The performance-enhancing drug EPO is fast becoming old hat. Welcome to the 21st century and PFC. No it's not kinky rubber loungewear, merely the drug of choice that is likely to take over from EPO. Known as `artificial blood', PFC offers those seeking an illicit edge all of the performance enhancement of EPO, but more quickly and at a lower cost. Of course the potential health problems are equally as dramatic. But when did that ever matter?

Naturally, professional cyclists are first out of the blocks on this one. The substance can deliver 50 times more oxygen than real blood in some circumstances. This means that you can fill a beaker with oxygenated PFC, drop a mouse in it and the mouse will stay alive even after its lungs have filled with the liquid.

Now you know how the Festina team felt at the end of a mountain stage last summer.