CYCLING:Following several tough months due to the Floyd Landis and Operacion Puerto scandals, several top teams have taken strong measures to promote clean competition and show that a page has been turned in the sport.
Teams such as CSC, T-Mobile and Gerolsteiner have adopted expensive new internal tests in order to scrutinise their riders and also to remove any doubts about the validity of their results in 2007 and beyond.
World number one team CSC recently introduced a comprehensive programme run by Danish anti-doping expert Rasmus Damsgaard.
Under the new policy, over €300,000 will be spent by the squad on 800 tests, the vast majority of which will be taken out of competition.
Results will be made available to Wada and cycling's governing body, the UCI, with a dossier also being released to the media at the end of the year.
Meanwhile, T-Mobile have announced their own battery of testing which will include a revolutionary screening to determine conclusively if a rider has been blood-doping. Unlike current tests, which simply measure the hematocrit, or red cell, count in a given quantity of blood, the T-Mobile examination will involve the controlled inhalation of a tiny quantity of carbon monoxide.
The advantage of the analysis is that it will be able to determine if any blood transfusion has taken place, even if the hematocrit level remains constant.
T-Mobile's riders have signed up to a strict anti-doping policy, agreeing to the new tests which, like those introduced by CSC, go far beyond those used by Wada or indeed by any other sports.
Both teams had Tour de France contenders excluded from the race due to Operacion Puerto, losing Ivan Basso and Jan Ullrich as a result. The new hardline stance has been taken in order to prevent any other riders from behaving improperly, and also to remove any doubts about the teams.
Gerolsteiner are also among those to declare a no-tolerance policy, and have been particularly outspoken about the need to do whatever is necessary to guarantee a clean sport. These actions are expected to be the catalyst for the introduction of similar measures by other teams.
Although questions have lingered in the years since the 1998 Festina Affair, the scandals of 2006 seem to have finally got the message across that a big change is needed if the sport is to survive. An example of the new determination is the actions of the IPCT (International Professional Cycling Teams) group, made up of the 17 biggest squads in the sport, who one week ago voted to exclude the Discovery Channel team.
The American squad got the vote of no confidence after they signed Ivan Basso, prior to him being definitively cleared of all wrongdoing in the Puerto affair. A gentleman's agreement had been in place for teams to refrain from taking on any such riders until such time as they were proved innocent.
The decision will not lead to the withdrawal of Discovery's ProTour licence, but it is a further sign that a new and welcome era appears to be beginning in the sport.
FIXTURES
Sunday: Bray Wheelers Christmas fun event (fancy dress 8km, two-person time trial). Starts 10am, sign on prior to this at the new clubhouse off Boghall road.
