There’s been quite a bit of initial resistance to the WADA recommendation that late-night surprise tests should be carried out at the Tour de France, but Garmin-Transitions general manager Jonathan Vaughters believes that it could be a valuable tool in coping with techniques such as microdosing of EPO.
As scientists plus sanctioned riders such as Bernhard Kohl and Floyd Landis have pointed out, microdosing tiny amounts outside the normal WADA hours for testing could potentially enable riders to be clear by the following morning. Vaughters says that removing the normal limit of 10pm gets around this problem. “As long as there is not a guaranteed window of time that you cannot be tested, then the drug can be detected. That could be useful,” he told VeloNation.
Vaughters said that he isn’t advocating continuous late night testing, realising that it would add to riders’ fatigue levels. However he feels that as long as the threat is there, and testing under those conditions is occasionally carried out, that it should serve as a strong deterrent to any riders who are tempted to try to cheat the system.
His Garmin-Transtions team plus the HTC Columbia squad are both supervised by Don Catlin and his Anti-Doping Sciences Institute (ADSI). According to Vaughters, the contract they have with the ADSI allows for tighter controls than is currently in place under the WADA Code. As a result, the teams have already been using out-of-hours testing.
“We’ve had the possibility of that since we started working with [Don] Catlin,” he told VeloNation. “I have given ADSI, Catlin’s group, permission to come 24 hours a day. They don’t have to function within the protocols that WADA puts forward – they also really push the envelope in terms of new EPO tests, looking for stuff from China or Russia or wherever.
“As regards late night testing, I don’t think they have ever come at 3 in the morning, but I think they have tested at 1am. It is very rare, but the point is that the threat is there and that could happen at any point in time.”
Vaughters concedes that it is inconvenient for riders and that it can lead to resistance, particularly if it is not made clear why it is used. “Our athletes were upset by it,” he admitted, speaking of the first time it happened. “They didn’t understand it. Quite frankly, we have got a lot of young athletes who have grown up in our environment. They did not have any idea [about doping]. To them, it was a case of ‘why they hell are these guys showing up at 11 o’clock at night, and testing the whole team?’
“I remember one of them saying ‘but this is outside of WADA rules…’ I said to him, ‘listen, Catlin has a greater scope because he is hired by me.’ At the end of the day, we have been aware of the possibility of micro-dosing for a long time and we have got ahead of it. There is no turning a blind eye on this team.”
The debates about the WADA recommendation are likely to continue for quite some time.Several prominent Italian riders have spoken out against late night testing but, while Vaughters acknowledges the recommendation is likely to lead to resistance, he believes that as long as the provision is not abused, it can play an important role in helping the sport.