Remco Evenepoel's Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe and Paul Seixas' Decathlon CMA CGM squads were among the multitude of teams and riders visited by anti-doping control officers for testing on Monday's second rest day at the Tour de France.
The former were tested at 10:00 pm and the latter an hour and a half earlier. Also among the teams visited by the International Testing Agency (ITA) were EF Education-EasyPost, Alpecin-Premier Tech, Soudal-QuickStep, XDS Astana, Groupama-FDJ and Picnic-PostNL. In some cases, such as Red Bull's, it was the entire contingent of riders tested; in others, only individual riders.
It comes after the overnight testing of Jonas Vingegaard at 2:00 am and Tadej Pogačar at 5:00 am, before Sunday's stage to Plateau de Solaison caused controversy, with the ITA defending the need to disrupt riders' sleep and recovery to carry out "effective testing".
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The tests on Monday were different, though, all occurring inside the 'daytime' testing window, between 6:00 am and 11:00 pm, for which further authorisation isn't required. Testing of several teams at their hotels is typical of a rest day at the Tour de France in modern cycling and is not uncommon, like the tests on Pogačar and Vingegaard were due to the nocturnal timing.
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 and Vingegaard not been accused of any anti-doping violation.
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.
Pogačar and UAE Team Emirates-XRG superdomestique Isaac del Toro were visited by the ITA again at 9:00 pm for testing, again typical of a rest day.
Cyclingnews approached half a dozen teams at the start of stage 16 in Évian-les-Bains to ask about the ITA testing on Monday, with several confirming that the procedures were nothing out of the ordinary in scale for a rest day at the Tour.
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.
The ITA was expected to carry out 600 tests during the Tour and claimed it had conducted over 360 out-of-competition tests in the preceding month. Samples will be kept for 10 years for potential reanalysis.
Evenepoel was one of the riders to comment on the overnight tests of his GC rivals, and didn't hold back in his assessment, describing them as "disrespectful", "inhuman," and "something we could and should not accept."
In light of the events on early Sunday morning, the Belgian even confirmed that he would be going to bed early in pursuit of maximising his sleep and recovery, should he be visited in the night by the ITA.
"I always try to go to sleep as early as possible because the normal doping controls start at 6 a.m., which is already quite early," he said.
"What happened with Pogačar and Vingegaard served as a kind of 'reality check' for me, making me pay extra attention to going to sleep on time and thus be prepared for a potential early wake-up call."
With this in mind, it's no surprise that Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe team owner Ralph Denk had detailed how some of his riders were woken up when the testers arrived, despite them coming in the daytime window, though the German was supportive of the process.
"We were visited last night as well. Some of the riders were already asleep and participated in the tests," said Denk on German public-service television broadcaster ZDF's morning news program.
"It certainly hinders recovery. [But] primarily, we have a dark past in cycling, and therefore it's good that checks are being carried out here. The regulations allow for checks to be carried out late at night. It ensures that our sport is clean, that it's credible, and therefore this is part of it."
Time trial world champion Evenepoel is the favourite to win Tuesday's 16th stage, a 26.1km race against the clock to Thonon-les-Bains. He will set off second last at 5:13 pm, two minutes before race leader Pogačar.
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