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French anti-doping boss concerned about "legal" doping at Tour

Published: Sep. 8, 2006

French anti-doping chief Pierre Bordry has branded the number of cyclists taking authorized doping products on the Tour de France as “suspicious.” Bordry said in comments to be published in Saturday's edition of Le Monde newspaper that 12 of the 13 cyclists who tested positive for banned substances at this year's Tour had a "Therapeutic Use Exemption" (TUE) to permit their use of otherwise-banned substances.

Most commonly, riders have prescriptions for Salbutamol and other asthma drugs, which are banned because the drugs improve a user's ability to breathe. World Anti-doping Agency president Dick Pound told VeloNews in an interview in December of 2004 that he finds it "absolutely remarkable that so many 'asthma sufferers' have found an athletic outlet in cycling."

Other riders have produced TUEs for a variety of other drugs, including some forms of corticosteroids. Disgraced Tour winner Floyd Landis (Phonak) had a TUE for cortisone - to treat a hip ailment - but not for the testosterone for which he ultimately tested positive.

According to Bordry, 105 of the 199 riders in the Tour faced doping controls during the three-week race with 180 tests being done - 149 urinary tests and 31 blood tests.

"Sixteen samples taken from 13 riders tested positive," said Bordry. "With the exception of Floyd Landis, the UCI closed all the files because it decided that all the riders had TUEs which allowed them to use the banned substances found in their urine samples."

Sixty percent of the 105 riders tested had a TUE for one drug or another.

Bordry said this could be accepted in sports such as golf or archery where the athletes tend to be older.

"On the other hand, 60 percent of TUE excuses on the Tour is seriously worrying and does put a doubt on whether or not they are hiding doping practices,” he suggested. "There are more and more scandals and yet paradoxically, the number of positive tests are reducing, even though the number of tests performed has never stopped increasing."

Whereas in 2003, 27 percent of tests returned positive results, that figure fell to 25 in 2004, 15 in 2005 and just nine this year.

"The difference between the system of control and analysis of doping and the reality of doping is still too great," added Bordry.