The French blood specialist, who has helped pioneer a revolutionary new technique to detect the presence of the performance-boosting drug erythropoitin (EPO) in the system, has offered to weed out cheats in this year's Tour de France but the Tour organisers are backing away. While Tour organisers welcomed the news this week, they said that implementing the process during the Tour was a government decision and not theirs. Professor Gerard Dine of the Troyes Biotechnology Institute in central France said the technique was expensive.

"It's very short notice, but if the organisers want we can do it. Either way, the Australians have told me that this will be used during the Sydney Olympics," said Professor Dine.

"They can no longer say that it is impossible. Today, scientifically, the analytical tools are present. We can once again give credibility to performance."