UCI, anti-doping experts study suspicious rider profiles

The Union Cycliste International (UCI) has taken issue with published reports that some 30 riders registered in the so-called biological-passport system have come under suspicion.

Sports physician Robin Parisotto, an anti-doping expert at the Australian Institute for Sport who analyzes blood tests for the UCI, told German television ARD on Sunday that 30 riders were under suspicion of having doped and that some of those could face bans from competition.

But the UCI said in a press release issued Monday that “a small number of profiles” is undergoing further scrutiny following analysis by a panel of nine independent experts appointed to interpret riders’ individual profiles and make recommendations as to whether blood manipulation has occurred.

During 2008 the UCI collected approximately 8300 blood samples from 804 riders. The samples were analyzed and the results processed to yield individual blood profiles.

According to the UCI, an initial selection turned up a number of profiles “that that could be qualified as ‘abnormal.’” Further analysis deemed some of these profiles not suspect “based on indications that the abnormal profile may have arisen due to reasons other than doping.”

Other profiles justified “immediate target testing with normal doping controls and/or the collection of further blood samples for completing the profile in order to exclude any uncertainties,” the UCI said.

“The concept of indirect detection which is enabled through profiling is a new paradigm in anti-doping. It is therefore critically important that the UCI will proceed only on sound evidence of doping.”

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