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The Tour de France resumed on Tuesday in a state of confusion about whether the controversial night-time tests carried out on Tadej Pogacar and Jonas Vingegaard were indicative of “serious and specific” suspicions of doping.
Night-time testing is relatively rare. The Paris prosecutor’s office confirmed on Monday that the International Testing Agency (ITA), which carried out the tests, had to get permission from a Paris judge “specialising in liberty and detention matters… to authorise the anti-doping tests that took place overnight between July 18 and 19”.
The anti-doping rules of the International Cycling Union (UCI) state: “Unless the rider has identified a 60-minute testing window between the hours of 11pm and 6am, or has otherwise consented to testing during that period, the UCI will not test a rider during that period unless it has a serious and specific suspicion that the rider may be engaged in doping.”
However, it has since been claimed that as many as eight other teams have also been subjected to night-time testing during this year’s race. A spokesman for the ITA confirmed to Cycling Weekly that more teams had been tested outside “usual hours”. It remains unclear whether the ITA had “serious and specific suspicions” of doping by all these teams and riders.
The results of those tests, taken in the early hours of Sunday morning, may not be known before this Sunday’s final stage of the Tour, with no written timescale within the regulations. The ITA said that the “outcome of these controls, as any other conducted by the ITA, would be published according to our public disclosure policy, only in the case of an apparent anti-doping rule violation”.
There is no suggestion that either Pogacar or Vingegaard has failed any test and neither rider has provided adverse test results in the past.
In the meantime, the conversation has revolved around the ethics of testing riders at night while they are competing in the biggest race in the world.
Vingegaard abandoned the Tour on Sunday, hours after being awoken by testers, after crashing during stage 15 to Plateau de Solaison. The Dane suffered a broken collarbone.
Pogacar, who leads the race by five minutes going into Tuesday’s time trial, was among those to suggest that a lack of sleep may have been a contributing factor. He labelled the timing of Vingegaard’s wake-up call “inhuman”.
Vingegaard said he had been woken at 2am by the ITA, which is responsible for anti-doping measures on behalf of the UCI.
“I guess the ITA didn’t allow me to sleep much. I was sleeping very well, but then someone knocked on my door at 2am. It was a big surprise to me,” Vingegaard told Eurosport.
“Of course it’s good that they test, but when it’s affecting your performance and your sleep, I don’t think it’s so good.”
Pogacar was woken at 5am, which the Slovenian said was infinitely preferable as he had not been in a deep sleep.
The tests were condemned in the peloton, by Pogacar and Vingegaard, as well as leading riders such as Remco Evenepoel and Matteo Jorgenson, and also former rider Lance Armstrong, who described them as “inhuman” and a “human rights issue”.
However, Jonathan Vaughters, the manager of EF Education–EasyPost, applauded the tests, saying it would have “saved the sport 25 years of drama” had it been done during his era.
Vaughters, who rode with Armstrong on the US Postal team in 1999, the first of Armstrong’s record seven Tour wins, of which he was subsequently stripped for doping, said it was a “very effective” way of catching cheats.
“I don’t post here much,” Vaughters wrote on X on Monday night. “But I’ll roll this grenade down the aisle: 2am testing is one of the very effective ways to prevent peptides [EPO, HGH – Human Growth Hormone] and testosterone micro dosing.”
“If [the] UCI had tested us in 2001 at 2am? We’d all have been suspended and saved the sport 25 years of drama.
“It’s unfortunate that Tadej and Jonas have to atone for the s--t we did. However, I’d take some lost sleep for some gained credibility. I should apologise to both of them, honestly.”
The ITA said it was “conscious that night-time testing may be disruptive to riders’ rest and recovery. Due consideration has therefore been given to minimise as much as possible the impact testing activities have on riders. However, the ITA, on behalf of the UCI, has the responsibility to ensure the effectiveness of the cycling anti‑doping programme and the integrity of cycling races.”
It further emerged on Tuesday night that the entire Tour de France peloton – all 166 riders left in the race – underwent an anti-doping test on Monday night. Riders were tested between 8pm and 11pm, inside standard testing hours, meaning no special permission was required from a judge.
All riders were also tested two days before the Grand Départ in Barcelona, with the testers looking for anomalies in their biological passports.
In a statement to Cycling Weekly, the ITA said: “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.
“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.
“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. 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.”
Pogacar immovable after Evenepoel wins time trial
Remco Evenepoel made it back-to-back stage wins at the Tour as he marked Belgian national day with victory in a time trial on the banks of Lake Geneva.
Resplendent in the rainbow bands, the world time trial champion completed the 26km course in a time of 32min 19sec, beating Tadej Pogacar by 28 seconds.
He took a small bite out of the Slovenian’s commanding advantage in yellow, now four minutes 32 seconds, but more importantly opened up a significant gap over Isaac del Toro (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) in the fight for second.
But it was a bittersweet day for Evenepoel’s Red Bull-Bora Hansgrohe team as Florian Lipowitz, third overall last summer and fifth in this Tour at the start of the day, crashed six kilometres from the finish and abandoned with an apparent broken collarbone.
When Evenepoel won Sunday’s stage 15 atop Plateau de Solaison, it was his first career Tour road stage win, but this was his third time trial success in the world’s biggest race. What was a 58-second advantage over Del Toro is now two minutes and 19 seconds.
“It’s amazing, a very nice TT [time trial], a lot of people on the side of the road with my whole family from both sides – my parents came just today, my wife is here with her parents and siblings as well,” Evenepoel said. “On Belgian national day, it’s pretty special…
“I’ve just been told Lipowitz crashed, that’s very unfortunate, it’s a bittersweet pill to swallow with this victory and I wish him all the best.
“It’s unbelievable to take two victories in a row… I just think about my own spot. Tadej is on his way to winning a fifth Tour. It’s amazing I can be a bit close to him. It’s an honour to race with him and it’s a big step forward for me to be a bit around him.”
Pogacar had a scare of his own on the corner that brought down Lipowitz, grabbing the brakes as he ran wide, but kept things upright to limit the damage against Evenepoel who was always the favourite for the win.
The course from Évian-les-Bains went over the climb of the Cote de Larringes before plunging down into the second half of the course, with several riders touching 100kph on the descent.
French teenager Paul Seixas (Decathlon-CMA CGM) turned in another excellent ride, fourth on the stage, to close the gap to Del Toro to 20 seconds in the fight for the final podium spot.
Pogacar’s UAE Team Emirates-XRG team-mate Brandon McNulty finished 22nd, with his team saying he was uninjured after an apparent road rage incident involving a member of the public during his recon ride earlier in the day.
Britain’s Tom Pidcock (Q36.5) rose to eighth overall on GC after what he described as “perhaps his best ever time trial” which saw him finish 12th on the stage. “I think I’m getting stronger,” Pidcock said. “I was in the breakaway for three days and really felt it in my legs, but when I got going today, I felt very strong.”
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