Saxo Bank ends internal anti-doping program

By Agence France Presse

Top Danish cycling team Saxo Bank has officially ended an internal anti-doping program run by Dr. Ramsus Damsgaard, though he remains with the team.

The team previously known as CSC introduced its much-heralded program in the wake of the Operación Puerto drugs scandal, which erupted in Spain in May 2006.

But the team said in a newspaper report Wednesday that the introduction of the Union Cycliste Internationale’s latest weapon in the fight against doping — the so-called “biological passport” program — had forced management into reconsidering.

“The UCI has set a standard which means that we would simply be doubling up,” Saxo Bank spokesman Bryan Nygaard told Jyllands-Posten Wednedday.

A year after Operación Puerto made the news, one of the team’s former top riders, Ivan Basso, was suspended for two years for his role in the affair, which snared him while he was racing with the Discovery Channel team.

Ramsgaard was then brought on board to analyze and publish the team’s own internal doping tests. The program was seen as one of a kind in the much-criticized sport.

However, Damsgaard has come under criticism from the medical chief of a top Copenhagen hospital, Dr. Bo Belhage. Belhage helped start the program at CSC, but began to have reservations about how it was being run, claiming it was not transparent enough, which led to the hospital and Damsgaard severing ties.

FILED UNDER: Road