SerpApi.Org
Every rider still in the Tour de France underwent anti-doping testing during Monday’s rest day as the International Testing Agency carried out one of the race’s largest biological passport operations.
The operation follows a series of surprise late-night and controversial controls that drew criticism from riders over disrupted sleep and recovery.
“The International Testing Agency confirms that a comprehensive blood Athlete Biological Passport (ABP) testing mission was carried out during the Tour de France rest day,” a media note read.
“All riders in the peloton were included in the operation, which forms part of the ITA’s ongoing intelligence- and risk-based anti-doping program for the race.”
The ITA, which took over the sport’s anti-doping program from the UCI in 2021, has expanded its anti-doping testing during this year’s Tour.
Speaking with Velo before the Tour de France in Barcelona, ITA head of testing Olivier Banuls said modern anti-doping has shifted away from post-race controls toward intelligence-led testing designed to build long-term biological profiles.
“The anti-doping strategy today is intelligence based and risk based,” Banuls said. “We take all the available pieces of information to better direct our strategy. Every single test is a targeted test.”
Surprise controls part of new strategy
Many riders and teams support the expanded testing program, but questioned the timing of some controls.
The ITA received a court order from a French judge allowing it to test outside the standard window between 11 p.m. and 6 a.m. outlined in WADA rules.
Two-time Tour de France winner Jonas Vingegaard was woken up at 2 a.m. on Sunday morning for a surprise control in his hotel room, an unusual hour that sparked criticism across the peloton.
Vingegaard later crashed out in the Tour’s first major mountaintop finale, but he stopped short of blaming the early-hour control as a contributing factor.
Yellow jersey leader Tadej Pogačar was also tested ahead of Sunday’s stage at 5 a.m. The ITA later explained the surprise controls.
The ITA said that Monday’s peloton-wide blood collection was part of a broader biological passport program. Blood samples can be analyzed immediately and stored for up to 10 years for future reanalysis.
Unlike the surprise overnight hotel visits that drew criticism before Sunday’s stage, there were no reports of riders being woken up late in the night during Monday’s peloton-wide testing operation.
“This mission complements the standard pre-competition testing conducted on all riders in the days preceding the Grand Départ and any test already conducted during the race,” the ITA said. “Collecting additional blood samples enables the ITA to assess variations in relevant haematological biological markers and strengthen the longitudinal monitoring of each rider’s individual profile.”
How the biological passport works
ITA confirmed that all Tour-bound riders were screened before the start of the race, and that more than 600 samples would be collected across the 2026 Tour.
Rather than detecting a specific banned substance, the Athlete Biological Passport tracks changes in a rider’s biological markers over time that could indicate doping and trigger further investigation, the ITA said.
Though the timing of some weekend controls drew criticism, others argued surprise testing remains one of cycling’s most effective anti-doping tools.
Jonathan Vaughters, the EF Education-EasyPost team manager who later admitted using EPO during his racing career, said overnight testing during cycling’s EPO era could have changed the sport’s history.
“If we had had 2 a.m. controls in 2000, we would have had a huge amount of riders banned from the sport then, including me, and we would have saved the sport 25 years of drama,” he said Tuesday. “We would have solved the problem then.”
