to rebut allegations that his team, Picnic-PostNL, operates in a 'culture of fear' and an 'unsafe working situation' following a damning report by NOS Sport and De Waaier.

Writing in German, Degenkolb said in his ten years with the organisation out of 16 years as a pro cyclist, he had never experienced a "culture of fear" either in his first stint with the team when it was Argos-Shimano from 2012 to 2016, or "after my deliberate return to the team in 2022".

"Critical voices must be heard and taken seriously. However, for a fair and balanced assessment, all relevant perspectives should be considered," Degenkolb wrote.

"Our team consists of around 160 employees, including approximately 60 riders per season. Over the team’s 18-year history, it is certainly possible to find 71 individuals who have had negative experiences - but are their experiences exclusively negative?

He then tagged the journalists who reported the story, Thijs Zonneveld and Nando Boers, asking, "Why were voices like mine - and those of many others - left out of the investigation?"

Zonneveld replied, thanking him for the comments and stating, "We cannot tell you who we spoke to exactly - because we will always protect our sources. But I can tell you that we spoke to 71 riders, ex-riders, staff and former staff. And if we keep counting the (former) employees we spoke to after the publication, it would be even more.

"I respect your point of view ... but there are a lot of people who had a different experience than you."

The report included comments from Tom Dumoulin's former coach Adriaan Helmantel, who said the team's culture went downhill after Dumoulin's Giro d'Italia victory in 2017.

"They started becoming paranoid" of riders "calling the shots" if riders and coaches became too close. "It became a dictatorship," Helmantel said. Nicolas Roche described being "pushed toward the exit" because he had "too much influence on the young riders".

The team issued a response, stating that they would start an independent investigation into the allegations; they refused to engage with the two journalists during their research.

After the report was published, head coach Rudi Kemna said he was devastated by the accusations, telling Wielerflits, "The only reaction I can give is that I am deeply upset. That I sympathise with all the people we have apparently traumatised—I don't know what words are being used. I am astonished by it, but it touches me too.

"And it also hurts me that we are portrayed this way as a team, and personally Iwan [Spekenbrink, team owner] and I too... We try to lead the team as well as possible, especially regarding safety."

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The organisers of Il Lombardia were largely supportive and accommodating of the rider protest that delayed the start of the season's final Monument by five minutes, but race boss Luca Guercilena nevertheless suggested it could have been "done better".

Guercilena is new to the role of general manager of RCS Sport's cycling division, which also includes the Giro d'Italia, following his departure as Lidl-Trek boss earlier this summer.

He was approached by leading riders on the start line in Bergamo, and revealed they'd informed him of their planned protest "25 to 30 minutes before the start". Despite the disruption to the marquee race, there was little tension on the start line, and RCS appeared perfectly accommodating, their one request being that someone take a microphone and explain what was happening to the spectators.

Once the dust had settled, Cyclingnews caught up with Guercilena at the finish in Bergamo to get his take on the events.

"We can all agree on the content of the action, it was very fair. We all support what the riders are asking for, and for us the safety of the riders is important as well," he said.

"For sure we would have loved to have coordinated better and given them more voice. But more than fine with how it happened. It was very fair and correct, so we respect the riders."

As for how exactly things could have been better coordinated, Guercilena suggested the organisers would have offered the riders an even greater platform to make their statement.

"First, I would get a clear statement, and on top of that, instead of organising a straightforward microphone, we would have loved even to have them on a stage, to express their concern about safety," he said.

"We are all in favour of supporting safety. My concern was simply 'just let us help you make it better'."

In the end, Remco Evenepoel took the suggested microphone and delivered a speech to the crowds, explaining what was happening and setting out the riders' position.

This move very much appeared to clear the air and ward off any tensions between the riders and the organisers – of the kind we've seen at the Giro prior to Guercilena's appointment.

"We asked, 'do you have a statement?' And they said, 'we are going online now'. So we said, 'OK, it's better you explain because otherwise people on-site don't understand,' Guercilena said.

"Then it was very fair what [Evenepoel] did, taking the microphone and explaining to the public what was happening. We and the public at the end were quite supportive of that."

Some riders expressed sympathy with RCS Sport given that the spate of recent incidents involving vehicles that triggered this demonstration all took place in races run by other organisers. This was, simply, a timely and large platform to voice a message that they felt needed to be heard.

"It was not a bad image [for the race]. I think as RCS we are quite good at keeping control on the roads. We know some others maybe less. But our goal is to improve the safety of cycling in general, so it's more than OK," Guercilena said.

"No hard feelings. I would love that things are done better because we would be quite supportive always. We understand this is the last big race of the season, so they would like to express this here. It's also important that all the organisers are treated at the same level, so other actions like this must be shared with other races and not just with us."

"10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, PARTENZA!"

The master of ceremonies yelled out the traditional countdown on the start line of Il Lombardia on Saturday morning, but no one moved. The peloton had instead staged a protest for rider safety after numerous incidents this year, including the death of Finlay Tarling.

It was an extraordinary moment, and not just for the way it played out but the way it all came together behind the scenes.

Rider unity has been a consistent headache over the years but this protest was a slick, strong, and even secretive operation.

Beyond the riders, “no one knew this was going to happen,” the New Zealand champion George Bennett told Cyclingnews. "We kept it out of the Telegram groups, we didn’t even tell our directors or team staff."

What’s most striking of all is that they didn’t even involve the CPA, which is the riders’ union that is supposed to act as a representative body in situations like this.

Instead, a WhatsApp group was created in the middle of the week, either by Tom Pidcock or Ben Healy, depending on differing accounts. Either way, it's clear they were the two ring-leaders.

Pidcock had seen two of his Pinarello-Q36.5 teammates struck head-on by a police motorbike at the recent Tre Valli Varesine, and had said he’d wanted to stop racing then and there.

It was the third incident involving vehicles on the course in the past week alone, and comes in the context of the tragic death of Finlay Tarling at the Volta a Portugal in August.

Invites were sent out and after a while, one rider from each of the 25 teams competing in Il Lombardia was in the WhatsApp group.

"We all wanted to get every team involved and the best way was to have the leader of every team in a chat, and they could be spokesperson for their team," Mark Donovan, a close ally of Tom Pidcock’s at Pinarello-Q36.5, told Cyclingnews.

"We kept it pretty tight. We could have involved the CPA, but it was slightly more kept within the riders. It’s nothing against the CPA, they do great job, but sometimes also we can, as riders, make decisions ourselves."

'All in line'

In the group, the idea of a demonstration was introduced, the proposal of a five-minute standstill on the start line was put forward, and rider representatives were encouraged to express their support or opposition.

"It was good, it was great. When we actually come together, I think no matter what, we should support it," said Bennett.

One rider we spoke to suggested the advantage of the setup was that even if 5% of teams were in opposition, then the majority would prevail. But there were no concrete mentions of dissent that we heard.

In the past, situations like this have put the smaller teams in a tricky position, especially the second-division Italian teams who rely on invitations to these big occasions. They can be reluctant to be part of something that causes disruption to a major race organizer such as RCS Sport, which also runs the Giro d’Italia. But that doesn’t seem to be the case here.

"We were all in line. All the 25 teams today were in line,” the WhatsApp representative from one such team, MBH Bank CSB Telecom Fort’s Fausto Masnada told Cyclingnews.

"I had a request from some of the big riders of the bunch, and it makes sense what we did. Sometimes we just need to show that the riders have the power to decide these kind of things."

The start line, and the speech

And so to the start line of Il Lombardia in Bergamo on Saturday morning. The first indication that something was happening came when Pidcock, Evenepoel, and Giulio Ciccone were seen holding talks with the race director Luca Guercilena a few minutes before the start.

Ciccone was Lidl-Trek’s rider representative and a key link between the riders and RCS Sport given not only his Italian nationality but also his ties to Guercilena, his long-time team boss at Lidl-Trek until just a few months ago.

Guercilena later told Cyclingnews he was informed by the riders "25 to 30 minutes before the start". Either way, there wasn’t enough time to do much at that point – not even to give the master of ceremonies a heads-up – but there was just enough time to get a microphone heading in the direction of Remco Evenepoel, who delivered a public statement on behalf of the peloton from the front row of the start line.

"We asked them ‘do you have a statement?’ And they said, ‘we are going online now’ [with social media posts]. So we said ‘OK, it’s better you explain because otherwise the people on site don’t understand’," Guercilena said.

"Then it was very fair what he did, taking the microphone and explaining to the public what was happening. We and the public at the end were quite supportive of that."

The riders we spoke to heaped praise on Evenepoel for his impromptu speech.

"A leader, a champion," Masnada said.

"It wasn’t planned that he would speak,” Bennett said. “They were basically like ‘what the fuck are you guys you doing?’ I looked at Remco and he was like ‘argh’… I think he did well there."

A sense of pride and satisfaction among the riders

All in all, there was a sense of pride among the riders that they’d pulled off a demonstration in that way.

"I think was in good spirit, we did it in a way that didn’t take away from the racing but still showed our position," said Bennett.

"Considering what we’ve been through as a team [Finlay Tarling rode for the development arm of Bennett’s NSN Cycling], I think it’s insane that something like that can happen, that we think about every day, and then there’s still cars on the roads.

"It’s nothing against RCS. In the three races we did [where there were incidents with vehicles], none of them were RCS races. RCS runs a great show, it was nothing against RCS, but we did use their platform to get the message across. I just really hope it does something."

Donovan, who witnessed his teammates Thomas Gloag and Marcel Camprubi being hit by the motorbike at Tre Valli Varesine, added: "It’s hit us quite hard. It’s terrible really, it could have been a lot worse, and if people saw the images, if there was a camera there, they would be really shocked about how bad it was.

"Something needed to be said. We didn’t want to ruin anything. We understand how hard it is for the organisers here, so we didn’t want to do anything stupid and mess up a year of planning, but just make a statement to make sure everyone knows we can’t keep going like this, and make a point to the UCI and race organisers that the riders won’t stand for racing in unsafe conditions."

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There were remarkable scenes at the start of Il Lombardia on Saturday morning, as the peloton staged a protest and refused to start the race for a full five minutes.

Even more remarkably, Remco Evenepoel (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe) grabbed a microphone and delivered a speech, explaining to the race organisers and the general public that the riders were making a statement over rider safety.

Concern has been mounting after a number of safety issues occurred in Italian Classics earlier this week, including vehicles entering courses and police motorbike drivers striking riders during Tre Valli Varesine. These incidents come only weeks after Finlay Tarling died after a driver entered the course during the Volta ao Portugal.

Suspicions that some sort of protest might be brewing were raised when Evenepoel, Tom Pidcock (Pinarello-Q36.5) and Giulio Ciccone (Lidl-Trek) approached the senior race officials on the start line, a few minutes prior to the start of the race.

It would appear there was no more forewarning than that, as the race’s official master of ceremonies began the countdown from 10 seconds to the race start, only for the riders to remain unmoved when the start of the race was signalled.

After around two minutes, in which the race speaker declared "some sort of delay", Evenepoel was handed a microphone and addressed the gathered public in the centre of Bergamo.

"I will speak in English in the name of the whole bunch and not only the guys who are here but everyone in pro cycling," he said.

"We want to make this statement because there's too many incidents happening with vehicles in the race. Unfortunately we lost the life of a brother and of a colleague of us, so we want to make this statement to show to the world that we cannot keep accepting the fact that guys are getting injured or literally dying in what we like the most to do," he said, making reference to the death of Finlay Tarling.

"So this is why we want to spend five minutes more still to make our statement towards organisations, to the public, to everybody that is following cycling, because we cannot accept the fact that people are dying. This is why we stand still, we pay our tribute and respect to all the riders who are already involved in incidents.

"To the organisers who organise races in the future, please make sure that we can race safely, and that we can just do what we like to do without being worried about cars, motorbikes, all that stuff, coming into the course."

Evenepoel's speech was met with applause from the spectators and his fellow riders.

'We are calling for the UCI and race organisers to take accountability and act'

Tom Pidcock, whose teammates were involved in the incident at Tre Valli Varesine – and admitted he nearly stopped riding then – has been vocal about the issue of safety, and posted a statement to his Instagram to coincide with the protest. Various other riders posted the same joint statement.

"As riders, we stand united against the unnecessary risk our lives are being subjected to," it read.

"This week alone, there were multiple incidents of vehicles on race courses. Two riders crashed when they hit a motorbike who was driving the wrong way on the race route. Luckily both escaped with cuts and bruises, it could have been so much worse.

"This summer, a life was tragically lost to exactly this kind of failure. We will not stand for this any longer. Riders race at high speed with little protection, and we depend on the UCI and race organisers to secure the roads. That responsibility is not being met.

"We are calling for the UCI and race organisers to take accountability and act. That means a serious, open conversation between riders, race organisers and the UCI resulting in concrete changes to how race routes are secured and managed.

"After five minutes, we raced as normal. We did not want to affect the race, only to show what riders can do when we stand as one. We love this sport. We respect the race organisers. We want to race hard and put on a show for our fans. However most importantly we want to come home safe to our loved ones."

CPA president Adam Hansen shared the same statement on his Twitter account on Saturday morning.

After around five minutes of standstill, the flag was dropped for a second time and the peloton rolled out for the neutralised start.

RCS, who organise Il Lombardia but not any of the earlier Italian races where incidents have occurred, voiced their support for the protest, though without mentioning the demand for race organisers to act.

"At the start of Il Lombardia presented by Crédit Agricole, the riders came together to send an important message, stopping for five minutes to urge all road users to behave responsibly and show mutual respect, both during races and in everyday life," a release from the organisers read. "RCS Sport fully supports this appeal, aimed at ensuring everyone's safety."

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Tadej Pogačar’s Vuelta a España challenge came to a crashing halt when the Slovenian appeared to clip an object on the road that sent him reeling to his right into the peloton. He flew over his handlebars, landed heavily, and suffered fractures of his collarbone and spine, plus a concussion, ending his 2026 season early. The incident was unusual. Not only was the Slovenian on a wide, innocuous road, but it was the first time in 46 stage races that he’d abandoned. Pogacar’s previous race-ending crash came at Liège–Bastogne–Liège in 2023, when he fractured his wrist.

Less unusual is an unusual fact: “There are significantly more crashes on the right side than on the left. We can’t explain why. We’re looking into it.” The words of Raaghib Fredericks, UAE Team Emirates-XRG doctor, at this July’s Science & Cycling conference in Barcelona, where the South African presented his provisional findings on the injury and illness rates at the world’s leading cycling team for seasons 2019 to 2021. That crash bias was a footnote to a fascinating hour that revealed why staying injury- and illness-free is the most significant (albeit unsexy) performance boost a team and its riders can enjoy…

Paucity of research

“What do we currently know about injuries and illness at WorldTour level?” asks Fredericks. “Very little. There have been nominal studies in this area, including terrific research entitled ‘Beyond the finish line’ by a team led by Dr Thomas Fallon [of Queen’s University Belfast]. We set out to add to Fallon’s work.”

Fredericks’ research covered 30 male cyclists and analysed injury and illness data from the team’s cloud-based medical database, which was updated weekly. He could then compare those rates against training data from TrainingPeaks, the idea being that by pinning down injury and illness rates against factors like training loads, UAE Team Emirates-XRG could integrate protocols and best practice in search of, if not preventing and eliminating, at least ameliorating the impact of injuries and illness, which are significant. “Over the three seasons analysed, we lost 1,920 racing and training days to illness and injury,” he says. “That equates to around two lost days per rider each month.”

That absence varied from one day to months, as in the case of Diego Ulissi, who the team announced in mid-December 2020 would stop training and racing immediately after an irregular heartbeat led to a myocarditis diagnosis. The Italian was given the green light to resume training the following February, before racing again at mid-April’s GP Miguel Indurain. The 37-year-old now races for XDS Astana after making the switch for the 2025 season.

From a team’s perspective, a broken rider is like a broken wheel: useless. His or her impact is felt by the team, with schedules changed and, depending on the rider, chances of victory diminished. The competitive impact is felt commercially, framed against cycling’s fragile business model. Losing your strongest riders equals fewer wins equals less media exposure equals a struggle to attract sponsors… It’s a domino effect of doom.

Injury has a real and quantifiable impact on a rider’s transfer or contract value, too. The European Sport Management Quarterly, Journal of Sports Economics and Applied Economics have all featured research that shows injury can impact market valuation by 10 to 20%, with that rising to over 30% for a serious or recurrent injury. It’s worse news for older riders, as this can approach 50% for those on the wrong side of 28 years old. Naturally, this drop in market value limits an athlete’s salary and earning potential.

Egan Bernal is a clear example. In 2019, the Colombian won the Tour de France at the age of 22. In January 2022, he signed a lucrative five-year extension with Ineos reportedly worth €2.5 million to €3.0 million annually. Later that month, he suffered over 20 broken bones, a punctured lung and chest trauma after hitting a parked bus at 62km/hr. Since then, though he’s shown glimpses of his past form, he’s not been the same rider. His contract with Netcompany Ineos runs out at the end of this year and, at the time of writing, though there are rumours of either another extension or a move to Movistar, his future remains unclear. What is clear is that his likely next deal will see a salary drop to €2 million or less. Still healthy, but a sizeable percentage drop.

The injury amphitheatre

Time off the bike has clear consequences, so the aims are prevention (the ideal) and limitation (the reality). In Fredericks’ analysis, those 1,920 lost days were broken down into 140 incidences of injury and 134 incidences of illness.

When it comes to injury, 68% occurred during racing (compared to 32% in training). That’s significant and even more so when you account for annual workload. While training volume nestles between 18,000 and 23,000km, racing is around 8,500km. All in all, a rider is four times more likely to crash during a race than training.

“About 80% of these injuries are classified as acute [happen suddenly], of which 88% were a consequence of a crash,” Fredericks adds. That includes the infamous opening stage team time trial of the 2019 Vuelta a España when a paddling pool split, leaked water onto the road and took down six of their riders.

No one was seriously injured, and all riders started the next day. “That was a positive,” says Fredericks. “But I’m just glad I wasn’t the doctor at that race. He had to dress and undress the injured six riders for up to 12 days, adding an extra two-and-a-half hours to his day. Injury has significant implications for the staff as well as the riders.” (The doctor clearly did a fine job. This was the Grand Tour where Pogačar introduced himself to the world, finishing third and winning three stages in the process.)

Jayco AlUla doctor Luca Pollastre agrees that traumatic injuries are the most common. “While the frequency of crashes is relatively stable, the severity of those crashes is rising, which can mean weeks or even months before an athlete can return to competition,” he says. “We feel this is due to the aggressive nature of racing.”

This was brought home recently at the UCI World Championships in Montreal, Canada, when Liv AlUla Jayco rider Caroline Andersson, competing in the road race for Sweden, was involved in a major crash on a downhill stretch of the finishing circuit that took down 15 riders. The 25-year-old suffered four brain bleeds, two facial fractures, a broken collarbone and a broken pelvis. She is recovering and in a stable condition, but her 2026 season is over.

The most common trauma in Fredericks’ analysis was what he euphemistically termed ‘superficial’, like the road rash Pogačar endured at La Vuelta. Then came damage to bones – fractures or breaks – which shines a spotlight on bone health, a hot topic in professional cycling. Fredericks revealed that a significant number of riders [over 50%] had low bone mineral density, and quite a few of them are actually osteoporotic. Treatment includes bone-strengthening medication, calcium and vitamin D supplementation, and weight-bearing exercise.

“But that raises an important quandary,” says Fredericks. “We want to protect the riders from the risk of a fracture, but will they be interested in running, which we know helps? And will they be happier for more weights if it adds weight? It’s tricky.”

Damage to muscles, tendons and cartilage followed, while in Fallon’s research, hand and head injuries, particularly fractures and concussions, were common, with head injuries the most prevalent for female riders.

Overuse injuries are far less common, says Fredericks, with the majority related to patellar tendinopathy and Achilles tendinopathy, which are the result of the repetitive load of thousands of pedal strokes outpacing the tendons’ ability to recover and adapt.

Arguably, their rarity is credit to bike-fitters, like Phil Cavell, co-founder of Cyclefit in London, who have worked with many professional riders, including the Lidl-Trek team. Cavell’s also an author, whose most recent book, The Cycling Addiction, has just come out.

“To be fair, bike-fitters are only one reference point WorldTour riders are triangulating off,” says Cavell. “There’s also advice from teams and, surprise, surprise, WorldTour trends. Sometimes riders make decisions not wholly based on bike-fit and physio-led opinion.”

Cavell says there are hotspots when working with WorldTour riders, most notably when myriad factors change, like the bike, shoes, saddle and pedals, which can happen if a team’s sponsors change or a rider moves. “That’s when team camps become dawn to dusk affairs,” he says. “There may be adaptations at the foot, knee, hip, back… These adaptations may express over time, so our job is to predict what’s going to happen and put in place mediations.”

READ: Pedal performance: How Matteo Jorgenson re-learnt the art of pedalling

“I remember working with a very good rider, recently retired, who started a particular Grand Tour with a 17cm drop from saddle to bars,” he adds. “It worked okay for eight or nine days until it didn’t. We were brought in to revise his drop with a bit more insight and data – saddle pressure-mapping, motion-capture. He could see his issues reflected in our findings.”

Impact of illness

Fredericks’ research also focused on the impact of illness, explicitly seen in February 2020 when the UAE Tour was abandoned with two stages remaining due to an outbreak of Covid-19 at the UAE Team Emirates’ hotel in Abu Dhabi. The Emirati team and three other squads were quarantined for two weeks while health authorities carried out tests. Soon after, the team’s lead sprinter, Fernando Gaviria, confirmed that he had contracted coronavirus.

Of the 134 incidences of illness between 2019 and 2021, Fredericks says that 41% of these occurred during racing, with the remaining 59% either in training or between races. “In that time, we had 11 recorded cases of COVID, resulting in a loss of 137 race days [out of 659 lost to illness as a whole]. That’s significant and came down to the minimum 14-day isolation period, plus a graduated return to racing.”

Obviously other teams suffered. Take Simon Yates at Jayco AlUla, who tested positive after stage seven of the 2020 Giro d’Italia, held in October, and withdrew. The Australian outfit’s staff members also tested positive at both the Giro and late August’s Tour de France. The pandemic’s impact is still felt by Jayco, albeit positively.

“We have systems in place that stem from that experience,” says Pollastre. “These range from the use of face masks to strategic room allocation for athletes and the careful assignment of therapists to individual riders, among many other measures.”

“At the beginning of each season, we strongly recommend influenza vaccination for both staff and athletes,” he continues. “During the season, the team doctors hold a weekly call to review the health status of all riders. Relevant information is then shared with coaches and sports directors to support performance-related decisions. Understanding wearable technology data, training loads and providing continuous education are key components in minimising risk.”

Still, despite best practice, it’s hard to avoid SAD (Seasonal Afflicted Danger). “We always expect more issues at the start of the season due to the weather and changes in environment, moving from Australia to the Middle East and then into the European season,” adds Pollastre. “Towards the end of the year, there can also be a spike in illness due to the cumulative fatigue of the season. Although we haven’t analysed it over seasons, at our team I believe that a loss of approximately 10% of training and racing days per rider per year is a realistic average.”

Pollastre says that upper respiratory infections are the biggest cause of time off the bike, which matches both the data from Fallon and Fredericks’ research: “Of the 134 incidence of illness, 60 were respiratory related, like upper respiratory tract infections.” That’s around 45%. Fallon’s study found that racing Grand Tours is associated with a spike, potentially due to “immunosuppression” through the three-week strain. Load management is one method to reduce the chances of falling ill, but that’s clearly more controllable in training than at a race.

Dermatological issues, like saddle sores, were responsible for 18% of lost days, with gastrointestinal issues close behind – ideally not too close behind – at 17%. Interestingly, in Fallon’s research, female athletes report a higher ‘burden’ of gastrointestinal symptoms than the males, although the reasons are not fully understood. A 2017 study suggested that this disparity could be down to hormonal changes affecting gut motility and sensitivity.

Prevention is… tricky

Looking ahead, Fredericks is planning to pore over more recent data in search of solutions. What those solutions are is highlighted by Fallon’s research, which ranges from the use of protective clothing, such as Dyneema-enhanced jerseys to help reduce the number of abrasion-type injuries to neck-strengthening exercises, particularly for female riders, to minimise linear and rotational acceleration of the head during a crash.

“Cycling should also embrace technological advances in the use of head-impact accelerometers that feedback to the race doctor’s car to improve care and assessment,” the paper reads.

The problem is that the root causes of injuries and illnesses are multifactorial and somewhat speculative, albeit speculation stemming from education. Cavell gives the example of those traumatic injuries. “Does the trend of a more forward centre-of-mass with narrower bars mean less reaction time if something does happen? And what about shorter cranks? They allow a rider to maintain a deeper drop without blocking the hip, but does this have an effect?” As for the right-side crashing bias mentioned earlier, “That almost certainly has to be correlation, not causation, unless a parcours is especially right-corner-focused.”

Ultimately, for all the sophistication of modern professional cycling, staying healthy may still be its simplest performance advantage. Crashes remain an unavoidable hazard, while illness and overuse quietly erode seasons too. Fredericks’ research shows how much time is lost, but also where gains might come from: better data, smarter load management and preventative care. The marginal gain could be staying upright.

The International Testing Agency (ITA) have announced that Ukrainian racer Kyrylo Tsarenko has accepted a 12-month suspension from racing after committing an anti-doping rule violation.

Tsarenko was suspended from racing after three instances of late submission of whereabouts filings within a 12-month period.

His period of ineligibility runs from July 1, 2025, to June 30, 2026, and he already resumed racing for Solution Tech-Nippo-Rali back in July. He has since raced the Sibiu Tour, several .2 races in Turkey, and a host of races in Italy, including the Coppa Sabatini, Giro d'Abruzzo, Tre Valli Varesine, and Gran Piemonte.

"The ITA reports that cyclist Kyrylo Tsarenko has agreed to the consequences for his ADRV under Article 2.4 of the UCI Anti-Doping Rules (UCI ADR)," the ITA announced on Thursday.

"Following three instances of late submission of whereabouts filings, which resulted in three filing failures within a 12-month period, the ITA and Kyrylo Tsarenko have reached an agreement on consequences in relation to the ADRV.

"The Rider did not challenge the ADRV and agreed with the consequences proposed by the ITA on behalf of the UCI, namely a one-year period of ineligibility and disqualification of results. Accordingly, the case was resolved via an agreement on consequences."

Tsarenko continued racing to end the 2025 season, taking in 19 race days including the Czech Tour, several Italian one-day races, and the UEC European Championships road race.

However, all of those results have now been wiped out as a result of the year-long suspension, while he was held out of racing for the first half of the 2026 season before returning at the Sibiu Tour, where he finished sixth.

"Considering that the rider was serving a provisional suspension, which he accepted on a voluntary basis pending the proceedings, the rider’s period of ineligibility ended on 30 June 2026. All the rider’s competitive results obtained from 1 July 2025 until 3 December 2025 are disqualified, including forfeiture of medals, points and prizes," the ITA announced.

"No party with a right of appeal has challenged the decision before the Appeals Division of the Court of Arbitration for Sport. The case is therefore final.

"The ITA will not comment further on this case."

Photo finishes are not a rare thing in cycling – winners are decided using finish-line technology instead of the naked eye in multiple races every year – but they're not always as controversial as they have been this week.

Usually, a finish that seems close often isn't so close when we see the official photo finish, an image produced by a high-speed camera that is positioned precisely at the line drawn on the road.

Rather than a single open-and-close of an aperture like a normal photo, the finish line captures a single slice of the 4cm finish line tens of thousands of times per second, then renders each millisecond of time horizontally.

Because the image is a reflection of the rider's position in time, rather than in space like a normal photo or TV still, the technology can clearly emphasise really small margins.

However, when the margins are absolutely tiny, sometimes even the finish line scan is unconvincing to some, or riders can question things about the calibration and set-up of the finish. Typically, there are two finish line cameras that the jury can consult in the event of a close finish.

With the cameras capturing slices of the riders as they cross the finish line, these photos often don't even show the finish line as the riders see it, so they certainly are vulnerable to questioning, even once the race jury has decided a winner.

That's what happened this week, when Giulio Ciccone called into question the accuracy and transparency of the photo finish at the end of the European Championships, where he was declared the runner-up behind Remco Evenepoel by less than four millimetres.

Despite the UEC providing not one but two photo finishes captured by the finish-line scanners, the nature of the technology means that the 'finish line' is not visible in either image because the whole image is just slices of the finish line.

Ciccone said he struggled to reconcile this result with photos that do show the finish line – and, in his eyes, his front wheel crossing it first.

So whilst the vast majority of photo finishes are decided without a hitch, what happens in the rare case where things aren't straightforward? Are the results ever overturned on closer inspection? Can two winners be awarded? And what if it truly is a dead heat?

We looked back through the archives to answer those questions.

The closest photo finishes in recent memory

There are numerous examples of photo finishes every season, but only a few that make it into the category of feeling truly almost too close to call. The millimetre difference between Evenepoel and Ciccone in Slovenia at the weekend certainly makes it onto that list.

This season alone, a tiny margin separated Jensen Plowright and Wout van Aert on a stage of the Tour of Denmark, with the Belgian awarded the win after close inspection of the photo.

In 2023, Caleb Ewan tweeted that "I kinda think I won" after his win at the GP Monsere was overturned and given to Gerben Thijssen. Lotto Dstny filed an appeal at the time, but the result stood.

Going back further, Edvald Boasson Hagen narrowly losing to Marcel Kittel on a stage of the Tour de France seemed so close that the UCI might have to activate some long-retired dead heat protocol.

A tight finish at Amstel Gold Race in 2021 sparked similar controversy to what we're seeing with the Europeans. Mark Cavendish's win over Andre Greipel on stage 3 of the 2016 Tour de France was also exceptionally close and hard to call.

All of those examples saw margins of around 6mm – the gap between Evenepoel and Ciccone is estimated to be about half that.

Demi Vollering seems to have been involved in more photo finishes than we can count, against Puck Pieterse at the Tour de France Femmes and Marlen Reusser at Dwars door Vlaanderen to name a couple.

And of course there's the iconic image of three riders all lunging for the line at the 2017 Milan-San Remo, though the actual winning margin wasn't as tiny as the dramatic image led us to believe.

So ultra-tight photo finishes, especially ones where the margin is smaller than a centimetre, are still fairly rare in cycling history, but they certainly do happen, and sometimes the outcomes aren't straightforward.

Two winners in Croatia – Umag Classic 2026

Whilst the finish line technology can usually split the riders and decide a winner, even if it's by one or two millimetres, there have been occasions where it's simply impossible to decide a winner.

In theory, there's a slightly novel way to award the victory – more on that below – but very occasionally the organisers will just go for the obvious solution: declare two winners.

This is obviously a highly rare thing it sport, but it happened as recently as this spring in cycling, when the Umag Classic declared the race a tie, with Dušan Rajović and Adam Bradáč sharing the victory after lengthy studying of the photo finish couldn't determine a winner.

They were both officially declared the winner, both earning the UCI points of a winner, and no second place was awarded.

This outcome is remarkably rare, though a similar thing did happen at the World Championships in 2010, albeit not for the win.

In the men's U23 road race, the finish line photo couldn't distinguish between Taylor Phinney and Guillaume Boivin for third place, so the pair shared the bronze medal and both stood on the podium.

Unfortunately, they literally did have to share the bronze medal: there wasn't a spare one knocking around, apparently, so the podium photos show them amusingly both grasping onto the medal.

The UCI rules outline for this provision of sharing of the top three placings at Olympic and World Championships, though they are remarkably unclear about what should be done in the event of a dead heat in any other race.

Kilometre-long sprint tie-breakers have been used before, though this is not officially outlined in the UCI rules anymore.

Yes, results can be overturned – Clásica de Almería 2026

The reason Giulio Ciccone might have held out some hope that his after-the-fact appeal might have had a positive outcome is that late changes are not unheard of. Results certainly can be overturned well after a race has taken place, as happened this year, a whopping nine days after the Clásica de Almería. That's a long time spent studying the finish line photo.

In this case, it wasn't for the victory, as Biniam Girmay had secured that by an undoubted margin, but for third place. Matteo Moschetti was originally declared the third-place finisher, but nine days later, Dylan Groenewegen was upgraded to third.

Changing the results outside of the winner so long after may seem unnecessary, but UCI points are up for grabs and teams and riders do take results like third extremely seriously. It does beg the question of how many lower results are awarded without such scrutiny, though.

The one Tom Pidcock still doesn't agree with – Amstel Gold Race 2021

Just because a result goes one way officially doesn't mean riders always agree with it morally. Just ask Tom Pidcock. He very, very narrowly lost out on an Amstel Gold Race win in 2021 after Wout van Aert was declared the winner by a margin of around six millimetres, later asking "But where is the finish line?" and then making reference to a "mis-placed photo finish" – though he later deleted the latter line from his social media.

When he finally did win Amstel Gold in 2024, he joked that "I was going to say it’s great to win for the second time but that might create some controversy" which, while in jest to a degree, does probably show that at least a small part of him still thinks he has a claim to being the 'real' winner in 2021. Even with all the technology we have now, photo finishes still can't convince everyone.

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The organisers of the Coppa Bernocchi have acknowledged that they "must not underestimate" the severity of an incident that saw the driver of a van enter the route in the midst of the race on Monday.

Footage from the Italian one-day race showed a yellow DHL delivery van turning from a side street onto the race route just behind the three breakaway riders, with just under 20km remaining.

The driver hesitated before pulling out, presumably checking the coast was clear after the trio had passed. However, a chase group was only 40 seconds behind the leaders, and the peloton 45 seconds behind that, so the van was right in the middle of the race.

The driver was diverted off the route and did not cause any collisions or upheaval to the racing, but it was nevertheless an incident fraught with potential danger.

"The entry of a van onto the Coppa Bernocchi route is a serious incident, one we must not underestimate," said two representatives from the race organisation, Luca Roveda and Gianni Dolce, in a statement to the local news outlet Milano Today.

"The fact that there were no consequences does not diminish the attention this incident deserves.

Roveda, who is the president of the US Legnanese organisation, and Dolce, who is responsible for the race route, described safety as a "priority" and outlined the measures they take to secure the route. But they indicated they would need to work out how exactly those measures were breached on Monday.

"For US Legnanese, the safety of athletes, staff, and spectators is a concrete priority, to which we dedicate men, equipment, and significant preparation," they said.

"The prepared system included approximately 250 personnel at the guard posts, in addition to local police and Carabinieri personnel, two unmarked cars, 16 motorcycles, and four police cars, along with 20 motorcycle relays.

"These numbers demonstrate the commitment, but they don't eliminate the need to understand how the van managed to access the course, despite the warnings and guards."

A string of similar incidents

This comes as one of a string of incidents involving vehicles in the past week at the Italian one-day races.

At the Giro dell'Emilia on Saturday, a group of riders rode past a civilian car that was driving on the route deep into the finale. On Tuesday, two riders were struck by a vehicle at the Tre Valli Varesine, with Tom Pidcock saying it was a police motorbike that was driving against the direction of the peloton.

The spate of incidents comes just weeks after the death of Finlay Tarling, the young NSN Development rider who died after being hit by the driver of a car that had entered the race route at the Volta a Portugal.

Rider safety has been a prominent topic in recent years and while the UCI set up the SafeR collective stakeholder organisation in 2023, it has acknowledged there is work do, describing safety as the sport's foremost responsibility in discussing the recent consultation surrounding pro cycling reform.

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Pinarello-Q36.5 rider Marcel Camprubí has revealed damage to his bike after a crash caused by a vehicle on the course during Tuesday’s Tre Valli Varesine race in northern Italy.

Posting on his Instagram page, the Spanish road race champion showed the snapped forks of his Pinarello bike, with a caption reading: "Tre Valli Varesine - Sad that you have to risk your life to race, one month after a tragic accident.

"Cars in races," he added alongside a thumb-down emoji.

The incident first came to light when his teammate Tom Pidcock was interviewed after finishing second in the race, saying Caprubí and another Pinarello-Q36.5 rider, Thomas Gloag, had been hit by a police motorcycle driving in the opposite direction to the race.

Whether it was a motorbike or a car, as mentioned in Camprubí’s post, is not yet known, though Cyclingnews has reached out to the team and the race organisers.

However, Pidcock reposted Campruví’s Instagram story adding: "Thankfully [Marcel Camprubí] and [Thomas Gloag] are ok. But police motorbike driving head on into the peloton mid race should never happen. These accidents must stop."

The incident comes after a series of others where cars have found their way onto race courses in recent months. The most high profile of those caused the death of NSN Development Team rider Finlay Tarling at the Volta a Portugal, which is likely what Camrubí was referring to when he mentioned a 'tragic accident'.

However, sadly, that is not the only such incident, with a number of others during the recent series of Italian autumn Classics. During Saturday’s Giro dell’Emilia a car was seen on the course on a fast descent late in the race, while a delivery van was seen pulling out behind the breakaway during Coppa Bernocchi on Monday.

The topic of rider safety has been prominent for some time, though particularly since Tarling’s death in mid-August. In outlining the recent stakeholder consultation on pro cycling reforms, UCI president David Lappartient said that safety "is not negotiable, and it will move forward at an even faster pace than the other parts of the reform".

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The Italian Anti-Doping Tribunal (NADT) announced on Wednesday that it has provisionally suspended Alberto Bruttomesso (Bahrain Victorious) for violation of the anti-doping code.

The provisions stated in the one-sentence press release list articles 2.1 and 2.2, both related to athlete responsibility for ensuring no prohibited substances enter their bodies.

The announcement did not give the date, substance or method involved in the anti-doping rule violation.

The 22-year-old has raced with Bahrain Victorious since 2024, and is under contract with the team through 2027.

Bahrain Victorious posted a short statement on their website, writing:

"Bahrain Victorious is aware of the provisional suspension concerning Alberto Bruttomesso following an anti-doping control conducted by NADO Italia.

"The team fully supports Alberto throughout the ongoing process and will cooperate fully with the relevant anti-doping authorities as the matter is investigated.

"While the case remains ongoing, Alberto will be suspended from all team activities pending a clear and definitive outcome from the relevant anti-doping authorities and the completion of the applicable testing and review procedures.

"Bahrain Victorious remains committed to the highest standards of integrity and to respecting the established anti-doping process. Until that process has concluded, the team will make no further comment."

Bruttomesso's case has yet to be registered by the International Testing Agency, the organisation responsible for the majority of testing and results management for professional cycling.

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Benjamin Noval’s win in the junior men’s road race at the UCI Road World Championships on Thursday was the perfect example of controlled speed, but it seems his Spanish team sports director was less restrained.

As Noval rode solo to take his second rainbow jersey of the week, after also winning the junior time trial, Eleuterio Anguita was desperately trying to catch the 17-year-old prodigy in the Spanish team car. Too desperately, it seems.

Anguita was caught on a fan’s social media driving the Volkswagen team car at speed on the course. As it passed the camera the car even briefly took off after hitting a bump, landing on the tarmac with a scraping sound.

The UCI’s regulations and guidelines governing vehicle drivers in road races are constantly being updated and place a number of restrictions on drivers in a race convoy. They must hold a licence permitting them to drive in UCI races, and are required to attend a safety briefing held before the race in question.

The regulations also require drivers to "drive in a prudent manner to safeguard the safety of riders in the race, spectators and other vehicles".

Anguita was listed in the post-race communiqué as having breached Article 2.12.007.6.3, regulations or guidelines concerning vehicles movements during the race. He was fined CHF 1,000 and excluded "from the entire World Championships in Montreal, Canada."

After a 10-year career as a professional racer, during which he won a stage of the Vuelta a España, Anguita was appointed as the Spanish junior men's road cycling coach in January 2015.

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Nine months after he was provisionally suspended from racing, Colombian racer Germán Gómez Becerra has been cleared of a possible doping charge by the International Testing Agency (ITA).

Gómez Becerra was provisionally suspended by both the UCI and his Polti VisitMalta ProTeam after testing positive for the banned substance boldenone, an anabolic steroid used mainly in livestock production, in an out-of-competition test in December 2025.

He was recovering from an operation on his collarbone at the time after a training crash, and was notified of the positive in late January.

However, the ITA stated in a press release that - as reported by Ciclo21 - Gomez Becerra was subsequently able to establish that the boldenone in his sample resulted from the consumption of meat contaminated with the substance.

"The rider was also able to establish that he bore No Fault or Negligence for the anti-doping rule violation, and, therefore, no period of ineligibility was imposed and the rider is free to compete effective immediately," the ITA, which handles all anti-doping testing for the UCI, added.

"As the sample was collected out-of-competition, there are no competitive results to disqualify."

At the time that the case became public, Gómez Becerra issued a passionate defence of his innocence on social media, stating that "Cycling has given me everything, it's been the central pillar of my life.

"For that reason, I've never considered malpractice to obtain an advantage. It's never been, nor will it be, the pathway to reach an objective."

Reports that Gómez Becerra had been found innocent were already published in Colombian media last week, but it was only on Friday that the news was definitively confirmed.

Although appeals against the final verdict are technically possible, the ITA statement said that "The matter is considered as resolved from the perspective of the UCI/ITA."

There are rumours that after being cleared by the ITA, Gómez Becerra may return to racing as soon as this weekend in France at the one-day Paris-Chauny Classic.

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The UCI Road World Championships always brings a host of announcements from the governing body, whether they be locations of coming championships, calendar announcements or new technical regulations.

This year’s Montreal championships are no different, the governing body announcing changes in its approach to technical regulations and a review of the Lugano Charter, the 30-year-old document governing the fundamentals of bikes and kit used in racing.

There have long been complaints that the Charter has failed to keep pace with technical advances and, though no details are yet known, changes to the Lugano Charter could open the way for major changes to the bikes ridden in UCI sanctioned races.

Established in 1996, the Charter was intended to standardise equipment and to ensure the rider remained the most important component, not the machine. Some of the regulations stemming from the charter include the double triangle shape of a racing bike and the 6.8kg minimum weight limit for road bikes, so controversially breached by Lorena Wiebes during the opening stage of the Giro d’Italia Women this year.

"Thirty years after its adoption, given the evolution of practices, societal issues and safety requirements, it had become necessary to undertake a review of its content," the UCI said of the Charter review.

The UCI has promised the process will be managed to "Avoid any excesses which would compromise safety, fairness, universality or sustainability," and is to consult with industry stakeholders on equipment regulation.

Xavier Disley, the founder of components brand AeroCoach, sits on the World Federation of the Sporting Goods Industry and has welcomed the proposals.

"The fact they’re willing to revisit the Lugano charter (and the rules that have stemmed from that) is very welcome news," Disley told Cyclingnews. "Technology is ever changing in unpredictable ways and it’s perfectly natural for regulations to change and be updated accordingly.

"Even a small change, like the seat stay dimension box or top tube box, would result in the ability to design very different looking, and different performing frames, for example. There is the other side of it, however, the recent trend of wider forks, seat stays - is this something that a new charter would look to limit further? As that’s what we’ve seen with updates to internal dimensions in those areas, so it would be odd to then relax them back again.

"We could also have a scenario where track is split out from road and TT, creating more room for manoeuvre in terms of design rather than having to fall under the same restrictions for the frame."

As part of its wider approach to equipment regulation, the UCI will establish a "new framework for consultation with cycling industry stakeholders on equipment regulation." This framework will include a number of Technical Committees, each of which will be dedicated to specific areas, including clothing, protective equipment, wheels and tyres, and frames.

These consultative groups are potentially a major step forward given that some manufacturers have accused the governing body of a lack of consultation. Last year wheel brand Swiss Side called for a science-based approach to regulations after the introduction of limits on wheel rim depth came into force at the start of 2026.

And consultation might have prevented the legal battle between the UCI and SRAM following the proposed introduction of regulations governing gear ratios. That regulation was designed to reduce racing speeds and improve safety by setting an upper limit on the size of gear that racers can use, but by proxy, it effectively banned the American company’s drivetrain due to its use of a smaller 10-tooth cog at the rear cassette.

The UCI says a draft of the updated Lugano Charter will will be made available early next year ahead of consultation with interested parties, including manufacturers, and the finalised Charter will be published later in 2027.

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During the UCI's annual Congress at the UCI Road World Championships in Montreal on Wednesday, Medical Director Xavier Bigard presented the results of a survey of the causes of crashes in the men's and women's WorldTour pelotons, and pointed to some alarming differences between the injuries suffered.

The survey began with Paris-Nice this year, and sought to find the incidence and type of injuries being sustained, correlate the causes of crashes with the severity of injury and, as a result of the analysis, identify risk factors with the aim of finding preventative measures.

The study examined 21 men's races (90 days) and 14 women's events (37 days) or 12,951 men's rider-race days and 4,381 women's rider-race days

"The main takeaway from this slide, which shows crash incidence rates, is that crashes occurring in women's races involve more riders than in men's races," Bigard said during his presentation, pointing to a slide that showed that in the women's peloton, crashes involved an average of 4.7 riders compared with 2.7 for men.

"The second finding is that during these crashes, the number of medical interventions is consistently higher in women's races than in men's."

Speaking afterward to Cyclingnews, Bigard clarified, "What is important to know is these are only preliminary data, explaining that an 'incident' is a crash or fall, whether or not there was an injury.

"What is most important is the rate of incidents and the rate of injuries. The rate of incidents was approximately 1.3 times higher in women compared with men," he explained.

"Another important piece of information: for one fall or incident, we have more riders involved in women's races in comparison with men's races. That is an important finding.

"Then we look at incidents with medical attention or medical intervention - we have incidents, and then incidents with medical contact - the rate is 1.5 times higher in women compared with men.

"And the last piece of information is true injuries - where there is tissue damage, skin abrasion, concussion, fracture, and so on. The rate of injuries is 1.55 times higher in women.

"To my knowledge, these are clearly the most important pieces of information. After that, the other data concern the type and severity of injuries in women compared with men."

While men's crashes, like the one that took Tadej Pogačar out of this year's World Championships, giving him a concussion, fractured vertebra and collarbone, earn plenty of attention from the world's media, women are being injured more frequently and more seriously.

Delving deeper into the data, Bigard highlighted an increased level of seriousness of the crashes in the women's peloton.

"When comparing the differences in the type and severity of these injuries, we observe that there are 4.3 times more head-level injuries occurring in women compared to men; 2.3 times more concussions in women compared to men; and nearly 3 times more severe skin lesions in women than in men," Bigard said during his presentation.

"Furthermore ... there are approximately 2.5 times more fractures occurring in women compared to men.

"The main hypothesis ... is an alteration of bone health. For me, yes - we are not certain, of course, but this is a clear hypothesis. This is related to hormonal alterations, a decrease in energy availability, and it is also specific to cycling because cycling is not a weight-bearing sport.

"We know that ground impacts are essential to improve bone health, which isn't the case in cycling. While that's observed in both men and women, why we have more fractures in women can be explained, at least partly, by hormonal alterations."

Why women are crashing more is still to be determined. Bigard suggested there was too much heterogeneity in skill level in the women's WorldTour compared to the men's.

There could be other factors, too, like differences in stability between men's and women's bike designs. Currently height, weight, and frame geometry are not part of the dataset.

The study looked at conditions: wind, rain, whether the incident was near the end of a race, and rider's experience, and there was no strong correlation with any factor in the women's field.

"We attempted to identify a certain number of contributing factors behind these crashes, particularly severe crashes where injuries can be expected.

"Among men, we found only a single contributing factor: the number of riders involved in a crash. Under these circumstances, medical intervention is more frequent, and there are more injuries than in other situations.

"We also found, paradoxically though explainable, a trend among men to have fewer crashes and fewer injuries when it rains, in wet conditions. This can obviously be easily explained [by riders being more cautious] even if the result might seem paradoxical. Among women, we were unable to identify any contributing or protective factors regarding crash and injury risks."

Both genders had a highest risk for crashing on descents, however.

"In a very reproducible manner across both men and women, we found that crashes occurring on descents were the most severe, requiring medical intervention and resulting in injuries - which once again highlights how speed can be a major injury factor in road racing."

Bigard continued with presenting the financial impact of crashes, showing that men and women lost a similar number of training days, while women lost more racing days, although what was presented was not normalised.

"We estimated that among women, overall injuries could be valued at a financial budget deficit of €891,000, and approximately €2.3 million for men. This is obviously a result that should carry weight with the teams.

"In conclusion, we face significant difficulty in identifying contributing factors causing these crashes, at least to date based on the collected data."

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It has been 725 days since Swiss junior rider Muriel Furrer died after crashing during her home 2024 UCI Road World Championships, having been unattended for a full 82 minutes because she was hidden in the brush. It has been 40 days since Finlay Tarling was killed when a van drove onto the course at the Volta a Portugal and hit him head-on. Pro cycling, as a workplace, has a massive safety problem.

A simple system of tracking riders using global positioning system (GPS) units might have prevented Furrer's death, but the only tracking system in use at the time was in the men's WorldTour for the commercialisation of rider power, speed and heart rate data.

After the tragedy, the UCI acknowledged the pressing need for a better safety net, and implemented their own tracking system in the World Championships in Rwanda last year.

It was anticipated that the UCI would introduce new regulations for GPS tracking at the Management Committee meeting in Montreal this week, but on Wednesday, the post-meeting announcement reiterated the pending nature, stating "The protocols, the relevant regulatory framework and the implementation timeline will be developed as quickly as possible."

For the President of the main riders' union (the CPA), Adam Hansen, more widespread tracking of riders cannot come soon enough, but there is a distinct lack of unity among teams on the details.

"It seems like it's becoming more important every day, especially after Finlay Tarling," Hansen tells Cyclingnews.

"Trackers would have avoided this because trackers will see when riders have no protection. For example, in his scenario, he was riding without a police motorbike or any organiser in front of him.

"If this had been seen on a screen that there was no police bike, this could have been very quickly relayed to the race regulator [who could have announced] 'Rider 81, three minutes back, no protection, send someone there.'"

The UCI has practically begged stakeholders to come to an agreement on a tracking system. In March, the UCI sent a letter to stakeholders that emphasised a sense of urgency for implementing GPS tracking.

They sought to reassure stakeholders that they aren't looking to impose any specific system, but would prioritise one "that allows for open access to providing such services". The letter stated: "Stakeholders can work on the development of a system or tool with the provider of their choice (organisers, teams, riders)."

After the death of Tarling, the UCI spent a large part of the Pro Cycling Council (PCC) meeting earlier this month on GPS tracking, and in a statement said that "the UCI stressed the urgent need" to put a tracking system in place in the men's and women's WorldTour, with phrases such as "in the absence of a joint proposal from the different stakeholder groups" and "stakeholders need to move past any disagreements on certain issues and act together" but rather alarmingly: "safety must never be sacrificed for commercial interests".

Why are stakeholders raising any objections to a system everyone agrees is badly needed? What commercial interest is sacrificing rider safety?

(To be clear, objections from teams have not stopped GPS tracking from being used, and the UCI regulations were never going to be agreed upon before this year. When teams pulled out of a trial at the women's Tour de Romandie in 2025, the trial still went ahead. This article highlights the finer points of implementing a tracking system.)

Cyclingnews attempted to speak to Brent Copeland, head of the AIGCP (teams organisation), to better understand the concerns leading to the lack of agreement the UCI mentions, but we were unable to receive comment before the publication of this article.

Hansen gave his perspective from what was discussed in the PCC meetings, which included representatives from the AIGCP, the race organisers' association (AIOCC) and the UCI, but is not a representative of the teams.

There are already at least three different tracking systems in use in the WorldTour: the Tour de France has one for their broadcast and live race centre, but it's only for commercial purposes. Teams obviously don't pay for that. The UCI built another in partnership with Swiss Timing for safety alone last year, and if they impose their system on teams, it might come at a cost to teams.

Then there's the Velon group, a business venture owned by eight men's WorldTour teams who built their entire business model around collecting and monetising live rider data. Those eight teams have invested heavily in developing and evolving their live data system over the course of a decade. In 2025, after the deaths of Gino Mäder and Furrer, Velon developed a safety module, 'SaVe', that sends riders' speed and location to a central monitoring station.

At first, Hansen says, there was a concern from teams that the UCI might try impose their system and then commercialise the data.

"The teams did think this at the start – they thought the UCI was going to monetise this," he says. "But the UCI President said in three PCC meetings that they would never do this; they just want safety trackers on the riders.

"I'm not 100% sure why the teams have not agreed to an open system, because that's what we all agreed we want."

An 'open system' means that the UCI would collect the data from whatever trackers teams use and be the ones keeping tabs on the riders. "It's like radios: every team has different radios, and two riders can have two different radios, but all work on the same frequency. We want the same thing for the GPS trackers, where two different teams having two different GPS trackers send the same information.

"The teams are being a little difficult about this because the Velon teams want to use their system," Hansen says. "We know that Velon wants every team to have their system – that's for sure. How this all started is the teams are very sensitive on who owns the data of the riders, like heart rate, cadence, and all that. Velon offers that, and they monetise this."

Ultimately, though, Hansen points to what he thinks is the reason for the disagreement – the idea of using the UCI's system over Velon's. "I think it's more of a bit of a distaste for the Velon teams that they've invested so much money into one system over the years, and that it can just be quickly replaced by a different system."

In 2025, the Tour de Suisse organisers paid Velon CHF 50,000 (£44,941/$60,965) to implement SaVe for the men's and women's races, and Velon has been expanding their reach this year to cover more men's races. They plan to add women's races next year, too. With the upcoming UCI regulations that will mandate GPS tracking, Velon will have an opportunity to expand further.

Velon CEO Graham Bartlett tells Cyclingnews that they may be charging race organisers for the safety module, but insists they're not out to make a profit off of it.

"The safety module itself was a reasonable amount of CapEx [capital expenditure – ed.] investment to develop that software," Bartlett says. "People think it's easy: 'OK, you can see where the rider is on a map, there you go, safety!' That's not how it works. How do you differentiate between a GPS signal just going off-track a little bit and a rider that's down a ravine? The software has to be really sophisticated to only throw up the right kind of alerts, and that takes time to develop and invest in.

"We've done that. We're not looking to make money out of that at all. If we charge costs to race organisers to use the system, it's to recover some costs of the operating staff on the ground."

When Velon's system is used for safety tracking, Bartlett says they send three or four people to monitor the system and the incoming data, which costs money.

"We have to pay people; we're not going to turn this over to a bunch of volunteers," he said. "The Premier League in the UK launched a monitoring drone system for crowd safety – they are paying somebody else to do it. So we will charge the race organisers for doing this at races, why wouldn't we? We have to pay people. But to the teams, it's free."

(Several teams invest in and fund Velon, but this system would be free to use by all teams in a given race, not just Velon members)

He emphasised that for their safety module, Velon just wants to "get it wide and out there to as many people as possible through the teams".

What Velon stand to lose if the UCI take away their ability to monitor the whole peloton's data for safety is the potential to sell their live data to race organisers. With Velon's GPS trackers already on riders' bikes, organisers might see the value in getting on board with their commercial venture, too.

"We offer a really good business model to race organisers where they actually end up making money out of the fan engagement data," Bartlett says.

"Safety we treat as separate. We're not asking them to repay us for the software investment or start making loads of money on the basis of that. We'd rather focus on making money on the fan engagement stuff, the sports promotion and race promotion, the sponsorships."

While Velon teams can commercialise riders' data, non-Velon teams can also work with the organisation, trading their riders' data for Velon's social media streams, in return for the team cars receiving live in-race data.

"Now, if a race organiser wants to enrich their broadcast or for us to promote their race with data, then yeah, they pay for that service in the same way they pay for a lot of services," Bartlett said.

"That's the essence of the model: free to the teams, free to use, and that's why we can roll it out now to so many more races, because we've got a lot more capacity."

Is the Velon system up to the task for safety?

By the end of this season, SaVe will have been used in 100 days of racing, Bartlett says, and it's been successful in detecting several incidents. Before it was fully implemented, the Velon trackers picked up on Alessio Martinelli's harrowing crash on stage 16 of the 2025 Giro d'Italia, for example.

"We knew exactly where he was," Bartlett said. "So we could pinpoint those coordinates back to their DSs, back to the team [VF Group-Bardiani CSF-Faizanè], and tell them that's where he is. The cameras picked him up as well, and there were people by the side of the road, so I'm not claiming any exquisite result in that. It's just an illustration that that's where the information goes, that's what we're using it for. Primarily, it goes back to the teams."

In stage 2 of this year's Giro d'Italia in Albania, the system identified riders who had gone down in a crash and sent that information immediately to the affected riders' teams. Again, on stage 8, when Fabio Christen (Pinarello-Q36.5) crashed and broke his collarbone, Velon's system sent an alert and relayed the information to his team.

However, there is no perfect system when it comes to transmitting live data, as cycling fans around the world have experienced when fog or rain interferes with the television signals on a critical climb and we're all left groaning that we're missing all of the action. That's because big races like the Tour de France use a radio frequency system to send data from the ground to aircraft that can then transmit live data to a central location. Sometimes aircraft cannot fly in certain conditions, or the signal can't get through.

Velon's system uses existing 4G and 5G cellular networks, but if you've ever stood on the side of a mountain in the wilderness, you know there are dead zones.

Hansen suggests that some teams might be concerned about these dead zones with Velon's system. "The UCI was looking into some type of mesh system, where every tracker has long-range WiFi, and they all connect to each other. Then you might have a drone flying over the top [to collect the data and transmit it to a monitor]."

Even if one device goes offline, it can talk to a nearby tracker and that one can relay the first's signal. "Once they go back in range, they can relay that 'Rider disappeared at this location'," Hansen says. "There might be a little delay when there's no service, but they'll definitely get a relay. Where with 4G without the mesh system, you have no idea where that rider went off in that period of time, which could be two minutes – 60kph downhill, that's two kilometres to look for a rider, which is difficult. With the mesh system, you'll know exactly where it is, but you'll find out afterwards exactly where it is.

"There are some teams saying that maybe the Velon system is not good enough, or trackers should have a mesh system. All this is on the table, and we are discussing it. We're just waiting for the teams to get together. From the four stakeholders, the teams are the least united, which is a problem."

Bartlett insists that Velon's system is robust enough.

"We've been doing this a long time, and mesh network... We looked at that a lot over the years, and continue to look at it because you can always improve.

"But for the particular environment of bike racing, trying to mesh 180-odd units together, you generate a level of additional complexity. So the way that we address the problem is buffering. The device will trigger as soon as it loses connection, and it will resend all the data that it stored as soon as it's connected again, which means you can iron out the black spots."

He adds that there aren't as many areas without coverage as most people think, because most mobile phones are dependent on a specific network, while Velon's system can access signal on any available cellular network.

"We have SIM-agnostic eSIMs that will just connect to anything that is available on priority network access, and that means that there's a lot less of what you would consider to be a black spot.

"That being said, there are, because if you go through a tunnel or the wrong side of a mountain with no masts, you can lose signal. But we know in advance where those positions are, so we pre-plan against it and know what we need to do in the software to smooth that out. But any system where you're transmitting any signal, whether it's satellite, RF, LTE, you can lose it at some point. You just have to accept that as a level of tolerance."

Cyclingnews also tried to speak with the UCI's sports strategy manager Matthew Knight about the effectiveness of the UCI tracking system but we were unable to do so before the publication of this article.

Riders feel left out of decision-making

What has become clear in the course of this inquiry is that rights to rider data is a very sticky issue. My colleague Matilda Price asked Michał Kwiatkowski (Netcompany Ineos) at the GP de Montréal about the issue, and he highlighted the confusion.

He agreed that GPS tracking should be implemented, but added, "Who has the rights to actually have those devices? That's a little bit unknown. It would be great to have and share more data with people, but obviously there has to be common sense with actually who is owning it and who is getting the rights and that's a little bit unknown at the minute."

He didn't seem clear that the UCI and Velon are separating safety data from other rider data and that both insist they do not want to monetise safety data. But the Polish rider focused on the distribution of the proceeds from monetising riders' data, which gives a sense there could be a lack of trust that there is not a plan to do so in combination with the safety tracking.

"Between UCI, the race organisers and the teams, it should be a fair split. Safety is one thing, but you can add to it a lot of gains from TV rights etc., so it's a difficult subject."

At the same race, Chris Juul-Jensen (Jayco AlUla) said he felt the riders have not been involved enough. "I suppose if it's a question of sharing your data, then that's always a bit of a touchy subject, depending on who you ask and whatnot. I suppose the diplomatic way of going about it would be to ask the riders first before implementing certain rules, which is not often the case.

"I think the rulemakers [the UCI] would get a lot more done in a positive way, with a positive result, if they actually included riders, because I don't think riders necessarily always just say no to everything, but obviously when you have the feeling that you're not involved in certain decisions, then you feel excluded.

"We've come a long way compared to years ago. There is inclusion, there is a dialogue, Adam Hansen is doing a very good job with the CPA, so I wouldn't as such be against it [GPS tracking] but you'd want to know what it's all about."

Riders are still the ones with their lives on the line, and Hansen was clear that all stakeholders want GPS tracking, but the teams can't agree on a solution.

"The crazy thing is we could all use the World System. It works; there's no reason not to. Velon doesn't want their teams to use it," Hansen says. "OK, then you've got to get your system ready."

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The doping case involving Miguel Ángel López has been "definitively closed", according to the UCI, after the Colombian rider lost out in his latest – and last – avenue of appeal.

López, a former stage winner at the Tour de France and Vuelta a España, was handed a four-year ban by the UCI in 2024 for 'use and possession' of the prohibited substance Menotropin.

Having unsuccessfully appealed the ban before the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS), López then appealed against that CAS ruling before the Swiss Federal Tribunal, which has jurisdiction over the Switzerland-based CAS.

"The Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI) announces that the Swiss Federal Tribunal has dismissed the appeal filed by Colombian rider Miguel Ángel López Moreno against the decision issued by the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) on 7 May 2025," read a statement from the UCI on Saturday.

"The CAS decision upheld the ruling of the UCI Anti-Doping Tribunal (UCI ADT), which had found Mr López guilty of using and possessing a prohibited substance concomitantly with the 2022 Giro d’Italia.

"The case is now definitively closed."

The CAS is usually considered the final route of appeal but López took his case one step further than most and would now appear to have run out of options. He remains banned through 24 July 2027.

López was handed the ban in 2024 but it was backdated to July 25, 2023. At that time, he had already left the WorldTour cycling scene and returned to racing in Colombia – with great success – after his Astana team terminated his contract towards the end of 2022 over his links to the Spanish doctor Marcos Maynar. López denied wrongdoing at this time and described his dismissal as "abusive termination without just cause".

Maynar was at the centre of Operación Ilex, an investigation between the Spanish police and the Spanish anti-doping agency. Evidence from that case was used to charge López with an anti-doping rule violation, with the UCI detailing "the interception of a parcel containing Menotropin that was addressed to Mr López concomitantly with the 2022 Giro d’Italia".

López has always maintained his innocence, and of the UCI's ban he said: "The offence does not exist, and the ban is unjustified."

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The Modern Adventure Pro Cycling team issued an update on the serious injuries to their 20-year-old rider Ezra Caudell, who crashed while racing the Philadelphia Cycling Classic on August 30.

According to the team's statement, Caudell has been taken out of an induced coma and, now that he is no longer heavily sedated, is able to "interact, communicate, and recognise those around him", giving his family, friends and team massive relief from eleven days of worrying.

"Eleven days after his crash at the Philadelphia Cycling Classic, Ezra Caudell remains in the ICU at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital in critical condition, but he continues to show encouraging signs of progress," the team wrote.

"Ezra remains on ECMO (extracorporeal membrane oxygenation), which is providing support while his lungs continue to heal. Yesterday marked an important milestone: he was successfully weaned from deep sedation and taken off the ventilator, allowing his family and medical team a much clearer assessment of his neurologic status."

Caudell was attempting to bridge across to the breakaway along with Lotto-Intermarché's Milan Menten along Kelly Drive and were closing in when Caudell looked behind to see the gap behind and hit an obstacle in the road and crashed, according to reports. According to Menten, Caudell hit a lamppost and was knocked unconscious.

"Ezra sustained significant injuries in the crash, including a concussion and severe chest trauma. While his medical team remains focused on supporting his recovery from these injuries, his progress over the past several days has been encouraging," Modern Adventure said in the update today.

Now that he is no longer heavily sedated, they said, "very much consistent with Ezra’s personality - it wasn’t long after waking that he was making jokes and sending short videos to his teammates.

"His ability to interact, communicate, and recognise those around him has been an especially welcome and encouraging development."

Caudell's friends established a GoFundMe to help support his family, who moved to Germany to support his cycling ambitions and are facing housing and travel expenses in addition to medical expenses for his care. The fund has raised $83,251 of the $100,000 goal as of September 10.

"Ezra’s family remains at his bedside, vigilant and hopeful. He is very much on the minds of his teammates and staff at Modern Adventure Pro Cycling, as well as friends and supporters throughout the cycling community.

"We are deeply grateful for the extraordinary outpouring of support for Ezra and his family, and for the continued respect for their privacy during this difficult time.

"Important milestones still lie ahead. But after an extraordinarily difficult 11 days, there is genuine reason for hope as he begins his road to recovery," the team concluded.

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Former promising professional cyclist Evan Boyle has been hit with an extra two-month period of ineligibility after breaching a suspension imposed last year by the US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA).

Boyle, who placed second in the elite road race at the 2025 USPRO National Championships after a string of top age-group showings, was originally suspended by USADA in December 2025 after three Whereabouts failures.

However, after a tip-off that the 22-year-old had ridden the Dust Bowl 100 gravel event in Eminence, Indiana, on July 25, USADA has imposed an extra period of ineligibility on Boyle, extending his initial suspension from 16 to 18 months.

While he has since been retroactively disqualified from Dust Bowl, his second place in the elite men’s 100 mile (161km) race is still showing on the event website, and a collaboration post on the event’s Instagram account is still showing.

A 'misunderstanding'

Boyle, who has accepted the additional two-month period of ineligibility, claimed he was not aware the Dust Bowl 100 is an event sanctioned by USA Cycling, which would bar the participation of any USADA-banned athlete. This defense was apparently accepted by USADA.

"Following an investigation, USADA determined that Boyle participated in the event under the mistaken belief that his sanction did not prohibit his participation, as Boyle did not realize that the Dust Bowl 100 was a USA Cycling-sanctioned event," reads USADA's statement.

"Boyle’s misunderstanding was driven in part by the race materials’ and race website’s failure to mention that it was a USA Cycling-sanctioned event, although the event was listed on USA Cycling’s website."

Nevertheless, the anti-doping authority still felt an extension to Boyle's ban was warranted, stating: "As with all sanctioned athletes, Boyle was responsible for understanding and complying with the terms of his sanction."

Though he is not included on the UCI’s Registered Testing Pool, run by the International Testing Agency, Boyle is part of USADA’s Testing Pool and as such is required to provide whereabouts details, making himself available for out-of-competition testing. It was three breaches of this requirement, all occurring between July 16 and October 2, 2025, that resulted in his original suspension.

On the road, Boyle spent two seasons racing with the Hagens-Berman-Jayco development team racing all over the World. While he won a stage of the UCI Nations Cup race, Tour de l’Abitibi in Canada, riding with the USA national team in 2022, his best results came at USA Nationals.

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Organisers have shortened stage 15 of the Vuelta a España due to extreme heat, which is forecast across Andalucia on Sunday.

The stage was originally slated to cover a 189.7km route between Palma del Rio and Córdoba, including three classified climbs and 3,500m vertical ascent, but with temperatures of 40ºC forecast for the stage, organisers have amended the route. The distance was cut to just 110.2km, and significantly reduced the amount of climbing.

"The decision was taken following the activation of the Extreme Temperatures Protocol," read a statement from the race organisation. "After a meeting involving representatives of the Commissaires’ Panel, the teams, the riders and the Vuelta management, taking into account all the considerations raised by the different parties and the weather conditions forecast for tomorrow’s stage."

Temperatures throughout Europe have been exceptionally high this summer, with a number of races affected by the weather. In July stage 9 of the Tour de France was shortened due to a red heatwave alert, while spectators were not permitted at stage three due to wildfires in the area. Those wildfires also affected the final stage in Paris, with emergency services required to attend rather be available to police the opening kilometres of the race into the French capital.

While it has been hot for the vast majority of the 14 stages of the Vuelta so far, extreme weather of another sort affected stage 3 two weeks ago, with a severe hail storm battering riders who eventually took shelter in a roadside hotel.

With Sunday's stage much shorter than originally planned, it will start later in the day, rolling out at 2:50 p.m. local time and the flag to signal racing to drop 10 minutes later. The race will follow the original route until kilometre 52, where the riders will turn towards the finish in Cordoba rather than head for the northern loop originally slated.

Enric Mas (Movistar) continues to lead the Vuelta, the Movistar rider finishing alongside podium rival Felix Gall (Decathlon-CMA CGM) on stage 14, which was won by Marco Brenner (Tudor Pro Cycling).

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Ever since Fabio Jakobsen nearly died in the 2020 Tour de Pologne, professional cyclists have been calling for safer barriers along the finishes of races. In 2027, the UCI will at long last require race organisers to comply with safe barrier standards for the final 500 metres of WorldTour races.

The UCI also confirmed that a GPS tracking system will once again be in place for the Road World Championships in Montréal, and stated it will "establish protocols and a regulatory framework for the use of real-time tracking systems at races".

The need for GPS tracking was highlighted by the death of Muriel Furrer during the 2024 UCI Road World Championships in Switzerland, when she crashed off the road and was not discovered for over an hour.

UCI President David Lappartient urged stakeholders to "move past any disagreements on certain issues and act together" after the controversies that surrounded a test of the system at the women's Tour de Romandie in 2025, with several teams refusing to comply with the test and disagreements over who supplies and operates the trackers.

GPS trackers were used for all riders during the 2025 Road World Championships in Kigali, Rwanda, and the UCI want a consensus on a system to use on a more widespread basis going forward.

The other headline safety story in Friday's UCI press release was the issue of barriers.

The horrific crash of Jakobsen during the 2020 Tour de Pologne highlighted the pressing need for strict requirements for finish line barriers after the ones used in Poland came apart upon his impact, causing life-threatening injuries to him - and a section also flew into the course, bringing down more riders.

Barriers used for cycling and other events come in several different designs. The bridge-foot barricades are made of rounded tubular steel frames with arched legs that protrude into the road. Organisers typically secure advertising boards to them in the final 100-200 metres.

Flat-footed barricades have square steel tubing and flat feet that are useful for smooth tarmac or pavements, but are less stable on uneven surfaces. Mesh barriers, typically used for cyclocross, use steel, wood or plastic posts and plastic mesh.

Since Jakobsen's crash, the Belgian company Boplan has rolled out 1.4-metre-tall wedge-shaped interlocking yellow polymer barriers that were designed specifically for professional cycling.

The UCI cracked down on the use of bridge-foot barriers after Zdenek Stybar crashed after clipping his pedal on a bridge-foot barrier in one of many similar incidents. He called for the UCI to require safer barriers in 2014.

Weeks before Michael Mørkøv sparked a mass crash in the 2016 Tour de France by hitting the foot of a barrier, the Cyclistes Professionnels Associés (CPA) called for a ban on barriers that encroach on the course.

The UCI implemented standards for barriers in 2021, that mandated there should be no gaps or feet extending into the course that could catch pedals, have continuous, smooth faces and no sudden narrowing of the road.

Now, six years after Jakobsen's crash, the UCI will add requirements that barriers meet standards regarding the dimensions of the barriers, their mechanical characteristics, their fixing systems, the way in which advertising panels are fixed to them and require impact tests for their approval, according to a 2025 press release.

The UCI stated it "wants to guarantee that the barriers used in the final hundreds of metres of stages and races, meet the standards resulting from the study carried out by the Haute École Spécialisée de Suisse Occidentale Valais-Wallis.

"This requirement will be introduced progressively, starting with UCI WorldTour and UCI Women's WorldTour races from the 2027 season, before being extended to all other race categories."

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Three weeks after Finlay Tarling's death after being struck by a driver at the Volta a Portugal, a rider was once again put at risk at the opening stage of the 2.2-ranked German race, the Sauerlandrundfahrt.

In TV footage shared on social media, Lidl-Trek Future rider Louis Leidert could be seen swerving to avoid an oncoming driver while he raced the 13.7km opening time trial in Brilon. The driver managed to slow and mount the kerb to avoid Leidert.

Moments later, Leidert was forced to brake and take evasive action once more as a driver, this time heading in the same direction, turned off the road just ahead of him.

21-year-old German racer Leidert thankfully managed to avoid any collisions during his ride and raced to sixth place in the time trial, 33 seconds down on stage winner Ben Zwiehoff (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe Rookies).

Sauerlandrundfahrt organisers released a statement on Friday morning, saying that they are taking the incidents seriously and have tightened security measures for the remaining three stages of the race.

The statement does not explain how the two drivers accessed the barriered race course on stage 1.

"During the first stage of the Sauerlandrundfahrt, an incident occurred in which two vehicles entered the official time trial course despite the barriers. Fortunately, there was no accident, although one rider was forced to swerve out of the way," the statement read.

"We are very glad that nothing more serious happened in this instance. At the same time, we are taking the incident very seriously and are investigating it thoroughly. It goes without saying that it is not in our interest for such a situation to arise – the safety of all riders is our top priority.

"For the upcoming stages 2, 3 and 4, we have therefore, in collaboration with the police, the public order office, our stewards and the volunteers, significantly tightened security measures once again.

"We will do everything in our power to ensure that such an incident does not happen again."

The incident isn't the first to occur since Tarling's death when he was hit by an oncoming driver on stage 8 of the Volta a Portugal.

Less than a week later, at the Tour of Britain Women, O'Shea Chilli Bikes racer Maeve Plouffe took to social media to detail her experience during stage 1 of the race.

The American racer was exposed to public traffic with "cars coming at me from all directions" after suffering a puncture and riding at the rear of the race convoy.

Plouffe narrowly avoided being hit, she said: "On a side note, while the race convoy was still in sight and I was less than two minutes down, there were cars from the general public coming at me from all directions, including one that nearly hit me on a roundabout.

"Later on, the moto escort was wonderful and I felt much safer. But considering the recent devastating events in our cycling community, it's scary to see situations like this, when we know that this can have horrific consequences, especially so soon after suffering such a tragedy."

Like Leidert, Plouffe was lucky to avoid being hit, though she didn't make it to the end of the stage after chasing alone at the back of the race for over half an hour.

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The riders of the Vuelta a España peloton will have been relieved that Monday's stage 3 was cancelled after a massive hailstorm hit the race close to the finish in Font Romeu. Not all riders were thrilled about the outcome, as the stage was annulled and all results and points wiped.

For green jersey wearer Ethan Hayter, that meant he lost the points picked up at the day's intermediate sprint, while fellow breakaway rider Mats Wenzel and late attacker Lorenzo Fortunato each missed out on the mountain classification points at the top of the climb where the race was called to a halt, the Col de Mont-Louis.

Had the points – 20 for Hayter, 10 for Wenzel, and six for Fortunato – remained, then Hayter and Wenzel would have taken the lead in the points and mountain classification respectively.

Speaking to Danish broadcaster TV2 ahead of the stage 4 start in Andorra la Vella, both riders expressed their disappointment with the decision taken by UCI commissaires.

"I actually don't understand it. It's quite disappointing," Hayter said.

"I used a lot of energy yesterday when it was mainly headwind, and I crossed the points sprint in the sunshine. Yes, I don't understand it. I don't have a good explanation."

With his points wiped, Hayter started stage 4 with 37 points, still five down on classification leader Tadej Pogačar.

Wenzel, meanwhile, missed out on leapfrogging Koen Bouwman to lead the mountain classification. He said he and Fortunato had crossed the summit of the Col de Mont-Louis before they were told to stop racing ahead of the cancellation.

He, too, was disappointed by the decision taken by the UCI commissaires at the race.

"It was right to stop the race, but maybe the organisers could have given me the mountain points. That would have been cool. But it is what it is," Wenzel told TV2.

"They told us 500 meters after the mountain sprint that we had to stop. So yeah... My opinion is that I should have gotten them, but I'll have to accept it."

Wenzel said he and his team had spoken to the UCI commissaires to protest the points cancellations, but to no avail.

"In the end it's their decision, and the decision was made," he concluded.

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Following the death of teenager Finlay Tarling earlier this month, Visma-Lease a Bike team boss Richard Plugge has called for the sport as a whole to take more serious action and potentially consider radical changes to ensure a similar incident doesn't happen again.

Tarling died during stage 8 of the Volta a Portugal in a collision with a vehicle that had entered the closed race route. In response to the tragic incident, tributes poured in for the 19-year-old Welshman and a fundraiser set up in his memory to help young people in Wales get into cycling received significant donations.

But when it comes to the response in terms of safety and changes to prevent something like this happening again, Plugge feels strongly that not enough has been done and is desperate for the sport to not simply move on.

"We are just carrying on. What disappoints me enormously is that everyone says it is terrible, but then immediately a 'but' follows," the Visma boss told Wielerflits, speaking at the Vuelta a España.

"I would say: we need to skip everything after the 'but'. This simply cannot happen. That is the attitude we must adopt as the cycling community.

"This boy encounters a car on a descent. Can you imagine this happening during Formula 1 in Zandvoort? That a car is suddenly driving on the track in the opposite direction? Of course, everyone says that this doesn't happen at Zandvoort. But this actually does happen in a cycling race."

The Dutchman also called out the UCI, cycling's governing body, for a lack of action following Tarling's death, suggesting that the teams themselves may need to take a leading role again instead if nothing more significant comes from the top.

"Neither UCI President David Lappartient nor anyone else from the umbrella organizations stands up and says: 'Yes, but wait a minute, we really need to get together now and think about how we are going to prevent this from happening in the future?'," said Plugge.

"Maybe we as teams need to take responsibility for safety in races ourselves again. I don't know, but the lack of anger about what has happened again is very disappointing to me."

As is common at smaller races, the Volta a Portugal was utilising a rolling road closure system, instead of course-wide closures to the race route seen at Grand Tours. Cars getting onto the course shouldn't happen, with police and volunteers marshalling the course throughout the convoy, but there have been several instances of it happening in recent years.

Just a week after Tarling's death, Maeve Plouffe revealed how a puncture left her "less than two minutes down," on the Tour of Britain Women peloton, but with "cars from the general public coming at me from all directions, including one that nearly hit me on a roundabout", bringing the safety discussions into full focus once again.

In 2025, several teams quit the Étoile de Bessèges after two cars entered onto the closed race route on different days, one of which caused a crash, leading to a much smaller WorldTour presence at the race back in February of this year.

Two years prior at the Tour Féminin des Pyrénées, the final stage was cancelled after a series of dangerous incidents on the opening day, including oncoming traffic on the race route and parked cars blocking roads elsewhere, and a rider protest on stage 2.

Are circuit races the answer to greater safety?

Plugge posed the question of whether racing for hundreds of kilometres on public roads is even possible anymore. The answer to which would mean more closed-circuit races in and around cities, akin to those which are regularly seen at the UCI World Championships road races.

While the spectacle of professional bike racing has long been about traversing hundreds of kilometres from point A to point B, it's hard to argue against the improvements in safety it would likely bring, with cars getting onto the closed circuits likely becoming impossible and much easier to marshal – not requiring as much personnel.

"We have already indicated to the authorities, organizers, and teams: if cycling from A to B over public roads over 200 kilometers is no longer feasible, then we must ride laps of 15, 20, or 25 kilometers," said Plugge.

"Provided those routes can be secured 100%. Ultimately, it is simply about our riders. They must be certain that they can race on a safe course."

The Dutch team boss has long been one of the players pushing for change when it comes to the model and organisation of cycling as a whole, with Plugge spearheading much of the OneCycling project which dominated discussions before the UCI rejected the idea in June last year.

While that attempt to revolutionise the sport didn't materialise, Plugge still doesn't see the current format of racing being maintained even as soon as potentially five years' time. Perhaps closed circuit racing will become the answer, if the safety considerations aren't taken more seriously, especially after events like Tarling's tragic death.

“We are standing here at the start of the Vuelta a España in Monaco. The area around Nice and Monaco is full of traffic. We need to think now about how we can still organize a cycling race here in five years. What will our sport look like in five years?" he said.

"Will we still be able to drive 200 kilometers from A to B? Probably not, because then you would need a thousand traffic controllers. Whereas, if you ride laps of 20km… Everyone is super enthusiastic about the World Cycling Championships being held on a local circuit. And rightly so! Because that is at least manageable."

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Monday's third stage of the Vuelta a España was rightfully cancelled after a massive hailstorm pelted the peloton 15km from the finish line in Font Romeu.

As well as the stage being called off with no winner, final result or times taken, the events of the day – including the results of the intermediate sprint – were also wiped from the record.

Ethan Hayter had collected 20 points at the intermediate sprint, a result which would have propelled the green jersey wearer above Tadej Pogačar and into the points classification lead.

Should those points have been taken away? And does the full cancellation mean that riders who hadn't finished the stage are back in the race? We've taken a look at both the rulebook and the history books to find out.

The historical precedents

Of course, the events of stage 3 aren't a first in cycling history. Far from it. Through the years, there have been plenty of Grand Tour stage cancellations, neutralisations, and shortenings.

A total cancellation of a stage while riders are out on course is very rare. Race organisers usually find some way of salvaging the stage – whether through rerouting the race, hastily creating a new finish line, or taking GC times at some point along the route.

Only a handful of stages in recent history have been fully cancelled with all results annulled, as we saw on Monday. The most recent of those came just last year at the Vuelta. The pro-Palestine protests which marked the race saw the final stage to Madrid cancelled with all results annulled before the peloton reached the closing circuit.

At the 2023 Giro d'Italia Donne, the opening time trial in Chianciano was cancelled mid-stage after heavy rain and flash floods struck. Before that, you have to go back to 1988 and stage 11 of that year's Giro d'Italia. Environmental protesters blockaded the final kilometres to Colle Don Bosco, leaving riders unable to reach the hilltop finish. Organisers were forced to cancel and annul the entire stage.

10 years earlier, the Vuelta's stage 19b time trial was similarly cancelled after Basque protesters blocked the road.

Beyond that, a host of other Grand Tour stages have been called off or cancelled for a variety of reasons – extreme weather, protests from riders and outsiders, and rider deaths – with varying applications of the rulebook.

Two other stages of last year's Vuelta were also altered by pro-Palestine protests, with stage 11 in Bilbao neutralised with no final result but with GC times recorded, while stage 16 in Mos. Castro de Herville saw the finish line moved and all results, time gains and points kept.

Famously, stage 19 of the 2019 Tour de France was also neutralised mid-race due to a hailstorm and landslides on the descent of the Col d'Iseran. The stage produced no final result, but points and GC times were recorded as a new finish line atop the climb saw Egan Bernal race into the yellow jersey.

No one-size-fits-all rule for race cancellations

It makes sense that there's no one-size-fits-all rule for race cancellations and annulments, given that every race and circumstance is different, with stages subject to rapidly changing events.

As such, UCI regulations are somewhat open-ended, giving commissaires and race organisers broad licence to decide how to cope with race-altering incidents.

Section 2.2.029 of the UCI rulebook states:

"In case of an exceptional accident or incident that could impinge upon the normal conduct of a race in general or a particular stage thereof, the race director may, after obtaining the agreement of the commissaires' panel and having informed the timekeepers, at any moment, decide:
• To modify the course; to temporarily neutralise the race or stage;
• To stop a race or a stage and restart the race or stage;
• To definitively stop the race or stage; To cancel a race or a stage.

"The president of the commissaires’ panel, after consulting the organiser, may take the following sporting decisions:
• Cancel or let the results stand in case the race is temporarily neutralised or stopped, taking account of the gaps recorded at the moment of the incident;
• Cancel or let the results stand of an intermediate sprint, mountain sprint or any classifications;
• Declare a stage or a race null and void,

"If necessary, the commissaires' panel may consult the technical delegate appointed to UCI WorldTour events by the UCI to reach a decision."

As we can see, Vuelta organisers and the UCI's commissaires took the most definitive course of action here, resulting in a total cancellation and wiping the stage from history as if it had never happened.

A statement released by race organisers read: "Stage 3 has been cancelled following consultation between the organiser and the President of the Commissaires' Panel. The decision was taken due to a significant deterioration in weather conditions during the stage, including poor visibility, strong winds and icy road conditions. After consultation with the organiser, the President of the Commissaires' Panel decided that the results of both the intermediate sprint and the mountain sprint has been cancelled."

Lost points

Obviously, that decision meant there was no race for the stage win and no hastily drawn finish line earlier in the stage, meaning we'll never know whether Lorenzo Fortunato or Mats Wenzel might have held on, or how the first race's mountain GC showdown might have turned out.

Wenzel's KOM points over the top, which would have put him into the mountain classification lead, were wiped, as were Ethan Hayter's 20 green jersey points at the intermediate sprint. As a result, the Briton lost out on the chance to hold the green jersey outright.

Hayter and Wenzel both expressed confusion and disappointment about the decision at the start of stage 4.

It's worth noting that the organisation's statement placed the decision to scrap these moments from the results sheet at the hands of the UCI commissaires.

The rules are unclear whether Alex Kirsch's DNF is also wiped from the record, giving him a chance to continue the race, but, given the illness that dogged him during the opening stages, it's unlikely he'd be well enough to do so anyway.

In any case, the Vuelta rolls on today, with stage 4 promising the big mountain showdown in Andorra. Let's hope the hail stays away this afternoon. Before all the action begins, take a look back through history at stage cancellations and annulments through the years.

A history of Grand Tour stage cancellations and annulments

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Stage 3 of the Vuelta a España was cancelled on the final climb, with race leader Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) taking on the role of patron amid the torrential downpour of hailstones.

The drama occurred just over 15km from the line in Font Romeu, with several riders pulling to the side of the road to seek shelter as large hailstones pounded down from a leaden sky.

Shortly after, Pogačar appeared at the head of what was by then a reduced peloton and imposed himself on proceedings. He dictated a slower tempo and then waved his arm in the air in a signal to slow down.

After a short while, he pointed to the left, indicating a turn off of the course, which was taken by the rest of the riders in the group.

There was a building of some sort there, which opened its doors to the riders, who all piled in to shelter from the storm.

As team cars and staff caught up with the riders, they started to put jackets and layers on, as uncertainty spread about what would happen from there.

After less than 10 minutes, the race organisation decided to cancel the stage altogether.

There were two breakaway riders just ahead of the peloton at the time of Pogačar's intervention – Mats Wenzel (Kern Pharma) and Lorenzo Fortunato (XDS-Astana) – and it's not clear when or how they received instructions to stop racing.

From there, team buses headed from the finish line area down the mountain towards the buildings where the riders were taking refuge, in order to collect them and take them to their hotels. The organisation decided to scrap the post-stage podium ceremony, so Pogačar and the other classification leaders did not have to travel up the mountain.

We are waiting to hear from riders but it would appear that they took matters into their own hands, with Pogačar being particularly influential.

Even before Pogačar had orchestrated a stop, riders who had little interest in the stage or GC were heading off course to find available shelter. And then Pogačar ensured a situation whereby everything stopped.

At that point, it seemed like a temporary halt, but with riders scattered over the mountain and no easy way to re-start the race with the proper time gaps, not to mention the continuing hailstorm, the organisers thought it right to call off the whole thing entirely.

"For the security of the riders, stage three has been cancelled due to hail and severe weather," read a statement from the race organisation. "There will be no winner and no podium ceremony."

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South African racer S'annara Grove has been provisionally suspended after returning an adverse analytical finding for synthetic peptide Ipamorelin, the International Testing Agency (ITA) has announced.

Grove was racing for British Continental team Smurfit Westrock at the Tour of Britain Women this week and was a non-starter on Friday's stage 3, with news of her positive test announced later in the day.

The ITA stated that 32-year-old Grove returned the positive test out of competition on July 28 while attending the Commonwealth Games for track competitions, held at the Sir Chris Hoy Velodrome in Glasgow. She competed for South Africa at the Games, taking 13th place in the scratch race and 16th in the points race.

"The ITA reports that a sample collected during an out-of-competition testing mission conducted by the Commonwealth Sport on 28 July 2026 from S’annara Grove, a rider from South Africa, has returned an AAF for ipamorelin. The test was carried out in the scope of the 2026 Commonwealth Games, which took place in Glasgow, Scotland, from 23 July to 2 August 2026," the ITA stated.

"Ipamorelin is prohibited under the 2026 WADA Prohibited List as S2. Peptide Hormones, Growth Factors, Related Substances and Mimetics. It is prohibited at all times (in- and out-of-competition) and is a non-specified substance. Ipamorelin is a synthetic peptide used to stimulate the body’s natural production of growth hormone.

"The rider has been informed of the case and, 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."

The substance Groves tested positive for, Ipamorelin, is a selective growth hormone-releasing synthetic peptide which stimulates the pituitary gland. It mimics the peptide hormone ghrelin to stimulate growth hormone release.

Ipamorelin is currently a research peptide, the benefits of which haven't yet been demonstrated in controlled human studies. As such, it isn't approved for human consumption.

Unlike other substances, which have been commonly found in positive tests throughout cycling history, Grove's appears to be the first Ipamorelin positive at the professional level.

There has, however, been a history of Ipamorelin use in North American sports, with several baseball players (Andrew McKirahan, Nik Turley) and basketball players (Wilson Chandler, Jodie Meeks) receiving suspensions after testing positive.

In 2021, a 52-year-old masters racer from California received a four-year ban for the possession and use and/or attempted use of 10 separate substances, Ipamorelin included.

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Less than a week after Finlay Tarling was struck and killed by a non-race driver at the Volta a Portugal, Australian racer Maeve Plouffe put rider safety in the spotlight once again at the Tour of Britain Women.

19-year-old Tarling died during stage 8 in Portugal when he was hit by a driver who got on the race course after the peloton had passed through. Plouffe, meanwhile, found herself riding among non-race traffic at the rear of the race convoy during stage 1.

She took to Instagram to detail her experience, which ended with a DNF, and thankfully nothing worse.

"A badly timed puncture ended up becoming a 30+ minute chase. I fought and fought really, really hard, but you can only do so much," Plouffe wrote, outlining her battle to stay in touch with the peloton before telling of how she was almost hit while doing so.

"On a side note, while the race convoy was still in sight and I was less than two minutes down, there were cars from the general public coming at me from all directions, including one that nearly hit me on a roundabout.

"Later on, the moto escort was wonderful and I felt much safer. But considering the recent devastating events in our cycling community, it's scary to see situations like this, when we know that this can have horrific consequences, especially so soon after suffering such a tragedy.

"Stay safe over the next stages."

The Tour of Britain Women, like the Volta a Portugal and many other races on the international calendar outside of the very biggest, are run with rolling road closures. This means that police motos shut off junctions in batches rather than entire race routes being closed off, as is the case at races such as the Tour de France Femmes.

Unlike that option, which is far more expensive for race organisers but greatly reduces the risk of such collisions, the system of rolling road closures can sometimes go horribly, even tragically, wrong. This week EF Education-EasyPost CEO Jonathan Vaughters said "I don't think [they] work that well" before noting that Tarling's death could've happened at many other races.

Plouffe was the latest rider caught in a dangerous situation on Wednesday, and there's little doubt that similar situations will occur again, as they have several times over the years.

Her team, O'Shea Red Chilli Bikes, told Cyclingnews that they wouldn't comment any further on Plouffe's Instagram statement, but noted that they "take the safety of riders and staff extremely seriously at all times" and "continue dialogue with both British Cycling and the CPA regarding the safety of our sport."

In a statement provided to Cyclingnews on Thursday, British Cycling, which runs the Tour of Britain Women, stated that they are taking Plouffe's experience during stage 1 "extremely seriously", noting that they take rider safety "as a priority". Stage 2 of the race passed without any similar incident.

"We note Maeve Plouffe's comments about her experience during yesterday's race, and we're taking these extremely seriously," said Jonathan Day, Events Director of British Cycling Ventures.

"Rider safety is paramount and will always be treated as a priority in our planning and how we operate any race. We're reviewing what happened with Maeve and her team, O'Shea Red Chilli Bikes, with the seriousness and empathy these comments demand.

"We recognise this comes at an especially difficult time for the cycling community, so we want to reassure all riders, teams and fans of the sport at this time of how serious we are treating these comments."

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"Is artificial intelligence the new doping?" asked former Movistar director of performance Mikel Zabala at this year’s Science & Cycling conference, held each year the week prior to the Tour de France Grand Départ. It’s where cycling’s most progressive academics, sport scientists and WorldTour staff present their work, featuring the latest research on training, nutrition and equipment.

But Zabala’s presentation stood out as the experienced Spaniard warns of parallels between the Armstrong era and the artificial era. Why? We’ll come back to Zabala’s psychosocial reasoning later. But Zabala did shine a spotlight on AI and why machine learning could be an anti-doping scientist’s worst nightmare…

Creating new drugs

March 2025 could prove a pivotal date in the world of anti-doping, as the United States Adopted Names (USAN) Council granted biotech company Insilico Medicine’s AI-designed drug to treat idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) an official name: Rentosertib, formerly known as ISM001-055.

Rentosertib marked a significant milestone in drug development: its target and molecule were identified and designed using generative AI, taking an AI-created drug into human trials. For the cycling chemists amongst you, Insilico used its Pharma.AI platform to accelerate the discovery of Rentosertib. That followed PandaOmics, an AI-powered biology engine, identifying the enzyme TNIK as a promising target for idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis. Finally, the platform’s generative chemistry engine, Chemistry42, designed and optimised the compounds against it, ultimately leading to Rentosertib’s selection as a pre-clinical candidate.

It’s impressive stuff and, for cycling, the implications are stark. If AI can rapidly design novel medicines, could it eventually create performance-enhancing substances that anti-doping laboratories have not yet detected?

“We haven’t seen that yet,” an anti-doping source told us, who wished to remain anonymous, “but we’ve certainly seen existing drugs, like steroids, altered by AI for more specific performance benefits. It is a concern. And potentially dangerous.”

Cycling has already seen athletes caught using experimental drugs such as GW1516. GW1516 is known by various names, including cardarine and endurobol, and was designed as a dietary supplement. However, it was pulled at the experimental phase because it was found to cause cancer. Despite that, it made its way to the black market via underground labs, which is why WADA banned it.

Those toxicity concerns didn’t deter several cyclists from experimenting with the drug, including Russian rider Valery Kaykov, who was part of the nation's successful team pursuit at the 2012 European Track Championships, the same year he joined Pro Continental team RusVelo. A year later, he became the first athlete to officially test positive for GW1516 and was subsequently sacked by his team.

Ostarine is another drug that was never approved as a medicine but found its way into the sporting arena, with athletes tempted by its potential to support muscle mass. Italian rider Matteo Spreafico tested positive for enobosarm (ostarine) at the 2020 Giro d’Italia and received a three-year ban. His compatriot Linda Laporta returned an adverse analytical finding for the same substance at this year's UAE Tour Women and was provisionally suspended pending the outcome of her case, which is ongoing, and has not resulted in a confirmed anti-doping rule violation.

With AI now capable of designing novel drug candidates, the next generation of performance-enhancing substances could potentially emerge faster than anti-doping science can identify them. AI has the capacity to take ‘unknown science’ and make drug development much more efficient and, seen through an anti-doping lens, arguably harder to detect.

AI could also enable more personalised enhancement by analysing physiological and genetic data to identify interventions tailored to an individual athlete. This could shift doping from simply finding effective drugs to identifying the most effective intervention for each athlete, creating an increasingly sophisticated challenge for anti-doping authorities.

Mimicking for good and bad

“This extends to the idea of a digital twin,” says Professor Yannis Pitsiladis, director of the Centre for Exercise and Medicine at Hong Kong Baptist University. He’s also on WADA’s health medical research committee.

“A digital twin is gaining traction in the medical world,” he adds. “In essence, it’s a virtual model of an individual that uses real-world data to simulate health, disease and treatment responses. It might combine genetic information, blood tests, medical history, imaging, medications, activity, heart rate, sleep, nutrition and other wearable data. Doctors could use it to predict outcomes and personalise treatment.”

In cycling, a digital twin would be fed similar data, so power, heart rate, cadence, speed, sleep, training load, nutrition, environmental conditions and potentially physiological/genetic information to create a model that behaves like the individual rider. The key is that it’s continually updated with real-world data from the rider.

In cycling, a sophisticated digital twin could potentially answer questions such as: 'What happens if I increase training volume by 10%?' 'How will riding at 2,000 metres affect my performance?' and 'What nutrition strategy is likely to work best on a hilly parcours at 10°C?'

Rather than simply reporting what happened, the digital twin attempts to predict what will happen next.

The idea of digital twins has already hit the WorldTour. At the start of 2026, Ineos Grenadiers (now Netcompany Ineos) and Swansea University revealed they were developing digital twins to analyse riders’ performance and development, aiming to identify overlooked talent and predict which young cyclists could become future professionals. The legal benefits of a digital twin are clear. But the same technology could theoretically personalise doping – identifying substances or strategies with maximal benefit and minimal detectable impact.

“Of course, if you have enough data, you might be able to ask what the best combination of testosterone, erythropoietin (EPO) and cortisone might be, and at what dose, for what specific outcome,” says Pitsiladis. “But you’d need good data.”

Of which cycling has. In fact, cycling’s so obsessed with data that even metabolomics is being used to study elite cyclists, including at UAE Team Emirates-XRG when Professor Iñigo San Millán was heavily involved with the team. Metabolomics involves measuring hundreds or thousands of small molecules (metabolites) in blood or other biological samples to better understand a rider’s metabolism for more accurate training prescription. It’s a level or thousand up from measuring a rider’s blood sample for iron before they train at altitude.

“With the amount of data cycling has, of course it could happen,” adds Pitsiladis, “but it could also benefit anti-doping by giving the agencies a clearer picture of the athlete.”

Strengthening anti-doping

As could the work of Dr Michael Skinnider, assistant professor at the Lewis-Sigler Institute for Integrative Genomics at Princeton University, who’s working on a chemical AI platform that focuses on discovering new doping agents.

“We’re developing an AI model that can predict the chemical structures of future performance-enhancing drugs,” he says. “The second part of our work is working with the mass spectrometry data [mass spectrometry machines analyse an athlete’s sample] to more accurately detect anomalies.

Typically, there are thousands – sometimes tens of thousands – of signals that might be associated with one small molecule. If there is suspicion that a novel drug is in this sample, it’s currently like finding a needle in a haystack. Our research aims to refine this work.”

Skinnider says the work is ongoing, but the signs are positive. “The first stage of the project involved curating a large database of 1,600 drugs that were either on the prohibited list or that we felt might have potential to enhance performance. It predicted two substances that were later added to the WADA banned list, plus it flagged up a number of novel substances of interest.”

Skinnider sees his work as a decision-support tool and, if it ever fulfils its potential and is adopted by WADA, it’d complement the biological passport. “If you saw some shift in a rider’s blood values and there’s talk that it might be down to some kind of novel performance-enhancing drug or substance, that’s where our work would come in.”

Avoid a return to the past

That’s the scientific AI battle. But what about the psychosocial? Let’s return to the start and Zabala’s concerns that AI will send cycling back to the dark ages, namely Armstrong, Puerto…

“We must never forget the past,” he says. “From Armstrong to Operation Puerto, cycling in the 1990s and 2000s was horrendous. It was a time when doctors ruled.”

Zabala calls this period and the time before, ‘Cycling 1.0’. He says that cycling followed a hierarchy and training relied on random coaching wisdom rather than empirical evidence. The absence of structured scientific collaboration blurred medical, ethical and professional boundaries.

“Then ‘Cycling 2.0’ took over in around 2012,” he adds. “This involved multidisciplinary co-operation between coaches, scientists, physicians and nutritionists. Now, experts were mainly in charge, not backroom staff who were dopers of the past. Importantly, the rider went from a passive subject – the knowledge is held by the doping doctor – to an informed collaborator. This enhanced compliance, motivation and accountability.”

In short, Cycling 2.0 – deemed cleaner than ever – passed ownership to the rider. We’re now onto ‘Cycling 3.0’ where AI can magnify potential through predictive modelling but, Zabala says, it must not replace human judgment. Over-reliance on AI without critical thinking can lead to poor decision-making and a loss of ownership.

“A rider must maintain their autonomy,” he says. “In the doping days, coercion and fear of exclusion was very real. With unregulated AI, we have similar fears. Biometric over-monitoring and opaque decisions could leave a rider vulnerable. Without ethical governance, AI could reverse 2.0’s gains.”

To that end, Zabala proposes that riders and coaches must become AI literate. “That means they capitalise on its benefits and not be captured by it. As we enter this third evolutionary stage, cycling stands at an unprecedented crossroads between human wisdom and machine intelligence. Artificial intelligence will not replace the coach, the scientist or the athlete, but it will augment them.

“The success of Cycling 3.0 will depend not on how quickly we adopt new algorithms, but on how wisely we integrate them into a culture of shared knowledge, respect, transparency and responsibility,” he says. “If the spirit of Cycling 2.0 remains our compass, then AI can become the next ally in a journey that should continue to be profoundly human. The challenge is not merely to predict performance but to protect meaning.”

Ultimately, like every sector of life, AI has the potential to transform cycling for better or worse. It may uncover talent, personalise training and strengthen anti-doping, yet potentially accelerate novel drugs and sophisticated enhancement. The lesson from Cycling 2.0 is clear: technology works best when athletes remain informed participants. Cycling 3.0 must embrace AI without surrendering human judgement, transparency or the hard-won lessons of its past.

The UCI has handed a four-year suspension to Italian Giovanni Carboni after deeming abnormalities in his Athlete Biological Passport (ABP) to be an anti-doping rule violation, the International Testing Agency (ITA) announced on Thursday.

"A review of the rider's haematological biological passport by the Athlete Passport Management Unit returned an Adverse Passport Finding for abnormalities in the values of the blood ABP," the ITA press release stated.

"More particularly, a panel of independent experts unanimously concluded that the abnormalities in the rider's ABP during and after the 2024 Tour of Langkawi, respectively, were highly likely caused by the use of a prohibited substance or a prohibited method."

Carboni was racing for the Japanese Continental team JCL Team UKYO in 2024, but the case came out after he had signed for the Unibet Rockets team and raced most of the 2025 season. When the UCI announced the provisional suspension, his team also suspended him, stating, "As a member of the MPCC, we fully support clean sport and therefore cooperate with all investigations conducted by the relevant authorities. Additionally, we have launched an additional internal examination.

"We are shocked by this news, as it goes against our values and principles. We remain fully committed to transparency, integrity, and the fight for a clean sport."

Carboni won two stages and the Tour of Japan overall and one stage and second place overall in the Tour of Bulgaria in 2024, and will get to keep those results. However, the UCI has stripped his results from the 2024 Tour de Langkawi through Carboni's last day of racing on September 11, 2025.

Carboni's four-year ban runs from his last day of racing through September 10, 2029.

The suspension came out of a hearing on August 3, 2026, during which the UCI Anti-doping Tribunal "found that the athlete had committed an ADRV for the use of a prohibited substance or a prohibited method in accordance with Article 2.2 of the UCI anti-doping rules".

The ABP measures blood values such as haematocrit and haemoglobin over time. Abnormal shifts can indicate the use of banned substances or methods such as blood boosters like EPO or blood transfusions.

Carboni, 30, has the right to appeal the decision before the Court of Arbitration for Sport.

The case is the third recent ABP suspension after Franck Bonnamour was banned last year through 2028 and Robert Stannard received a post-dated four-year ban for abnormalities dating back to 2018 in 2024.

Stage 4 of the Tour de Pologne was temporarily neutralised after a major mid-race crash in the peloton required all the medical services to attend the injured and fallen.

Around 30 to 40 riders went down around in a major pile-up that happened 41 kilometres from the finish of the hilly stage from Borowice to Karpacz.

With riders falling on both sides of the road, some hitting a crash barrier, bikes and riders were scattered all over the road. Amongst those who fell were Aleksandr Vlasov (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe), Juan Sebastian Molano (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) and Wilco Kelderman (Jumbo-Visma), although the extent of their injuries, if any, was not known.

The mass crash took place on a fast, sweeping downhill in the middle of the bunch in a wooded rural area, just when the peloton was hitting high speeds on broad roads and reeling in a four-rider break of the day, some 90 seconds ahead.

The immediate cause of the crash was not clear, but there was speculation that wet conditions on country roads, in what is the first major rainfall of the week, combined with white traffic paint lines, could have caused it.

A race motorbike also was caught up in the collision, which seemed to have taken place in the middle of the bunch when the riders crashed.

So many riders went down it was necessary to halt the race as all the available ambulances were dealing with the crash victims. Last year a similar situation arose on stage 3 of the Tour de Pologne when a mass crash on a fast downhill also sparked a temporary neutralisation.

The four riders ahead - Dries De Bondt (Jayco AlUla), Matteo Malucelli (XDS Astana) and Team Poland duo Tobiasz Pawlak and Patryk Stosz - were told to stop by commissaires and halted in the middle of the road in dense woodland, while the peloton continued but gradually freewheeled to a stop. It was not immediately clear how long the race would be delayed, but racing finally got underway after around 30-40 minutes.

Some riders in the peloton, waiting for the race to begin again, asked for a change in the late descents on the route, alleging possible dangers. But as race organisers started discussions with riders, it was not immediately clear if GC times later on would be partially suspended, particularly as the weather was seemingly improving and drying up.

Finally what was decided was that one of the climbs, the 4.6 kilometre Cat. 1 Borowice, would be removed. As a result the length of the stage was reduced, and only the Karpacz (7km at 6.1%), followed by a short descent and kick up to the finish, remained in place.

Amongst those injured was major favourite and former Pologne winner João Almeida (UAE Team Emirates-XRG), who dropped back from the pack once racing resumed, his left leg clearly injured and his shorts torn.

After bunch sprints decided the opening three stages, today's first mountainous stage marks the beginning of the GC battle, with the current leader Jonathan Milan (Lidl-Trek).

More later…

UCI President David Lappartient has defended night-time anti-doping tests during the men's Tour de France, saying that it was "a tool in this fight" against banned drugs, albeit one that should only be used occasionally.

Both of the most recent winners of the Tour de France, reigning champion Tadej Pogačar and Jonas Vingegaard, who took the title in 2022 and 2023, were amongst those who had night-time testing during the 2026 race: Vingegaard – who later crashed out on the same day as his test, injured – at 2am and Pogačar at 5am.

Reports later emerged that five other teams had also been tested at some point during the race before 5am, which is not typical under UCI and WADA rules, which restrict normal testing to a 6am to 11pm window.

Being selected for a test, including out-of-hours, is a standard part of anti-doping controls and does not imply any suspicion of, or wrongdoing by, the riders concerned. Neither Pogačar nor Vingegaard have been accused of any anti-doping violation.

Speaking during the ongoing Tour de France Femmes, Lappartient indicated in an interview with The Guardian and Daniel Benson's Substack that there would "always be suspicion in cycling." He explained that although he was not in favour of testing overnight on a regular basis, he believed it was a weapon that could help the battle against micro-dosing of illegal substances.

He also said that the absence to date of press releases from the International Testing Agency indicated that there had been no positive tests in the Tour.

"The ITA never make a press release about negative results, only about positive results," said Lappartient.

"We didn’t see any press release in the Tour de France, so it seems there was nothing in the Tour."

The emergence of the night-time testing in the third week of the Tour revived concerns and debate about the current state of the sport's ongoing anti-doping battle.

Whilst not supporting regular night-time testing, Lappartient said the UCI supported the ITA's use of specific tests during that period "because we know that, with micro-dosing EPO, that’s something you can’t detect six or seven hours after. So, for the riders to know that the ITA may come, that’s always a fear."

"We always have suspicion in cycling, due to our past. I know what has been done to fight against doping," he said.

"Night testing is a tool in this fight, but it is not a tool to use every day. You must use it very exceptionally. It’s not suspicion about any rider, but it’s a global message to the bunch."

Lappartient's comments back up a press release by the UCI during the third week of the Tour, in which they defended the overnight testing against criticisms made of it by some riders.

"Following a number of reactions in recent days to unannounced anti-doping controls carried out by the International Testing Agency (ITA) during the Tour de France – in particular following the statement issued by the association of professional riders (CPA) – the Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI) wishes to respond and to reaffirm that the fight against doping is an absolute priority," the statement read.

Riders at the Tour de France Femmes can expect more detailed clothing checks before stage 4's time trial after reports that riders may be using additional padding in their bras to gain an aero advantage after the UCI issued a special warning about items "which could modify riders’ morphology".

Wielerflits published a story on Sunday about this potential issue, noting that riders have sometimes appeared to have a larger chest size during time trials compared to road races, and reporting that several WorldTour teams have voiced their concerns over riders' artificially changing their breast size using padding during races.

An increased volume in the chest area can have significant aerodynamic gains, as it redirects the airflow around the body, for both men and women.

Chest fairings, which are essentially items put down the front of the jersey to change the shape of the chest, have been found to be effective in saving watts and therefore time, particularly in aero positions for cyclists and triathletes, and have been banned by several governing bodies, including in cycling.

Lidl-Trek's head of technical and innovation told The Athletic that his team have tested different kinds of bras and found some more padded bras to have benefits, but did say that it's not something the team have actually used in racing.

Under articles 1.3.032 and 1.3.033 of the UCI rules, riders may not use any objects to artificially change their morphology, and any kind of fairings or textured fabrics are banned.

At the 2025 World Championships in Rwanda, riders from Belgium had their radio pockets on their chest rather than their back, with no penalties, and riders have sometimes ridden with bottles down the front of their jersey, though the UCI has tried to police that.

For male riders, the policing of chest fairing use is relatively easy, but it becomes complicated for women, who all have different sized breasts and use all different kinds of sports bras during races.

Some riders have opted to race without a sports bra – that often minimises and compresses the breasts – for aero gains, but Wielerflits reports that some riders are doing the opposite, using padding in their bras to increase their breast size or alter their chest shape in a way that is difficult to police or detect.

However, since Wielerflits' story caused a stir in the paddock, the UCI jury did something unusual on Monday evening and added an extra warning to the Tour de France Femmes communiqué ahead of the stage 4 time trial.

"Riders must be to the final checks before the race (bikes and outfit) no later than 10 minutes before their respective start time," the communique reads, which is normal, but then it goes on to say: "Particular attention will be paid to compliance with article 1.3.032 of the UCI regulations, including nonessential elements and clothing or other items/accessories worn by a rider (including but not limited to helmets, glasses, shoes or in-race communication devices) which could modify riders’ morphology."

It's not often a warning like this is specifically given before a time trial.

The question, though, is how will these checks take place without being invasive? According to Wielerflits, some teams have suggested that riders could be checked in a private tent by a female jury member to ensure there is no padding or extra material in their sports bra or clothing, but even this likely feels invasive to some.

What's more, the rule is a likely grey area, with no defined amount of padding or support a bra may or may not have, with different women having different needs and preferences.

However, with the UCI sharing the special warning on Monday, it suggests that they will be attempting to carry out extra checks on Tuesday.

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Recovering from his crash into the back of the UAE Team Emirates-XRG team car on Alpe d’Huez, which ended his Tour de France on stage 19, Einer Rubio has called for change within the sport to prevent the repeat of similar accidents in the future.

Ascending a crowded Alpe d’Huez, Rubio found himself riding close to the back bumper of the UAE Team Emirates-XRG car, having just been passed by eventual stage winner Tadej Pogačar, when a spectator fell in front of the vehicle, forcing the driver to brake hard. Rubio crashed into the back window, breaking the glass and curtailing his Tour two days early.

Rubio came away with 20 stitches on his face. A little over a week after the incident, Rubio shared an image of himself on Instagram back home in Colombia, with the cuts and scratches from his collision with the car evident.

The 28-year-old has suggested that his crash was avoidable, pointing to crowd control and vehicle access to the climb as contributing factors.

“A few days have passed since the accident at the Tour de France and, as the saying goes, you have to put on a brave face in difficult times,” Rubio said.

“Perhaps it would have been different with better barriers on the climb, stricter control over vehicle access and more cautious fans…No one expects to finish a race this way, but that is what happened.”

“We cannot change the past, but we can learn from these situations,” he added.

With two stages back-to-back ascending up the town of Alpe d’Huez, huge crowds flocked to the famous mountain and its 21 hairpins. Parts of the climb included barriers, holding fans back from the riders and race vehicles, but the section where Rubio’s crash occurred did not contain barriers.

“I am recovering, and I will be back soon,” Rubio concluded. He had been scheduled to race the Vuelta a España to complete the rare feat of racing all three Grand Tours in one season, but his return to racing has not yet been confirmed.

The driver of the UAE Team Emirates-XRG car and the team’s Sports Manager, Joxean Fernández Matxin, shared his perspective of the incident at the time, emphasising the number of people lining the mountain.

“In the final kilometres of the Alpe d’Huez climb, with thousands of fans right next to the road and the immense pressure typical of a decisive Tour stage, a spectator suddenly ran out and fell right beneath our vehicle,” Matxin said on Instagram. “My only reaction was to brake immediately to avoid running him over. It all happened in a split second, and my only thought was preventing a far worse tragedy.”

"I believe it is important to remember that the safety of riders, teams, and fans also depends on the responsible behaviour of those who enjoy this sport from the roadside,” he added.

Whether enough was done to ensure the safety of the riders, race officials, team staff and fans is up for debate, as are other potential measures which could be implemented in the future.

Race director Thierry Gouvenou defended A.S.O’s actions at the time, saying that the race organisation had done more than in previous years to make the event safer.

"We have already taken measures. We closed Alpe d'Huez the day before at 2 p.m. to prevent cars from driving up. Compared to previous years, a tremendous number of extra barriers have been put in place. Ropes have been stretched and posts installed. More police officers have been deployed on the climb," he told Sporza.

“It has to come mainly from the mindset of the supporters,” Gouvenou added. The solution is to make it as clear as possible to the supporters that they must have respect for the riders. Restrictive measures alone will not suffice.”

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There was confusion and speculation on stage 1 of the Tour de France Femmes after Paula Blasi (UAE Team L'IMAD) was awarded the first white jersey of the race, the youth classification previously contested by under-23 riders: which Blasi is not.

In the first four editions of the Tour de France Femmes, the white jersey, sponsored by Liv, has been awarded to the highest-ranked under-23 rider, slightly younger than the under-25 classification that dictates the white jersey in the men's Tour.

As a result, the assumption was that it would continue to be an under-23 category this year, with no announcements otherwise, and the Tour de France Femmes website and roadbook still listing the jersey as for "riders under 23 years of age".

Now, under-23 and under-25 may sound like terms that are open to interpretation, but when it comes to cycling age categories, they are not – they are clearly defined by the UCI. To be counted as an under-23 rider, a rider must be under the age of 23 on December 31 of that year. In other words, in the year in which you turn 23, you are no longer an under-23 rider.

That means that riders like Paula Blasi, who turned 23 in February, and, for example, Millie Couzens who is 22 but will turn 23 in October are no longer under-23 riders.

Therefore, it was surprising when riders like Blasi, Couzens, Antonia Niedermaier and more 23-year-olds were marked as U23s on the Tour's start list, and even more surprising when Blasi was awarded the jersey. Considering many of these riders just rode the Giro d'Italia, where they were not eligible, it was confusing to see them listed in the youth classification in the Tour.

So why? Well, it seems that the Tour de France has quietly changed the parameters of the classification, with the rulebook stating that the classification is open to riders born after January 1, 2003. This is the exact same wording as last year, meaning that riders who are already 23 are now eligible.

At the start of stage two in Aigle on Sunday, Cyclingnews spoke both to UAE Team L'IMAD and Lidl-Trek, the team of Isabella Holmgren who would have expected to have been in the white jersey per normal under-23 regulations after finishing 14th on the opening stage.

Lidl-Trek were unaware of any confusion or a claim on white, with most people on the race not being aware of any rule change, but Cyclingnews now understands that the change was communicated at the directors' meeting on Friday, though not made public.

On Saturday, there was some initial confusion with Blasi nearly missing the podium presentation for white, but that was down to a miscommunication, rather than the team not believing she was eligible, UAE Team L'IMAD director Cherie Pridham explained to Cyclingnews on Sunday.

Blasi herself said that she only found out just before the race that she would be eligible, and you can understand why she was confused, as she was not eligible for the white jersey in the Vuelta Femenina that she won in May. There was also confusion around that classification, with only under-22 riders marked as eligible initially, but that was later rectified.

Pridham was aware that the category has been moved up a year, and had no questions about that.

"The star [asterisk on the start list] indicates who is eligible, so we just follow what they prescribe," she said. "We were never informed any different, so she's in the young rider's jersey and that's it."

UAE Team L'IMAD already have several goals and leaders, so whilst Blasi is in white for now, it's not a defined ambition to try to keep it, though she does look like the strongest under-24 rider in the race.

"It'll come organically," Pridham said. "Our focus is for the yellow jersey of course, for the GC. It's a bit like the Queen of the Mountains – if you're in the GC with the way the course is this year, it's going to come organically – but our focus always remains on the GC. If the white jersey comes as a consequence of the team's strength, then of course we will take it."

Why the change? 

Since the Tour de France Femmes has not publicised the change, with their own website not even reflecting the change in the rulebook, they haven't publicly given any reasons for the change.

The youth category in women's cycling has long been younger than in men's racing, as there is no separate U23 racing scene in women's racing, so riders go straight from juniors into the elite peloton.

Last year, only 12 riders were eligible for the white jersey in the Tour de France Femmes, so expanding the eligibility by one year certainly makes it more competitive and open to more riders, with 26 under-24 riders eligible for white this year.

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The Tour de France Femmes has come to an end, and with that comes the final daily update on punishments doled out throughout the nine-day race.

It was a list that started with a flurry but was in the final days was a far sparser affair, though there still ended up being a swathe of fines, warning and yellow cards as the race made its way across from the Grand Départ in Lausanne, Switzerland, to Nice, France, from August 1-9.

The UCI commissaires at the race cast their eye over the goings on in the peloton through every day of racing, with the eagle-eyed jury able to spot a sticky bottle or a rider illegally littering from a mile off.

More dangerous infractions are also penalised, with commissaires now able to enforce cycling's new yellow card system. Two yellow cards within 30 days result in a rider being disqualified from the race and receiving a seven-day suspension, while three yellow cards within the same 30-day period lead to a 14-day ban.

Read on for the complete list of yellow cards, fines, and penalties at the 2026 Tour de France Femmes, as well as a list of infractions that could see a rider handed a yellow card.

Yellow cards, fines, and penalties at the 2026 Tour de France Femmes

Stage 1

• Alice Towers (EF Education-Oatly) - 500CHF, disposing of bidon outside of litter zones
• Christian Kos (SD Worx-Protime DS), Ion Lazkano (Labodal Kutxa-Fundacion Euskadi DS), Cherie Pridham (UAE Team L'IMAD DS) - 500CHF fine and yellow card, breach of regulations or guidelines concerning vehicle movement
• Huub Duijn (EF Education-Oatly DS) - 500CHF fine, breach of regulations or guidelines concerning vehicle movement
• Pauline Ferrand-Prévot (Visma-Lease a Bike), Lieke Nooijen (Visma-Lease a Bike), Lily Williams (Human Powered Health), Josie Nelson (Picnic PostNL) - Warning for use of sidewalks
• Alison Jackson (St Michel-Preference Home-Auber93) - Warning for using a non-compliant position on the bicycle

Stage 2

• Dina Boels (Lotto-Intermarché Ladies) - 100CHF fine, once minute penalty and 5 UCI points, sheltering behind a vehicle
• Grace Verbeke (Lotto-Intermarché Ladies DS) - 200CHF fine, sheltering behind a vehicle plus a 500CHF fine, failure to comply with the instructions of commissaires
• Francesca Barale (Movistar) and Robyn Clay (Picnic PostNL) - 100CHF, irregular feeding ("sticky bottle" for a short distance)
• Kelvin Dekker (Movistar DS) and Callum Ferguson (Picnic PostNL DS) - 200 CHF, irregular feeding ("sticky bottle" for a short distance)

Stage 3

• Nothing to report

Stage 4

• Nothing to report

Stage 5

• Usoa Ostolaza Zabala (Laboral Kutxa-Fundacion Euskadi) - 200CHF total, two infractions for irregular feeding
• Ion Lazkano (Laboral Kutxa-Fundacion Euskadi DS) - 400CHF total, two infractions for irregular feeding
• Huub Duijn (EF Education-Oatly DS) - 500CHF fine, breach of regulations or guidelines concerning vehicle movement
• Pauline Ferrand-Prévot (Visma-Lease a Bike) - 250CHF and 15 UCI points, disposing of bidon outside of litter zones

Stage 6

• Agnieszka Skalniak-Sojka (Canyon-SRAM) and Cedrine Kerbaol (EF Education-Oatly) - 250CHF fine and -15 UCI points for disposing of waste or other objects outside of litter zones
• Lotte Kopecky (SD Worx-Protime) and Morgane Coston (Ma Petite Enterprise) - 100 CHF for Irregular feeding (sticky bottle for a short distance).
• SD Worx DS Christian Kos, Ma Petite Enterprise DS Gaël Le Bellec - 200CHF for giving sticky bottle.

Stage 7

• Rosa Klöser (Canyon-SRAM) - 200CHF, Irregular assistance of a rider within the same team
• Maeva Squiban (UAE Team L'IMAD), Jeanne Korevaar (Liv-AlUla-Jayco), Mia Griffin (Picnic PostNL), Heidi Franz (St Michel-Preference Home-Auber93) and Malou Eisen (Volkerwessels Cycling) - 100CHF fine, irregular feeding ("sticky bottle" for a short distance etc)
• Léonard Cosnier (St Michel-Preference Home-Auber93 DS), Rudi Kemna (Picnic PostNL DS), Chérie Pridham (UAE Team L'IMAD DS), Wim Stroetinga (Liv AlUla Jayco DS) and Marieke van Wanroij (Volkerwessels DS) - 200CHF fine, irregular feeding ("sticky bottle" for a short distance etc)
• Marie Nicolas (FDJ United-SUEZ DS) - 200CHF fine, failing to respect the instructions of the commissaires
• Demi Vollering (FDJ United-SUEZ), Juliette Berthet (FDJ United-SUEZ) and Célia Gery (FDJ United-SUEZ) - 100CHF fine, inappropriate behaviour (urinating in public during the race)

Stage 8

• Nothing to report

Stage 9

• Nothing to report

Infringements that can result in yellow cards

• 3.4 - Rider taking off mandatory helmet during the race.
• 4.2.1 - Hand sling between teammates.
• 4.2.2 - Hand sling between riders from different teams.
• 4.3 - Pushing off against car, motorcycle, rider; rider pushing another rider.
• 4.6 - Rider holding onto vehicle or mechanical intervention from a moving vehicle.
• 4.7 - Sheltering behind or taking advantage of the slipstream of a vehicle.
• 4.9 - Follower leaning out of a vehicle or holding equipment outside a vehicle.
• 4.10 - Unauthorised feeding (4.10.1 – 4.10.2 – 4.10.3 – 4.10.4 – 4.10.5 – 4.10.6)
• 4.11 - Irregular feeding (“sticky bottle” or feeding outside feed zone, etc.).
• 4.12 - Non-compliance with the article 2.3.025 by a team assistant during feeding
• 5.1 - Irregular sprint, deviation from the chosen line that obstructs or endangers another rider.
• 5.2 - Rider decelerating during a sprint and endangering other riders
• 6.1 - Obstruction by a rider or vehicle in order to prevent or delay the movement of another rider or vehicle
• 6.3 - Breach of regulations or guidelines concerning vehicle movements during the race or failure to comply with the instructions of commissaires and/or the organisation
• 6.4 – Interviewing a rider during the race.
• 6.5 - Interviewing a sport director during the last 10 kilometres of a race or conducting the interview from a car rather than a motorbike.
• 7.1 - Deviation from the race route constituting an advantage, attempting to be placed without having covered the entire race route.
• 7.6 - Use of sidewalks/pavements, paths or cycle lanes that do not form part of the race route.
• 7.7 - Passing through a level crossing that is closed or in the process of closing (lights flashing and/or audible warnings).
• 7.9 - Using a non-compliant position or point of support on the bicycle that represents a danger to the rider or competitors.
• 8.1 - Failing to respect the instructions of the organiser or commissaires.
• 8.2.1 – Assault, intimidation, insults, threats, improper conduct (including pulling the jersey or saddle of another rider, blow with the helmet, knee, elbow, shoulder, foot or hand, etc.), or behaviour that is indecent or that endangers others (between riders)
• 8.2.2 - Assault, intimidation, insults, threats, improper conduct (including pulling the jersey or saddle of another rider, blow with the helmet, knee, elbow, shoulder, foot or hand, etc.), or behaviour that is indecent or that endangers others (directed at any other person, including spectators).
• 8.3 - Rider or team staff disposing of waste or other objects outside of litter zones. (adapted also to one-day events since April 1)

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As I write this, online is abuzz with Jonas Vingegaard crashing out of this year’s Tour de France. The potential cause? Being awoken at 2 a.m. for an anti-doping test. Tadej Pogačar, wrote The Guardian’s Jeremy Whittle, said the disturbance could "be a small percentage in why he crashed because he probably didn’t sleep good", adding: "I know how it feels. They woke me up at five in the morning also, but at least I got my deep sleep. It’s better than if they come at two." Why were the Dane and Slovenian woken between 11 p.m. and 6 a.m., which is uncommon from the International Testing Agency (ITA), who roll out the anti-doping programme on behalf of the UCI? No official reasons have been given, and being selected for a test, including out of hours, is a standard part of anti-doping controls, and does not imply any suspicion of, or wrongdoing by, the riders concerned.

However, when WADA first permitted nighttime testing across all its sports in 2015, there was a reason for it. The Cycling Independent Reform Commission (CIRC) stated in 2015 that "the absence of nighttime testing [was] a weakness in the current system", specifically regarding the issue of micro-dosing.

Here, we delve deep into micro-dosing’s detection challenge, made harder by the issue of altitude…

The science says ‘no’

"In 2010, Carsten Lundby and I had a study published [in the European Journal of Applied Physiology] where we sent anonymous doped EPO [the blood-booster erythropoietin] samples to anti-doping laboratories in Cologne and Lausanne to see if the results would come back positive. The results were poor. Not because the technicians are poor, but the gaps in the test, especially the passport."

The words of Dr Paul Robach, who works in the department of biomedical research at the National School of Mountain Sports, Chamonix, France. Robach is a world-leading authority on the blood changes fuelled by either the needle or a mountain.

Back to his eye-opening 2010 research. Half of the subjects who were injected with a significant amount of EPO before moving into the micro-dosing maintenance phase tested negative. Concerning. The World Anti-Doping Agency would rightly counter that the sensitivity of doping tests has improved in the intervening 16 years. Still, in my new book Dope it became clear that the micro-dosing shortcomings remained, one of the major flaws being rapidly flushed-out markers.

"If a rider micro-dosed EPO at 11 p.m. and the doping control officer tested them at six the next morning, they’d catch them with a direct blood test," says Robach. "But the chances would be lower with the passport. It’s because EPO has a short half-life of a few hours."

A direct doping test looks for a prohibited substance or its metabolites in an athlete’s urine or blood, providing evidence that a banned drug has been used. The blood test doesn’t search for specific substances. Instead, it tracks an athlete’s blood markers over time and flags up unusual changes that may indicate doping. While direct tests aim to catch the substance itself, the blood passport is designed to detect the lasting biological effects of doping.

In search of more oxygen

Ultimately, no intelligence agency will communicate the reasons behind targeted or nocturnal testing. But the nighttime testing at the Tour does highlight a limitation of anti-doping procedures when it comes to micro-doping, which is exacerbated when trying to unpick the physiological changes accrued from synthetic EPO compared to altitude-stimulated EPO.

Which is perhaps not surprising, as the aim of each intervention is the same: to boost red blood cells, meaning the rider can tap into more oxygen to fuel working muscles. Achieving that goal by injection is prohibited. Heading high and forcing the oxygen-starved body to generate more EPO to create more red blood cells isn’t.

A 2022 paper by Jonas Saugy highlighted the problem, the researcher revealing that an athlete’s blood profile when micro-dosing was "hardly distinguishable from those identified after hypoxic exposure" without doping.

The similar blood profiles included haemoglobin mass, which is the total amount of haemoglobin (oxygen carrier) in a rider’s red blood cells. There’s a tight relationship between VO2 max and haemoglobin mass, with research revealing that a 1g increase in haemoglobin mass can increase VO2 max by around 4ml/min/kg. As VO2 max is one of the limiting factors when it comes to an endurance sport like road cycling, the benefits are clear.

Further separate research highlights similar benefits enjoyed from micro-dosing and training at altitude. A 2024 study revealed that injecting nine IU/kg of bodyweight of EPO three times weekly over four weeks boosted endurance by up to 6% in trained athletes, which would equate to around 2% in elites, who have less room to grow.

As for altitude training, a 2016 meta-analysis of elite athletes reported an average VO2max increase of around 2%, so similar to those micro-dosing results.

The variability of altitude training

It begs the question: why cheat when the legal means (altitude) deliver similar gains? "A rider’s response to altitude training is highly variable," says Robach. "We have an ongoing study that shows our group’s haematological response to one year at high altitude varies from 1% to 50%."

Robach’s results mirror earlier research charting how elite endurance athletes respond to altitude training camps and whether they can be reliably classified as "responders" or "non-responders." Researchers analysed 82 altitude camps involving 59 athletes and measured changes in haemoglobin mass.

Haemoglobin mass increased after 56% of camps, rising to 65% when athletes trained above 2,000 metres (we’ll come back to that height-related stimulus shortly). However, responses varied greatly both between athletes and within the same athlete across different camps.

"From the 15 athletes who participated in altitude training camps at least twice, 27% always had positive haemoglobin responses; 60% both positive and negative responses; and 13% only negative responses."

In other words, altitude training doesn’t always work. Worse than that for the rider and support staff, it might work for a rider at one camp but not at the next.

Exercise physiologist Inigo Mujika would suggest this variability’s down to sidestepping the five I’s. These are: Iron – inadequate iron intake may compromise adaptations to altitude; Intake – low energy diets don’t support adaptations; Injury – prolonged inflammatory responses associated with serious soft tissue injury can interfere with adaptation; Illness – viral and bacterial infections do the same; and Intensity – excessive workload at the start of an altitude camp can promote excessive fatigue and, again, impair adaptation.

But even with the best-laid plans, results from altitude training remain inconsistent. One reason why is limitations in how low each rider can go…

Triggering HIF-1

"Ultimately, optimising altitude training is around the amount that you can safely reduce your oxygen saturation level [SpO2], which you can measure with a pulse oximeter on the tip of your finger," says top coach and sport scientist Dan Healey, who formerly worked with Alberto Contador at Tinkoff-Saxo. A normal range at sea level is around 95 to 100%. When you train at altitude, the thinner air naturally means that [it] usually drops. "You’ll aim for the rider’s SpO2 to drop to 90 and into the 80s. The sweet spot for optimum EPO production is probably in the 70s."

Healey says you need that rarefied stimulus to trigger a protein complex called hypoxia-inducible factor-1 alpha (HIF-1 alpha). "Every day, HIF-1 alpha is produced but killed. It’s a really complex mechanism. But when you go to altitude, it’s free to do its thing. HIF-1 alpha will join with HIF-2. That’s when you get EPO production and why teams spend a lot of money on altitude camps. Basically, they’re spending top dollar to trigger HIF-1."

But even when ticking those five ‘I’ boxes of Mujika’s, how much HIF-1 alpha is triggered can vary greatly. In Dope, Rory Townsend told me that no matter what he does, his SpO2 levels remain well into the 90s. He’s seemingly a staunch non-responder. That said, he’s never hit the lofty heights of Healey’s recent research.

"The sweet spot for triggering HIF-1 is around 5,000m," he says. "You’ll need to do it in really short doses of extreme hypoxia – so SpO2 in the 70s for accelerated EPO release – though you must monitor the rider closely and ensure things are done safely."

Cyclingnews reiterates that this type of training should only be carried out under the supervision of expert medical guidance.

Robach agrees that adding a little more certainty from altitude training might require going higher than the 2-2,500m that most teams peak at. "But many coaches are concerned if they go too high the riders will be too fatigued or not sleep. I think it’d be okay at 3-3,500m. But 5,000m? That’s exploratory and yet to be scientifically proven."

Exercise physiologists and sports scientists love nothing more than consistency. That their research and applied practice delivers gains time and time again. It’s repeatable. That’s anathema to altitude training. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. But with micro-dosing EPO? "Ultimately, you’ll have a higher chance of consistently boosting your haemoglobin mass with EPO than altitude," says Robach. "Altitude training is complicated."

What of the future?

So, there are compelling reasons why a rider might micro-dose, especially at altitude, as there’s evidence that you enjoy a double boost, again without testing negative unless tested close to injection time.

It’s also not solely about micro-dosing EPO. Both infusing your own blood and injecting human growth hormone at nominal levels deliver a physiological advantage and a small detection window.

Which is why a credible anti-doping system can’t rely so much on the biological blood passport. Sidestepping the cost implications of research and implementing a new test that’s legally watertight, are there new tests on the horizon that could actually solve the micro-dosing and altitude riddle?

Possibly. While much of the focus has been on changes in reticulocytes and other red blood cell markers, an alternative approach may be to examine shifts in plasma volume. One of the primary physiological responses to altitude exposure is a reduction in plasma volume – the liquid component of blood – which can influence many of the variables monitored by the biological passport.

WADA has already explored machine-learning models that estimate an athlete’s expected plasma volume over time, using artificial intelligence to distinguish normal physiological variation from patterns consistent with doping. Although this would require an additional blood measurement, incorporating plasma volume estimates could help differentiate the effects of altitude exposure from those of EPO micro-dosing.

"There’s also great potential in the area of omics," says Robach. This taps into the ongoing work of Professor Yannis Pitsiladis, a leading advocate for applying omics technologies – genomics, transcriptomics, proteomics and metabolomics – to anti-doping. By analysing thousands of biological markers simultaneously, these approaches could reveal subtle signatures of EPO use, blood manipulation and other forms of doping, potentially improving detection.

"Exploring iron metabolism could pay off, too," adds Robach, who along with colleagues has shown that even low doses of recombinant EPO stimulate the hormone erythroferrone and corresponding changes in iron regulation. Altitude doesn’t result in the same iron profile.

"But my dream is that EPO manufacturers put a tracer in their drugs," says Robach, "but I can’t see the likes of Novo Nordisk doing that. Their drugs are for therapeutic purposes. Understandably, sporting abuse isn’t top of their concerns."

It’s clear that anti-doping faces two fundamental challenges: how do you detect a performance-boosting substance that has such a short half-life? And how do you separate a rider’s legitimate adaptation to the mountains from an artificial attempt to recreate the same advantage? It’s also clear that the battle against micro-dosing will not be won by one breakthrough test. Altitude, EPO and blood manipulation all exploit the same physiological pathway: increasing oxygen delivery through red blood cells. As detection evolves, the future may lie in looking beyond traditional blood markers towards plasma volume, iron metabolism and omics. Until then, the flaws of micro-dosing mean athlete welfare will play second fiddle to the credibility of the anti-doping system.

Einer Rubio (Movistar) had to quit the Tour de France only a matter of kilometres from the finish line of Alpe d'Huez on stage 19 after crashing into the back of a UAE Team Emirates-XRG car.

Movistar released a medical update following the stage to confirm his injuries, which include facial stitches, and he will be transferred to a hospital in Grenoble.

"Einer Rubio has received around 20 stitches in the face following the accident he suffered during the ascent to Alpe d'Huez," the statement read. "The Colombian is to be transferred to a hospital in Grenoble, where new tests will be carried out to determine the extent of the injuries."

Rubio, who had been in the day's breakaway, was in the second-to-last group to be passed by Tadej Pogačar on his way to winning the stage, and looked set to climb to the finish, but was then recorded as a DNF.

Video footage then emerged of Rubio crashing, at fairly high speed as the road levelled out near the top, into the back of a UAE car when it stopped abruptly in front of him.

With thousands of fans lining the climb, often encroaching on the road, it was difficult for riders and vehicles to navigate the climb even during the race, with Pogačar and others having to bat fans out of the way.

The UAE car had to stop abruptly after a spectator fell into the road in front of it, with the driver's quick reaction only narrowly avoiding running the man over in front, but it had dire consequences behind.

Rubio did not have any time to stop or swerve and collided headfirst into the car's rear window, which smashed on impact. Rubio was able to stand up and walk away from the crash, but with multiple cuts to his face and blood covering his bike, he had to climb into an ambulance instead of finish the stage.

An hour in the medical truck

Cyclingnews initially reported that Rubio spent an hour in the medical truck that is always set up at the finishes of Tour de France stages.

He emerged with several bandages on his face, and then proceeded to try and drink from a bottle of water – a necessity given the athletic effort he'd put in earlier in the day but a struggle given his injuries.

This is not the end of Rubio's treatment, and he was later taken to a hospital near Grenoble to get further attention on his wounds.

There was a debate between Movistar staff and the ASO medical personnel about how best to get Rubio off the mountain, which is still packed with fans and vehicle traffic.

Rubio eventually stepped into the race ambulance and was driven with a police escort to a helipad where he was then taken off the mountain by a helicopter.

Decathlon CMA CGM DS Luke Rowe also said he had seen the incident.

"It was ugly out there," he said to TNT Sports. "Remco got blocked and struggled to move at one point, and I saw a Movistar rider at the side of the road, tangled up in a crash, covered in blood. So it was, honestly, it was really on the limit."

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There hasn't been a major doping scandal at the Tour de France for over a decade, but the decision to carry out nighttime anti-doping tests on multiple riders, including Tadej Pogačar and Jonas Vingegaard, at the 2026 Tour has resurrected the ghosts of the past, sparked a myriad of questions and huge debate about cycling's anti-doping strategy and whether the riders are treated fairly.

Pogačar shrugged off the disruption to his sleep but also described the nighttime testing as 'inhumane' and went so far as to suggest that Vingegaard's crash was sparked by his loss of sleep.

Since then, CPA rider's association president Adam Hansen has questioned why riders should pay so much for such disruptive anti-doping testing, while Jonathan Vaughters blew up the internet with a rare but succinct post on X.

"I’ll roll this grenade down the aisle: 2 am testing is one of the very effective ways to prevent peptide(EPO,hGH) and testosterone microdosing. If UCI had tested us in 2001 at 2 am? We’d all have been suspended and saved the sport 25 years of drama," the EF Education team manager said, in defence of nighttime testing.

After Monday's rest day, it emerged that the International Testing Agency (ITA) has carried out a swath of daytime testing and the UCI publicly defended the testing process "in the service of a cleaner and more credible sport of cycling."

This is Cyclingnews' explainer of pro cycling's anti-doping system and what the recent nighttime test of the Tour de France means for the sport.

Cycling's eternal doping problem

Ever since riders began to race long distances for glory, prize money and sponsors, doping has been part of their performances and so a threat to the fair results and image of the sport.

The Tour de France pioneers drank cognac, used chloroform and took cocaine and other stimulants to dull the pain of racing.

"The truth is that we keep going on dynamite," Francis Pélissier once famously told French writer and journalist Albert Londres.

Doping was made illegal in France in 1965, but doping scandals continued, as doping moved from amphetamines to steroids, blood doping, EPO abuse and the Lance Armstrong years and his eventual lifetime ban and the cancellation of his seven Tour de France victories. The Tour de France results have been rewritten many times over the years.

Who manages the anti-doping process?

For many years, the UCI managed anti-doping in the sport, but this arrangement was widely criticised as a conflict of interest, amid reports that some positive tests were not adequately pursued and long-standing concerns about the governing body's independence.

The International Olympic Committee pushed for an independent body to distance itself from doping scandals, and so the International Testing Agency (ITA) was created in 2018 and began to work with International Federations and major sporting events, including the summer and winter Olympic Games.

The ITA Cycling unit was created in 2021 and absorbed the UCI anti-doping operations. ITA Cycling had an initial budget of €7 million, paid for by riders via a 2.7% of all race prize money. The UCI also pays a contribution, while race organisers pay a percentage of their prize pot and teams pay a flat fee of €215,000.

The ITA budget has risen to €10 million in recent years, with the UCI highlighting a 35% budget increase between 2021 and the end of 2024.

In 2026, ITA took responsibility for anti-doping legal proceedings regarding anti-doping violations and whereabouts failures. This is alongside their operational anti-doping testing, the monitoring of athlete biological passports and intelligence-gathering and investigations.

Anti-doping at the 2026 Tour de France

Before the 2026 Tour de France, ITA announced it carried out 360 out-of-competition tests in the month before the race, with 600 in-competition tests expected during the race, based on testing strategy, intelligence and investigations priorities and operational requirements.

ITA said it would put an increased focus on the endogenous steroid markers measured in blood serum as part of the steroidal module of the Athlete Biological Passport and on the endocrine module of the ABP to better detect markers of human Growth Hormone (hGH) abuse.

“The Tour de France remains one of the most visible and demanding events in international sport from an anti-doping perspective," ITA Director General Benjamin Cohen said.

"Our 2026 program reflects the continued evolution of cycling’s anti-doping strategy through intelligence-led testing, scientific advancements, strengthened investigative capabilities and close cooperation with our partners. We remain committed to protecting the integrity of the race and ensuring that all riders compete under the same rules and conditions."

Being selected for a test, including out-of-hours, is a standard part of anti-doping controls and does not imply any suspicion of, or wrongdoing by, the riders concerned. Neither Pogačar nor Vingegaard nor the other riders who have been tested have been accused of any anti-doping violation.

Nighttime testing

ITA stated that testing would be targeted and may occur at any point during the three-week race, not just at stage finishes. However, nobody expected the headline-grabbing, disruptive and divisive nighttime tests.

One trusted source told Cyclingnews that nighttime testing had only ever been done once before. Suddenly the two biggest Tour riders were awoken for testing between two key mountain stages.

News of the testing only emerged after a report in La Parisien and subsequent confirmation by Pogačar and Vingegaard.

Cyclingnews understands that other teams have been visited for testing outside of the usual 6:00 a.m. to 11:00 p.m. window, which is not typical but which is provided for within the UCI's rules.

What the UCI rules say

The WADA code and the UCI anti-doping rules are clear, with UCI rule 5.2.2 stating: "The UCI may require any Rider over whom it has Testing authority, who has not retired, including Riders serving a period of Ineligibility, to provide a Sample at any time and at any place."

However, a comment below the rule specifies: "The UCI may obtain additional authority to conduct Testing by means of bilateral or multilateral agreements with other Signatories. Unless the Rider has identified a sixty (60) minute Testing window between the hours of 11:00 p.m. and 6:00 a.m., or has otherwise consented to Testing during that period, the UCI will not test a Rider during that period unless it has a serious and specific suspicion that the Rider may be engaged in doping. A challenge to whether the UCI had sufficient suspicion for Testing during this time period shall not be a defense to an anti-doping rule violation based on such test or attempted test."

ITA carried out the nighttime tests within the UCI rules. As noted above, being selected for a test - including out-of-hours - does not in itself imply any suspicion of, or wrongdoing by, the riders concerned.

What is the French law for nighttime testing?

The Tour de France is held under UCI rules, but French law and nighttime tests are also permitted under specific circumstances.

It is important to distinguish between the UCI’s own testing rules — which permit out-of-hours testing where there is “serious and specific suspicion” — and the separate French judicial authorisation process under the Code for Sport. The two regimes operate independently, and the fact that either procedure was invoked does not constitute a finding or allegation that any rider has committed an anti-doping rule violation.

Under the French Code for Sport L232-14-4, an investigative judge 'des libertés et de la détention' (freedoms and detention) "verifies in all cases that there are serious and consistent suspicions against the athlete that he has contravened or will contravene the provisions of this chapter and a risk of disappearance of evidence." This provision governs judicial authorisation for testing where a rider's consent is not obtained, rather than defining the 11 p.m.-6 a.m. window itself, which sits in the related article L232-14-1.

Vaughters suggested that a French judge may sign off permission for nighttime testing based on little concrete evidence, but so far the details of ITA's legal request to test have not been revealed, citing the confidentiality of their anti‑doping strategy.

"The timing of a control is determined through a risk-based assessment that takes into account a range of relevant factors and information. It is therefore not arbitrary, but nor should it be interpreted as evidence that a rider has committed an anti-doping rule violation," ITA told Cyclingnews.

Of course, there is a clear difference and long legal process between any "serious and specific suspicion" and a confirmed "anti-doping rule violation" that usually ends with a suspension.

Extra testing on the Tour de France rest day

ITA claims its Tour de France anti-doping programme "features a targeted, intelligence-led testing plan grounded in the latest scientific developments and risk-based analysis.. However, on Monday's second rest day, they also carried out a mass testing of the peloton as part of the Athlete Biological Passport (ABP) programme.

All riders in the peloton were included in the testing mission, which forms part of the ITA’s ongoing intelligence - and risk-based anti-doping program for the race," ITA said in another statement.

"Collecting additional blood samples enables the ITA to assess variations in relevant haematological biological markers and strengthen the longitudinal monitoring of each rider’s individual profile."

The UCI's position

The UCI delegates its anti-doping procedures to ITA and issued a statement on Wednesday defending the nighttime testing and ITA's work.

"The UCI of course acknowledges that nighttime testing can disrupt riders' rest and recovery, and wishes to reiterate that carrying out such controls outside normal hours remains an exceptional measure, reserved for limited and justified circumstances. While fully aware of how onerous such a measure is for riders, the UCI nevertheless underscores that these controls serve an overriding interest: the fight against doping.

What happens next?

The Tour de France climbs into the Alps and then ends in Paris on Sunday.

Anti-doping tests usually take between seven and ten days to be analysed, with positive cases taking much longer due to the legal process and disciplinary process.

In theory, we should know the initial outcome of the nighttime tests before the Tour de France ends on Sunday evening. It will be up to the athletes involved to decide if they will immediately reveal the results of the tests.

The debate about the fairness and effectiveness of nighttime testing will surely run on much longer.

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The UCI has released a statement in support of the International Testing Agency (ITA), following the organisation's recent night-time anti-doping controls at the Tour de France.

The ITA, which has managed cycling's anti-doping testing since 2021, visited Tour de France leader Tadej Pogačar and former second-placed man Jonas Vingegaard outside of normal hours (between 6 a.m. and 11 p.m., as stated in UCI regulations) on Sunday morning.

On Tuesday, Cyclingnews learned that five other teams have also been subjected to testing before 5a.m during the Tour de France.

Being selected for a test, including out-of-hours, is a standard part of anti-doping controls and does not imply any suspicion of, or wrongdoing by, the riders concerned. Neither Pogačar nor Vingegaard have been accused of any anti-doping violation.

The tests provoked several strong reactions from riders – including Remco Evenepoel – and rider unions. The Cyclistes Professionnels Associés (CPA) released a statement in response to the tests calling for a "fairer fight against doping" and stating, "It is clear that this practice hinders athletes' recovery during the most important and difficult race on the global calendar and runs counter to the intended objectives."

In response to the criticisms, the UCI released a statement approving the ITA's actions on Wednesday afternoon.

"Following a number of reactions in recent days to unannounced anti-doping controls carried out by the International Testing Agency (ITA) during the Tour de France – in particular following the statement issued by the association of professional riders (CPA) – the Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI) wishes to respond and to reaffirm that the fight against doping is an absolute priority," the statement read.

"The UCI of course acknowledges that nighttime testing can disrupt riders' rest and recovery, and wishes to reiterate that carrying out such controls outside normal hours remains an exceptional measure, reserved for limited and justified circumstances. While fully aware of how onerous such a measure is for riders, the UCI nevertheless underscores that these controls serve an overriding interest: the fight against doping."

The UCI had been in charge of anti-doping in the sport before handing over management of testing to the ITA five years ago. The ITA is a Swiss-based organisation, which independently manages anti-doping programmes for various international sporting federations and event organisers.

The UCI reiterated its support of the ITA in its mission.

"In 2021, the UCI entrusted the ITA with the management of its anti-doping programme – including the planning and execution of controls – in order to guarantee its independence and maximise its effectiveness," the UCI statement continued.

"With this in mind, the UCI fully supports the ITA's use of every means at its disposal to carry out its mission as effectively as possible, in compliance, naturally, with the World Anti-Doping Code of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), UCI Regulations, and legislation applicable in each country for the conduct of controls (as in the present case, with the approval of the competent judge) and/or the gathering of intelligence.

"The UCI considers it essential that all stakeholders unite and support the anti-doping programme in place in cycling, which is now recognised by the relevant sporting authorities as a benchmark in this field.

"The requirement for independence, rigour and effectiveness in its anti-doping programme comes at a cost to cycling, one borne collectively by all of its stakeholders: every year, more than €10 million is invested in the collection, analysis and re-analysis of samples, as well as in intelligence-gathering, across events falling within the UCI's regulatory remit, including the Tour de France.

"This investment reflects the UCI's determination to protect riders who respect the rules, and to relentlessly pursue the reinforcement of its arsenal against those who cheat.

"The UCI will continue to support the ITA in carrying out its mission, in full and complete respect for its independence, in the service of a cleaner and more credible sport of cycling."

There have been no reports of any further night-time tests since Sunday morning, though all riders at the Tour de France provided biological passport samples during normal testing hours during the race's rest day on Monday, alongside other customary tests.

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All riders still in the Tour de France provided blood samples on Monday's rest day as part of the Athlete Biological Passport (ABP) programme, a longitudinal way of monitoring biological variables in riders' blood that sits apart from regular anti-doping tests.

First reported by Cycling Weekly and L'Equipe, Cyclingnews has received the same information confirming that the 166 riders still left in the race on the second rest day provided samples to the International Testing Agency (ITA) with support from the French anti-doping agency, the AFLD.

All riders on the Tour start list also provided samples in the days running up to the start of the race in Barcelona.

"The International Testing Agency (ITA) confirms that a comprehensive blood Athlete Biological Passport (ABP) testing mission was carried out during the Tour de France rest day on 20 July 2026. All riders in the peloton were included in the testing mission, which forms part of the ITA’s ongoing intelligence- and risk-based anti-doping program for the race," a statement provided by the ITA reads.

"This mission complements the standard pre-competition testing conducted on all riders in the days preceding the Grand Départ and any test already conducted during the race. Collecting additional blood samples enables the ITA to assess variations in relevant haematological biological markers and strengthen the longitudinal monitoring of each rider’s individual profile. It was supported by sample collection personnel from the French national anti-doping agency - AFLD."

The ABP was introduced to cycling in 2008, and acts as a longitudinal way for anti-doping authorities to detect any changes over time in biological levels in the blood such as hematocrit levels and other variables. The programme "does not seek to detect a prohibited substance or method directly", in the words of the ITA.

"Instead, it monitors selected biological variables over time to identify changes that may indicate the effects of doping and inform further anti-doping action," it said.

Providing regular samples for the ABP programme is distinct from standard anti-doping testing, and is not indicative of any wrongdoing nor suspicion of wrongdoing, and all riders in men's WorldTeams and ProTeams are automatically part of the programme, regardless of any other factors. Samples are routinely collected at regular intervals, including before, during and after big events, and out of competition.

Over time, the data collected in a rider's ABP programme can reveal abnormalities and lead to sanctions, but providing data itself is routine and not indicative of anything unusual. Last year, WorldTour rider Oier Lazkano was suspended after abnormal values were noted in his ABP.

ABP samples do not provide 'results', per se; rather, the data is stored and analysed over time.

Testing at the Tour de France has been in headlines over the last few days, after multiple riders spoke out about being woken up during the night by testers. Before the race, the ITA confirmed that they would be carrying out some 600 tests during the Tour, which equates to just over 25 per day.

Usually, these routine tests do not make headlines, and regular testing at the Tour is nothing out of the ordinary, but has become a major talking point this year.

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EF Education-EasyPost team manager Jonathan Vaughters has defended night-time anti-doping tests at the Tour de France.

He suggested that if such tests had been carried out when he was racing 25 years ago, it could have exposed more cases of doping and "saved the sport 25 years of drama."

Vaughters posted his initial thoughts on social media and then spoke further to Cyclingnews and other media before the stage 16 time trial in Évian on Tuesday morning.

He said that limited night-time testing is a good thing and openly apologised to the current generation of riders who he suggests are still facing the consequences of the doping of his own generation.

Vaughters was a teammate of Lance Armstrong at the U.S. Postal Service team and later testified in the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency's investigation that led to Armstrong losing his seven Tour de France victories.

Current Tour de France race leader Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) and Jonas Vingegaard (Visma-Lease a Bike) revealed that they were awoken during the night before stage 15 for night-time anti-doping tests. Cyclingnews understands that other teams have been visited for testing outside of the usual 6:00 a.m. to 11:00 p.m. window, which is not typical but which is provided for within the UCI's rules.

Being selected for a test, including out-of-hours, is a standard part of anti-doping controls and does not imply any suspicion of, or wrongdoing by, the riders concerned. Pogačar, Vingegaard and any other riders in the Tour peloton have not been accused of any anti-doping violation.

Vaughters reiterated his thoughts and spoke at length at the start of the Tour de France stage 16 time trial on July 21, 2026.

We have published the interview in a Q&A format, with slight edits in parts for clarity.

Jonathan Vaughters Q&A

Jonathan Vaughters: I don't love it for the riders, I don't like that their sleep is being disturbed. However, when it comes down to it, it is very difficult to detect hormones and peptides such as EPO, human growth hormone, et cetera. The clearance time on a lot of these can be quite quickly [the time it takes for a substance to leave your body]. So one of the very few weapons anti-doping agencies have to make sure that there's not a microdosing effort going on is to basically be able to test whenever they can.

My opinion is, although I don't like that they lost sleep, and I don't love that, but I would rather lose sleep than lose credibility.

My guess is that those tests are going to turn out to be fine and that then you've established more credibility for the sport than we had before, and we're showing that we're doing something that no other sport is even coming close to doing in terms of anti-doping testing

So, I get the concerns over it, but I think from a very big picture standpoint, it helps the sport, and it helps those riders show what they're doing transparently.

Question: But there are a lot of insinuations now because they have to have a clear reason to do those tests at midnight. It's not standard protocol. That creates, of course, an atmosphere that is not positive for cycling.

JV: We don't know when [the International Testing Authority sought authorisation from a French judge to conduct out-of-hours testing]. Unfortunately, the history of cycling, which I was part of the problem, to be blunt. Because of that history, you're going to be able to find a French judge that is going to give you a favourable warrant to exercise that sort of extreme protocol.

My guess is that they're not basing that warrant on any specific suspicion that they were able to get the warrant based on performance, based on the history of the sport and who knows what else.

I don't think we should read too much into that because I think it would be very easy to find a French judge that would be favourable to issuing that sort of thing because of the history of the sport, and that's unfortunate, but here we are.

[Editor's note: French publications L'Equipe and AFP reported on Monday that the ITA sought permission for overnight testing from a French judge, under French sports code article L232-14-4, which requires additional permission for tests between 11 p.m. and 6 a.m. Additional permission was granted per specific test, Cyclingnews understands. It is unclear when the permissions were sought, or the reasons for the request. The ITA states: "The timing of a control is determined through a risk-based assessment that takes into account a range of relevant factors and information. It is therefore not arbitrary, but nor should it be interpreted as evidence that a rider has committed an anti-doping rule violation.]

Q: Should this kind of testing already have been done in your time when you were racing?

JV: 100%. I said this yesterday on Twitter, but I'll say it again now, that if we had had 2 a.m., 4 a.m. testing in 2000, 2001 when the EPO test was first introduced, we would have had a huge number of riders immediately banned from the sport then, including me, and we would have saved the sport 25 years of drama.

[Editor's note: The World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) first introduced provisions for overnight testing in January 2015. It was allowed in France later that year. The UCI follows the WADA code, with the ITA administering testing on its behalf.]

We wouldn't have had to go through the whole Lance Armstrong and this and that, blah blah blah. No, it wouldn't have happened because the problem would have been solved immediately in the race in 2000. Would you trade 25 years of drama for a few wake-up calls? I think the answer would be yes.

Q: Is the current generation paying for the mistakes of the previous generation?

JV: In my opinion, yes, I think definitely that this current generation is paying for the reputation of the sport previously.

My guess is, again, I don't know this, but it would be much more difficult to go to a French judge and get this sort of warrant executed for a football team. Whereas with the cycling team, the previous generation probably facilitated that. For sure they are, and so for that part I feel very sorry for. We should have been doing this years and years ago. And maybe if we had been doing it years ago, we wouldn't have to be doing it right now.

Q: You tweeted that maybe your generation should apologise to the current generation for what's happened.

JV: Yes, 100%. I'm willing to say that directly to the camera that I do think that we should apologise to the current generation for the atmosphere that they have to function under nowadays with regards to anti-doping.

Q: Have there been tests last night at EF? There were a lot more tests, not in the middle of the night but later in the evening.

JV: Yeah, we were tested at about 10 p.m. last night. So, not 2 a.m., but late in the evening.

Q: Have you been tested at all before last night out of hours, any sort of outside of the window testing out of this?

JV: No.

Q: And what about previous Tours? Maybe since you've been a manager.

JV: I've never heard of a 2 a.m. test before. That doesn't mean it hasn't happened. I'm not sure, but I don't think that those two, Vingegaard and Pogačar, were the only people tested. There were others, but I don't know who they were.

I can tell you they weren't on our team, but I think there were others. Which probably should have remained private, but it's only because the riders started talking about it that it's a controversy.

Q: Do you believe that there's a tangible difference between a 2 a.m. test, a 10 p.m. test, and say a breakfast test, 6 a.m.?

JV: Yes, absolutely. If you are introducing a low enough dose of sort of a peptide hormone, you know, the clearance time can be four hours. So if you were to take that at 11 p.m., that means it's cleared out of your system at 3 a.m. So yes, there is a difference.

Now, of course, testing technology is evolving very quickly. Maybe it won't be necessary in a few years, but I do understand why they're doing it now.

Q: There's a lot of controversy, a lot of riders complaining. You're obviously taking a slightly different view to most. Is that something you communicate to the team, and how do the riders feel about this whole topic?

JV: I explained it to my riders exactly how I'm explaining it to you. I said, 'Listen, here's the background', and I said if we'd done this in 2001, 25 years ago, you would have never had all these scandals, and it would have been 'You're not racing, see you later, see you two years from now'.

I explained to them that if they had implemented this earlier, the sport would be in a better place, a more credible place. There probably wouldn't have been nearly as many scandals like Operation Puerto. A lot of those were based on this ability to microdose, in addition to the blood doping.

I could get into the technicalities of all that, but it would take forever. That it didn't happen in our generation means basically they're sort of paying the price for it. But it's good that it's happening now.

And I just said: 'Guys, just be thankful that like it's, this is cycling re-earning its credibility and that you guys are getting to race in a cleaner environment and that you're getting to prove that you're racing in a cleaner environment by this stuff happening.'

I apologised to them. I said, 'Listen, I'm sorry that I'm sort of the cause of this, but this is good'. But at the same time I would never tell them to speak to the media and say you have to say it's good too. I said: 'Your opinion is your opinion on this. You're free. I'm just giving you the scientific background of how this works and why they're doing it and then the history as to why it's happening.'

Q: Have you noticed an uptick in general in this Tour in terms of the amount of testing that's been done in hotels, not necessarily out of hours

JV: Not for our team, no. But I don't know what the overall numbers are.

Q: Are you confident that fans at home can believe what they're seeing in this Tour de France? Because obviously the headlines are going to say one thing but the reality can be much different.

JV: Let's be clear. I think getting French judicial permission was probably fairly easy for a bike race, so I don't actually think you should read into that. I think that the fact that the tests are going on at 2 a.m, that's a step that no other sport is even coming close to making. So if you want to trust a sport, you should trust cycling because [in] most other sports, bluntly put, the testing is a complete joke.

So if you're going to watch other sports, pretty much any other professional sport, understand that you're watching sports that the testing is essentially a joke compared to this. If you want to watch a clean sport, watch cycling.

Now, why is cycling so hyper-focused on this? Well, it's the history, but also this is human Formula 1 car racing. This is the edge of human performance. Boundaries are always going to be pushed. If we want to keep that in the confines of the rules, you're always going to have to push back. This isn't like kicking a ball around or whatever.

This is human motors. Is doping a risk factor? It's always going to be a risk factor, but that means you also have to take equally extreme measures to keep it within the bounds of the rules. So I'm supportive of that.

Q: Do you believe that the riders can push the boundaries of the sport if their sleep is so massively interrupted?

JV: It sucks, and if it happened all the time, I would probably be a little bit more circumspect than I am with this. But the fact of the matter is it's happening once or twice a year, is a great deterrent. I mean: lose a little sleep, gain a lot of credibility.

Q: What percentage would you say of the testing protocols going on right now is sending a message, and what percentage is now looking for something?

JV: I couldn't answer that because it's just that's inside ITA. I don't know what they're doing. They're not going to tell me.

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The professional cyclists' riders association, Cyclistes Professionnels Associés (CPA), have confirmed that Tadej Pogačar and Jonas Vingegaard were not the only two riders subjected to anti-doping controls in the dead of the night during the Tour de France this weekend, and are calling for a 'fairer fight against doping'.

In the early hours of Sunday morning before the mountainous stage to Plateau de Solaison, Vingegaard was rousted at 2:00 a.m. local time for a doping control and Pogačar three hours later. Cyclingnews understands that five other teams were targeted for controls at or before 5:00 a.m., which is not typical under UCI and WADA rules, which restrict testing to a 6:00 a.m. to 11:00 p.m. window.

In a press release, the CPA said that they are committed to "a strong, credible, and effective anti-doping effort" but raised concerns about overnight testing.

"Professional riders are the first to want a clean sport. To preserve the integrity of their discipline, they contribute directly to funding the fight against doping (they are the only athletes who contribute financially to testing)," the CPA statement read.

"However, nighttime testing raises questions about its relevance: Interrupting their rest in the middle of the night for testing now warrants serious consideration."

The CPA stated that WADA rules were put into place to protect athletes' health and maintain fairness in sport, but said riders' sleep was also essential.

"The Tour de France is a competition that demands exceptional physical effort," the CPA wrote. "The quality of sleep and recovery is essential not only for performance but also for the health and safety of the riders. It is clear that this practice hinders athletes' recovery during the most important and difficult race on the global calendar and runs counter to the intended objectives."

Testing overnight is the only way to uncover the use of performance-enhancing substances that are cleared rapidly from the bloodstream and, if taken before bedtime, would be undetectable in the normal testing window.

However, the CPA argued that the anti-doping authorities should invest more in advanced detection technologies rather than make a habit of interrupting athletes' sleep, writing: "Cycling contributes approximately €10 million to funding the fight against doping within the International Testing Agency (ITA) for the collection and analysis of samples, while at the same time the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) spends, on average, only $5 million per year across all sports on basic research to develop new methods for detecting and identifying new doping substances.

"Would it not therefore be more appropriate to invest more in scientific research and detection technologies, rather than increasing the number of particularly intrusive unannounced tests?

"Our goal is not to call into question the fight against doping — quite the contrary. We want it to be increasingly effective, targeted, and efficient in identifying true cheaters, but always while respecting athletes' fundamental rights, health, and recovery conditions.

"We also want to ensure that fairness in sports is maintained among athletes and that everyone can benefit from adequate recovery, whereas these targeted and physically taxing tests, on the contrary, hinder it.

"Furthermore, the CPA hopes that all stakeholders will come together to clarify the existing processes and, among other things, ensure that the tests conducted are carried out within a strict legal framework.

"An effective fight against doping is essential. An intelligent fight against doping is just as essential."

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The International Testing Agency (ITA) has confirmed they carried out the nighttime anti-doping tests on Tadej Pogačar and Jonas Vingegaard at the Tour de France and has defended the need to disrupt riders' sleep and recovery to carry out "effective testing".

The ITA claimed in a statement sent to Cyclingnews and other media that the tests were done with "consideration for riders' welfare, equity and fundamental rights."

"The ITA is conscious that night-time testing may be disruptive to riders' rest and recovery. Due consideration has therefore been given to minimise as much as possible the impact testing activities have on riders," the ITA said in the statement.

"However, the ITA, on behalf of the UCI, has the responsibility to ensure the effectiveness of the cycling anti-doping program and the integrity of cycling races. As such, effective testing must, in limited and justified circumstances, be capable to occur outside standard daytime hours.

"All testing activities conducted at the Tour de France and at any other international events, including decisions as to the specific timing of such tests, are carried out in accordance with the ITA’s testing strategy and subject to the safeguards established under the World Anti-Doping Code, the UCI Anti-Doping Rules and French law, with due consideration for riders’ welfare, equity and fundamental rights."

The ITA is a not-for-profit organisation, based in Lausanne, Switzerland, with a mission to manage anti-doping programmes, independently for international federations and event organisers. Cycling's anti-doping programme is funded by the different stakeholders, including the UCI, riders and teams.

Pogačar and several other riders were critical of the night-time testing, with the Tour leader going as far as suggesting that Vingegaard's lack of sleep after his 2am anti-doping test could have been one of the reasons for his crash and fractured collarbone.

Both Vingegaard and his Visma-Lease a Bike team played down the idea that the nighttime anti-doping test was a factor.

Pogačar was tested at 5am before stage 15. He revealed he has also faced other early morning tests during the Spring Classics and the Tour de France.

"It's a little bit strange, but I accept it if this is necessary to still prove we are riding clean, then if this is necessary then I totally accept it and I commit to this. But it's a bit shit when you sleep for four hours in one day in the middle of a three week Tour," Pogačar said.

Pascal Chanteur, president of the French UNCP rider association suggested that the riders were being harassed, while Remco Evenepoel called on the CPA rider's association to act.

"It is inhuman to wake us up, we had a long transfer, and to wake them up like that is pretty disrespectful," the Belgian said.

However the UCI anti-doping rules are clear regarding nighttime testing between 11pm and 6am.

"The UCI may require any Rider over whom it has Testing authority, who has not retired, including Riders serving a period of Ineligibility, to provide a Sample at any time and at any place," rule 5.2.2 explains, but goes on to clarify that "Unless the rider has identified a sixty minute testing window between the hours of 11:00 p.m. and 6:00 a.m., or has otherwise consented to testing during that period, the UCI will not test a rider during that period unless it has a serious and specific suspicion that the Rider may be engaged in doping."

The ITA did not answer a specific question from Cyclingnews about any suspicions of doping in this case, saying its testing strategies remain confidential.

UAE Team Emirates and Visma-Lease a Bike have both been approached for comment.

Our view

Why test at odd hours?

While professional cycling has not seen a major doping scandal for a decade, it is theoretically possible that athletes could benefit from overnight micro-dosing of blood boosting EPO or recovery products, with any traces of the doping disappearing before daytime testing is carried out.

Before the Tour de France began in Barcelona, the ITA explained that its anti-doping strategy is "based on an adaptive risk assessment approach that integrates various dynamic factors, such as rider performance trends, to ensure strategic testing throughout the event. Insights from the ABP (Athlete Biological Passport), including the endocrine module, as well as information gathered by the ITA’s dedicated cycling team within its Intelligence & Investigations (I&I) department, inform these efforts."

ITA claimed it carried out over 360 out of competition tests in the month before the Tour de France, with 600 tests expected during the race. Samples will be kept for 10-years for potential re-analysis.

"Testing during the Tour de France will be targeted and may occur at any point during the three-week race, not just at stage finishes," ITA made clear on July 1 in a statement.

"We remain committed to protecting the integrity of the race and ensuring that all riders compete under the same rules and conditions," said ITA Director General Benjamin Cohen.

The world’s biggest bike race deserves world-class coverage. Subscribe to Cyclingnews for unlimited access to our unrivalled reporting of the 2026 Tour de France. From Barcelona through to Paris, our experienced team will bring you breaking news, expert insight, and in-depth coverage from every stage as the battle for the yellow jersey plays out. Plus, access the Cyclingnews app to follow the action on the go! Find out more.