T-Mobile doctor "astounded" by doping list

Dr. Lothar Heinrich, T-Mobile Team doctor, says he is "very astounded" at the list of illegal doping that Jan Ullrich is alleged to have used during the Tour de France 2005. The Suddeutsche Zeitung has published what it claims is Ullrich's doping schedule for the first week of the tour, prepared by Dr. Fuentes, and which includes testosterone, insulin and growth hormones, as well as a blood transfusion.

"You can't tell things like that by looking at a person," Dr. Heinrich said, and added that Ullrich never showed any conspicuous signs of such doping usage. "The changes in the hormone level caused by the use of testosterone should be noticeable in urine tests. But Ullrich never tested positive at a doping test at a race," he noted, but the complicated test for growth hormone "can be carried out in perhaps two or three labs in Europe."

Heinrich called for better equipment for increased controls by the National Anti-Doping Agency. There is a new blood volume test, which could show blood doping, and complete blood and hormone analyses could make it easier to see changes in those levels. "But all of these things cost money," he said.

Courtesy of Susan Westemeyer