The first- and second-placed riders in the Tour de France were both woken for anti-doping tests on Saturday night. Race leader Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) was woken at 5 a.m., while Jonas Vingegaard (Visma-Lease a Bike) was tested three hours earlier.
The UCI has engaged the International Testing Agency (ITA) to conduct its anti-doping activities, and it seems the testers were out in force after stage 14 to Le Markstein, which was won by Pogačar.
It's understood he and Vingegaard were staying in separate hotels, with Visma-Lease a Bike in the town of Besançon.
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"I guess the ITA didn't allow me to sleep very much" Vingegaard told Eurosport before Sunday's stage. "I was sleeping very well, and somebody knocked on my door at 2 a.m. - a big surprise to me. Of course it's good that they test, but when it's affecting performance and your sleep, I don't think that it's so good.
"I think it took me about 40 minutes before I was back in my room, so it was not the best night, I still feel OK. I cannot change it but that's a part of it. Hopefully, I'm not the only one because it has to be equal for everyone."
He wasn't the only one. Some three hours after Vingegaard was awoken, Pogačar got the knock.
"I got four hours of sleep," the yellow jersey told Eurosport. "I always go to sleep late, so it was a big shock for me, but I had a very cool, long morning. I couldn't fall back to sleep, so I was chilling listening to some old Eminem hits and making coffee, so I'm caffeinated and ready to start the day but it was definitely not nice to get woken up in the middle of sweet dreams."
Cycling has a dark past with doping, and anti-doping is an essential part of preventing a return to what might be called the bad old days. At races, stage winners, overall leader and a selection of riders are chosen for testing each day, with the latter group chosen either randomly or deliberately targeted based on intelligence.
While being awoken in the middle of the night is certainly detrimental to recovery, especially 14 stages into the Tour de France, it could be argued as a necessary evil, especially to prevent what is known as micro-dosing, where small amounts of prohibited substances could be flushed from the system before the morning.
"They come randomly in the mornings through the Tour and today chose nighttime," added Pogačar. "I feel sorry for the guys that are controlling because I can imagine that some guys get upset and angry with them, but it's not their fault; they're just doing their jobs."
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