Pierre Bordry, president of the French council for doping prevention (CPLD) has revealed in an interview with Le Monde that the anti-doping tests performed at the Tour de France this year came back positive for performance-enhancing substances 13 times, but that there were 'therapeutic use exemptions' (TUE) in 12 of the cases. All the cyclists concerned were thus able to prove that they needed the substances to treat illnesses, except one: Floyd Landis, who could not produce a TUE for his high testosterone:epitestosterone ratio.
Brodry also said that 105 of the 199 cyclists that participated in the Tour de France this year had been tested. All in all, 16 urine samples came back positive, concerning a total of 13 riders. "Except in the case of Landis, the UCI did not rate the cases as doping, because these riders have TUE's which allow them to use prohibited substances in competition," he said. "Sixty percent of the 105 controlled riders had TUE's [...], which raises serious doubts and leaves one to think that they can be used to hide doping practices."
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