October 12/07 5:48 am - Canadians on UCI Watch List?

Posted by Editoress on 10/12/07
 

Canadians on UCI Watch List?

Radio-Canada, who currently seems to be on a mission to paint Canadian cyclists as 'unclean', recently put out a report citing that four Canadian riders are on a UCI target list for out-of-competition testing. They referred to it as a black list, and gave the names of those on the list as: Marie-Helene Premont, Lyne Bessette, Gina Grain and Dominique Perras.

The reality is much less dramatic. The UCI has always had a list of riders who, because of their results, are subject to greater testing. According to the UCI (translated from the UCI website):

The UCI establishes and manages a target group of riders in each discipline, which must be available for tests outside of competition and which must provide for this purpose personal information on their location (ie, where they will be) every three months.

Each year, riders are included in the target group according to their performances, their classification and their participation various disciplines.

The riders are informed of their responsibility to provide their program of location and any corresponding updates. If they do not provide precise information on their location, or are not available for a test at a place provided, three times during one 18 month period, this can be regarded as a violation of the antidoping regulations, according to article 15.4 of the antidoping regulations of the UCI.

It goes on to say that the UCI list is published with a selection of riders from each country, and that the national federations and antidoping agencies can therefore choose additional athletes to test without everyone constantly testing the same riders.

The UCI list can be viewed here (pdf format)

It should be noted that when the CCES publishes updates in doping tests, cycling is always one of the top sports to be tested, in and out of competition.