VAIL — Racers in the inaugural USA Pro Cycling Challenge are rigorously tested for performance-enhancing drugs, with not-so-randomly selected riders providing daily blood and urine samples to anti-doping officials.
Within an hour of a stage ending, the top rider, the race leader and two randomly chosen riders are ushered to a mobile lab, where they are tested.
“You better have to pee,” said Jonathan Vaughters, manager of Team Garmin-Cervelo, which has pioneered a stringent self-policing internal testing system on top of internationally required testing. “Really, a lot of those times, those randoms aren’t so random. I’d call it targeted-slash-random.
“Obviously, the higher-performing riders are tested more often. When you start riding well, you start getting tested more.”
Vaughters said he has had five of his riders tested in the first three days of the Pro Challenge, including Christian VandeVelde on the day of the prologue.
Anti-doping officials do more than test at the finish. Sometimes they knock on team bus doors early in the morning.
After a rider is located, he has one hour to deliver a sample, and a chaperone is ever-present for that hour.
And at the Pro Challenge, riders are tested more extensively than in other races, including banned EPO in blood samples. EPO is a protein hormone that helps increase the number of red blood cells, which in turns increases the blood’s oxygen-carrying capacity.
“We have gone above and beyond working with the UCI to include EPO testing,” race director Jim Birrell said of his discussions with the sport’s international governing body. “We have moved beyond the protocols and asked for even further testing.”
Pro cycling is one of the most drug-tested sports in existence. As NFL officials and players wrestle over annual first-ever league testing for human growth hormone, professional cyclists are tested regularly and randomly for the internationally banned chemical.
“I kind of laugh when I hear about U.S. pro sports and their stringent drug-testing policies,” Vaughters said. “I’ve got riders who are tested a dozen times a year.”
Jason Blevins: 303-954-1374 or jblevins@denverpost.com
