Doping at the Tour de France

There have been allegations of doping in the Tour de France since 1903. Early Tour riders consumed alcohol and used ether, among other substances, as a means of dulling the pain of competing in endurance cycling. Riders began using substances as a means of increasing performance rather than dulling the senses, and organizing bodies such as the Tour and the International Cycling Union (UCI), as well as government bodies, enacted policies to combat the practice.

History
One of the first doping scandals occurred on July 13, 1967. British cyclist Tom Simpson died climbing Mont Ventoux following use of amphetamines. The amphetamines allowed Simpson to pass his level of endurance, and he succumbed to excessive exhaustion. This occurred before official anti-doping tests, which promptly started the following year.

Team Telekom scandal
On May 25 2007, Danish rider Bjarne Riis from the former Team Telekom announced that he had used doping and EPO from 1993 to 1998, including 1996  when he won the Tour. Bjarne Riis announced this at a press meeting the day after several former team members of his, including Erik Zabel and Brian Holm had admitted to using doping during the 1990s.

Festina scandal
The 1998 Tour de France, dubbed the "Tour of Shame", was the most scandal-ridden modern Tour before the events of 2007. On July 8, 1998, a major scandal erupted after French Customs arrested Willy Voet, one of the soigneurs for the Festina cycling team, for the possession of illegal prescription drugs, including narcotics, erythropoietin (EPO), growth hormones, testosterone, and amphetamines. Voet later described many common doping practices in his book, Massacre à la Chaîne. On July 23, 1998, French police raided several team's hotels and found doping products in the possession of the TVM team. As news of the police action spread among the riders during the seventeenth stage of the Tour, they staged a "sit-down strike". After mediation by Jean-Marie Leblanc, the Director of the Tour, police agreed to limit the most heavy-handed tactics and the riders agreed to continue. Many riders and teams had already abandoned the race and only 111 riders completed the stage. In a 2000 criminal trial, it became clear that the management and health officials of the Festina team had deliberately organized doping within the team. Richard Virenque, a top Festina rider, finally confessed at the trial after being ridiculed for maintaining that if he was doping he was somehow not consciously aware of it, "à l'insu de mon plein gré" (roughly: "without the knowledge of my own free will").

In the years following the Festina scandal, anti-doping measures were put into effect by race organizers and the UCI, including more frequent testing of riders and new tests for blood doping transfusions and EPO use. The World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) was also created to help aid governments in anti-doping.

Evidence of doping persisted and in 2004 a new wave of credible doping allegations came forth. In January, Philippe Gaumont, a rider with the Cofidis team, told investigators and the press that doping with steroids, human growth hormone, EPO, and amphetamines was endemic to the team. In June, British cyclist David Millar, also of Cofidis, and reigning time trial World Champion, was detained by French police. His apartment was searched and two used EPO syringes were found. Finally, Jesus Manzano, a Spanish rider then recently dismissed by the Kelme team, told Madrid sports newspaper AS in bitter tones and lurid detail how he had been forced by his former team to take banned substances and how they had taught him to evade detection. The Kelme team itself was ultimately a casualty of the disclosures, which Manzano judged to be “an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.”

Lance Armstrong accusations


Doping controversy has surrounded seven-time Tour champion Lance Armstrong for some time, although there has never been evidence sufficient for him to be sanctioned by any sports authority. In part, the suspicion has arisen from his association with Italian physician Michele Ferrari, who has confessed to prescribing doping agents to athletes. There have been allegations by former assistant, Mike Anderson, that Armstrong used Androstenine. This resulted in a lawsuit against Anderson and a countersuit against Armstrong. In late August 2005, one month after Lance Armstrong's seventh consecutive Tour victory, the French sports newspaper L'Équipe claimed to have uncovered evidence that Armstrong had used EPO in the 1999 Tour de France. The claim was based on testing of archived urine samples by the French National Laboratory for Doping Detection (LNDD) for research purposes. Armstrong denied using EPO, and the UCI did not sanction him because of the lack of a duplicate sample. The UCI has confirmed that it was its own lead doctor Mario Zorzoli who in fact leaked the 15 forms tying Armstrong to the positive tests to L'Équipe. In the same year, Armstrong tested positive for a glucocorticosteroid hormone. Armstrong explained he had used an external cortisone ointment in order to treat a saddle sore and produced a prescription for it. The amount detected was well below the positive threshold and was consistent with the amount that would be used for a topical skin cream, but UCI rules require that prescriptions be shown to sports authorities in advance of use.

Operación Puerto investigation
In 2006, several riders, including Jan Ullrich and Ivan Basso, were barred from competing on the eve of the race amid allegations made by the Spanish police as a result of their Operación Puerto investigation.

Teams and members include:
 * Astana-Würth:
 * 🇪🇸 Alberto Contador, cleared by Spanish courts of any wrongdoing on July 26, 2006.
 * 🇮🇹 Michele Scarponi - admitted he was the individual named as Zapatero in Eufemiano Fuentes' files . Scarponi was suspended on May 16th 2007
 * 🇪🇸 Marcos Antonio Serrano
 * 🇪🇸 David Etxebarria
 * 🇪🇸 Joseba Beloki, cleared by Spanish courts of any wrongdoing on July 26, 2006.
 * 🇪🇸 Angel Vicioso
 * 🇪🇸 Isidro Nozal, cleared by Spanish courts of any wrongdoing on July 26, 2006.
 * 🇪🇸 Unai Osa
 * 🇩🇪 Jörg Jaksche
 * 🇮🇹 Giampaolo Caruso


 * CSC:
 * 🇮🇹 Ivan Basso


 * Caisse d'Epargne-Illes Balears:
 * 🇪🇸 Constantino Zaballa


 * Saunier Duval-Prodir:
 * 🇪🇸 Carlos Zárate


 * AG2R Prévoyance:
 * 🇪🇸 Francisco Mancebo


 * T-Mobile Team:
 * 🇩🇪 Jan Ullrich
 * 🇪🇸 Oscar Sevilla


 * Phonak:
 * 🇪🇸 José Enrique Gutiérrez
 * 🇪🇸 José Ignacio Gutierrez

Floyd Landis accusation
On July 27, 2006 the Phonak Cycling Team announced that Floyd Landis, the declared winner of the 2006 Tour, tested positive in a drug test given to him after Stage 17. He tested positive for an abnormally high ratio of the hormone testosterone to epitestosterone during Stage 17 of the race. On the same day the allegations were made public, Landis denied doping in order to win the 2006 Tour de France. Landis' personal doctor later revealed the test had found a ratio of 11:1 in Landis' blood ; the permitted ratio is 4:1. On July 31, 2006 The New York Times reported that tests on Landis' sample reveal some synthetic testosterone.

2007 Tour
The 2007 Tour de France was similarly dogged by doping controversies from the start. On 18 July, two German television companies pulled out of coverage of the Tour after it was announced that T-Mobile's German rider, Patrik Sinkewitz, had tested positive for testosterone on June 8 at a pre-Tour training camp.

Alessandro Petacchi, a sprint specialist, tested positive for salbutamol at Pinerolo on 23 May in the 2007 Giro d'Italia, the same day he claimed the third of his five stage wins in the event. As a result Petacchi, an asthma sufferer, was suspended by Team Milram and forced to miss the Tour de France because of the charges. He was later cleared after the result was deemed to be for therapeutic use, namely a substance was found which may be legal provided the rider has a valid medical certificate.

On 19 June it was revealed that the overall leader at the time, Michael Rasmussen, was under suspicion for missing two out-of-competion doping tests. The Danish rider had been dropped by the Danish Cycling Union and his Olympic place was under review. However Rasmussen had not committed an offence under UCI rules and initially the Dane remained in the race in the Maillot jaune.

Then on 24 July it was revealed that pre-race favourite Alexandre Vinokourov had tested positive for blood doping after the previous Saturday's time trial in Albi which he won by more than a minute despite crashing heavily earlier in the Tour and sustaining a number of injuries As a result the entire Astana Team voluntarily withdrew from the race. Vinokourov's teammates Andreas Klöden and Andrey Kashechkin were in 5th and 7th place overall at the time. He also tested positive for blood doping after winning Monday's stage 15.

Following the Vinokourov announcement, Tour director Christian Prudhomme made a statement that professional cycling needed a "complete overhaul" to combat the problem of doping.

A day later, after convincingly winning the 16th stage on the Col d'Aubisque, it was alleged that Rasmussen had lied to his Rabobank team about his whereabouts for the 13th and 14th of June, prior to the Tour. For breaching team rules, he was removed from the race. It was later revealed that the Tour organiser, Amaury Sport Organisation, had pressured Rabobank to remove Rasmussen from the Tour. On the same day, Team Cofidis pulled out following the positive test on their rider Cristian Moreni.

Even after the Tour finished, it continued to be embroiled in doping controversies. It emerged that Spanish cyclist (and 16th placed rider) Iban Mayo was tested positive for EPO on the second rest day, on July 24. He was suspended by his team Saunier Duval-Prodir. Mayo previously tested positive for synthetic testosterone during the 2007 Giro d'Italia, but the UCI found that he had not breached any doping regulation. Mayo placed 16th overall in the 2007 Tour.

Tour winner Alberto Contador also continued to be linked to doping allegations, focussing on his relationship with Eufemiano Fuentes and his role in Operación Puerto, but without any new substantive revelations. Contador was tested in the tour after stages 14, 17 and 18, and no discrepancies were reported. Several participants, such as Sébastien Hinault, implied that he is no better than Rasmussen. On July 30 German doping expert Werner Franke accused him of having taken drugs in the past.

Doping agents used
Many different doping agents have been used to enhance performance. Recently the most common used has been erythropoietin, or EPO. It is a red blood cell stimulating hormone that is virtually undetectable a few days after injection, while its effects last for several weeks. EPO doping is believed by many to be almost universal among Tour riders and the UCI has been criticized by WADA for not taking stronger action to detect EPO use. Scientific experts have cautioned that technical flaws in the current urine test for EPO may be resulting in false positive results.

Testing regime
After each stage, four riders are tested: the current overall leader, the day's stage winner, and two riders selected at random. In addition, every rider is tested before the start of the prologue stage. Most teams are tested in their entirety at some point during the three-week race. Additional testing may take place during the off-season, and riders are generally expected to keep their national cycling federation informed of their whereabouts so they can be located for random testing.