French anti-doping agency completes retesting for EPO form at 2008 Tour

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This article was published 13/10/2008 (5922 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

PARIS – The French Anti-Doping agency has completed retesting samples for the blood-booster CERA at the Tour de France, and AFLD chief Pierre Bordry said his laboratory will keep all the samples until next year’s race.

Bernhard Kohl of Austria became the fourth rider on Monday to test positive for CERA – an advanced form of EPO that increases a rider’s stamina for a long endurance race – and the seventh positive test from the 2008 Tour overall.

“We are stopping the testing for EPO CERA. We consider it sufficient,” Bordry said by telephone on Tuesday. “I will keep the samples until the next Tour de France in case there are new (testing) procedures that are put into place.”

Bordry said 38 samples in total had been retested for CERA, concerning “about 30 riders” some of whom had “more than one sample” tested.

Kohl, Stefan Schumacher of Germany and Italy’s Riccardo Ricco and Leonardo Piepoli – all of whom also tested positive for CERA – had their samples tested twice, once before and once during the showcase race.

Schumacher and Ricco each won two stages – both for Schumacher in the time trials and both for Ricco in the mountains. Piepoli won his first-ever Tour stage at 36, up the Hautacam pass, after Ricco had set a tremendous pace.

Bordry also said samples from the 2007 edition – won by Alberto Contador of Spain – could also be re-examined, but that would be up to cycling’s governing body as it was responsible for testing on that Tour. The AFLD was solely responsible for testing at this year’s Tour, where several more riders were caught than in 2007.

“(The 2007 Tour samples) belong to the UCI,” Bordry said. “It depends what condition they are in, if they have been stored properly. If they have been, it’s possible (to retest them).”

Last week, the International Olympic Committee said it will retest samples from the Beijing Games to search for CERA.

“The IOC started the trend” to retest the samples from Beijing, Bordry said.

At the 2008 Tour, Spain’s Manuel Beltran and Moises Duenas Nevado also tested positive for EPO – not CERA, but an older form of it – while Dmitri Fofonov of Kazakhstan tested positive for a banned stimulant.

Kohl finished in third place at the Tour and also took the jersey for best climber, becoming the highest-placed finisher to test positive since American rider Floyd Landis was stripped of his 2006 title for synthetic testosterone.

Race leader Michael Rasmussen was kicked out near the end of the 2007 Tour for lying about his whereabouts when he went missing for pre-race drug tests, but he never tested positive for anything.

Kohl and Schumacher both raced for Gerolsteiner at this year’s Tour. Gerolsteiner had already announced it would withdraw from cycling sponsorship earlier this year.

Kohl had been set to join the Silence-Lotto team on a three-year deal, but the team said in a statement Tuesday that it would take “the necessary legal steps to immediately stop the co-operation with Kohl.”

The 26-year-old Kohl risks a two-year suspension and could lose his podium spot to fourth-place Denis Menchov of Russia. Carlos Sastre of Spain won the 2008 Tour, with Australia’s Cadel Evans in second place in a close finish.