Head of the French anti-doping agency (AFLD), Pierre Bordry has questioned the credibility of the testing due to be done during this year’s Tour de France.
This year the AFLD has been excluded from direct participation in the testing process.
Bordry said that an international team of observers was being brought in after concerns raised by cycling’s governing body, the International Cycling Union (UCI) over the way anti-doping was being handled.
He suggested that his agency’s targeted testing, based on customs information and enforced by French police, is a more effective weapon than simply screening samples.
“I think if this year there are three people from World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) to control UCI, surely there is a reason for that?” BBC quoted Bordry, as saying.
“If there was no problem last year, there wouldn’t be any people from Wada as observers? If the UCI system was credible there wouldn’t be any people from WADA. So, we will see if it becomes credible with WADA people,” he added.
He further said that he had serious concerns about the biological passport for cyclists, the latest weapon in the fight against doping.
“I have no information about the blood passport from the UCI, I have information from some cyclists like Bernard Kohl saying some cyclists can do what they like with the passport, so if they have the same profile all the year, if they are doped all the year, they have a good passport,” Bordry said.
“The passport is not a good organization for anti doping. I don’t believe in the blood passport as it is done now,” he added.
