Cycling: Dope mud sticks

During last year's Tour de France, there were no positive doping tests.

It seemed quite a feat after three straight years when drugs cheats marred cycling's main event, and the long, long history of doping in the sport overall.

But for those who might think that's a sign the sport is turning a corner, consider this: several weeks afterwards, at a race for budding cycling stars, no positive doping tests turned up, either - until customs officials raided a Ukrainian team bus, seized doping gear, and investigators later wrested admissions of blood doping and use of endurance booster EPO during the event.

With the 2010 Tour to begin overnight in Rotterdam, cycling bosses will be holding their breath in hope the race will be clean and not just in appearance.

While anti-doping crusaders have a stronger arsenal thanks to the biological passport programme, enhanced tests and tougher laws, it's still not clear they are getting an upper hand.

The list of riders caught in doping scandals over the past decade reads like a Who's Who of cycling. The biggest star, Lance Armstrong, has faced suspicion throughout his career but always insisted he is clean.

The president of cycling's world governing body, UCI, estimates there will be between 400 and 600 doping controls during the three-week cycling showcase.

"Is it going to be a clean race? I couldn't tell you," UCI chief Pat McQuaid said. "There are three weeks to go and there are 200 riders every day and we don't know who might take the risk."

Two former big-name riders who had been banned over doping are back - Italy's Ivan Basso and Alexandre Vinokourov of Kazakhstan. They could come in for special attention.

"I think you could say that those guys are going to be under a microscope, aren't they?" World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) director-general David Howman, said from Montreal. The New Zealander noted the UCI will be responsible for the tests.

The ultimate question is: Are the cheaters getting caught and weeded out, or are they just clever enough to evade the controls by using techniques like micro-dosing their use of banned products, in such a way as to slip under the anti-doping radar?

France's anti-doping agency (AFLD) accused the UCI of lax controls last year, sparking a new, bitter feud between the two sides - and ending their cooperation on anti-doping.

Because of that squabble, this year WADA will fill the void left by the French agency and deploy six "independent observers" to keep tabs on the UCI's doping controls.

WADA says the French anti-doping agency is good. The samples will be tested in Lausanne, Switzerland - not AFLD's national lab in Chatenay-Malabry outside Paris.

The only positive test to impact last year's race involved Spanish rider Mikel Astarloza. He tested positive for endurance-booster EPO in an out-of-competition control eight days before the Tour began. But word of his positive emerged only after the race was finished and he had won the 16th stage. Other doping cheats are still undetected.

Take last year's Tour de l'Avenir, a race in France for under-23 riders, where no positive tests turned up. But customs officials searched the Ukraine team bus and found syringes with blood on them and Actovegin - an oxygen carrier that can also mask drug use, French prosecutors said.

Three team members were charged with possession and use of doping products, and under investigators' questioning, two admitted to blood doping and using EPO.

Howman said the passport programme was in its infancy. "We're learning how it can be properly monitored, used and expanded. It's not the ultimate panacea, it's another weapon and it could be a very useful one."

Armstrong, riding in his last Tour, has been in the crosshairs about doping. US prosecutors are looking into claims by former team-mate Floyd Landis that the seven-time Tour de France champion was involved in doping.

In 2006, Operation Puerto forced stars like Basso and Jan Ullrich to miss the start, and race winner Landis was stripped of his title for doping. Vinokourov was kicked out a year later for blood doping. In 2008, six riders were caught.

Howman said no rider was totally above suspicion.

Asked about Armstrong's repeated insistence over his career that he was the world's most-tested athlete, Howman replied: "So was Marion Jones."

Meanwhile, Armstrong says don't expect him to win the first leg of his last ride in the Tour.

- AP