UCI's suspicious list leaked from 2010 Tour de France
UPDATED: L'Equipe publishes confidential UCI ranking document
The French newspaper L'Equipe on Friday published a list of all the riders participating in last year's Tour de France and their individual scores of suspicion for doping from a confidential International Cycling Union document.
The riders were ranked with numbers from zero to ten, with zero being no suspicion, and ten being the maximum. The large majority of riders received scores of four or less. The ratings were based on the riders' individual biological passport values up to the event, and included the readings of the first blood test performed on July 1, 2010, just prior to the Grand Départ.
Scores of zero went to, amongst others, Fabian Cancellara, David Zabriskie, Edvald Boasson Hagen and Lars Boom. Lance Armstrong was given a four, as were Cadel Evans and Levi Leipheimer.
Race winner Alberto Contador (who later tested positive for Clenbuterol during the race), was given a five, second-placed Andy Schleck a three, and third-placed Denis Menchov received a nine.
As explained by the newspaper, only the scores of zero and one meant that the riders had a very clean record. Ratings from two to four were based on stable passports which nevertheless showed a rare abnormality at a precise time. From five upwards, the comments associated to the rider files started to become much more precise, "even affirmative" according to L'Equipe.
From six to ten, the circumstantial evidence of possible doping was "overwhelming". According to the paper, some of the riders located to the top of list have already been singled out by the biological passport and evaluated by the panel of nine experts, even if no procedure was opened. "Still, some of the files' commentaries are damning. Recurrent abnormal profiles, enormous fluctuations, identification of the used doping product and means of administration..." wrote L'Equipe's anti-doping expert journalist Damien Ressiot.
In the article, Ressiot also stated that some of the UCI experts were "surprised by certain much too 'normal' blood parameters" and advocated to prohibit the riders from accessing their blood passport data for the last three months, so that they cannot align their blood parameters to the values recorded previously.
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The list was handed out to UCI anti-doping officials at the race, as well as the WADA observers present at the event. It was established to evaluate and target certain riders during the race, based on the information gathered by their bio passports and their alleged doping practices at previous events such as the Giro d'Italia and the Vuelta a Espana.
Examples of increased suspicion include:
- sudden drop in hemoglobin one month before the summer of 2010 which could point to an important loss of blood possibly destined to be re-injected during the Tour
- suspicion of EPO use during the 2009 Giro
- hematocrit, hemoglobin or stimulation index superior to 2010 values, which could have led to a start ban before the UCI rules were changed
- low parameters off-race
The complete list:
0 Mario Aerts, Yukiya Arashiro, Stephane Augé, Michael Barry, Francesco Bellotti, Jose Alberto Benitez, Edvald Boasson Hagen, Lars Boom, Maxime Bouet, Pavel Brutt, Fabian Cancellara, Manuel Cardoso, Dries Devenyns, Samuel Dumoulin, Julien El Farès, Simon Gerrans, Anthony Geslin, Bert Grabsch, Christopher Horner, Robert Hunter, Kristjan Koren, Burt Lancaster, David Le Lay, Christophe Le Mével, Adriano Malori, Koes Moerenhout, Amael Moinard, Lloyd Mondory, Damien Monier, Juan Jose Oroz, Remi Pauriol, Mathieu Perget, Gregory Rast, Mark Renshaw, Nicolas Roche, Jurgen Roelandts, Pierre Rolland, Anthony Roux, Jeremy Roy, Mathieu Sprick, Rein Taaramae, Sebastien Turgot, Niki Terpstra, Brian Vandborg, Kristof Vandewalle, Ivan Velasco, Thomas Voeckler, Fabian Wegmann, David Zabriskie
1 Marcus Burghardt, Sandy Casar, Anthony Charteau, Sylvain Chavanel, Julian Dean, Mickael Delage, Martin Elmiger, Johannes Fröhlinger, Jakob Fuglsang, Robert Gesink, Xavier Florencio, Adam Hansen, Ryder Hesjedal, George Hincapie, Andreas Klier, Roger Kluge, Alexander Kuchinsky, Daniel Lloyd, Mirco Lorenzetto, Martijn Maaskant, Aitor Pérez, Alan Pérez, Jerome Pineau, Ruben Plaza, Alexandre Pliuschin, MaartenTjallingii, Rafael Valls, Maarten Wynants
2 Eros Capecchi, Mark Cavendish, Stephen Cummings, Remy Di Gregorio, Arkaitz Duran, Mathias Frank, Oscar Freire, John Gadret, Francesco Gavazzi, Volodymir Gustov, Thor Hushovd, Christophe Kern, Thomas Löfkvist, Sebastien Minard, Daniel Navarro, Grischa Niermann, Stuart O'Grady, Rubén Pérez, Christophe Riblon, Thomas Rohregger, L. L. Sanchez, Carlos Sastre, Fränk Schleck, Simon Spilak, Bram Tankink, Stijn Vandenbergh, Benoit Vaugrenard, Jens Voigt, Eduard Vorganov
3 Ivan Basso, Grega Bole, Brent Bookwalter, Dimitri Champion, Gerald Ciolek, Rui Costa, Damiano Cunego, Mauro Da Dalto, Francis De Greef, Markus Eibegger, Imanol Erviti, Tyler Farrar, Fabio Felline, Juan Antonio Flecha, Maxim Iglinskiy, Vasil Kiryienka, Roman Kreuziger, Matthieu Ladagnous, Robbie McEwen, Maxime Monfort, Sergio Paulinho, Joaquin Rodriguez, Andy Schleck, Chris Anker Sörensen, Sylvester Szmyd, Paolo Tiralongo, Amets Txurruka, Johan Van Summeren, Gorka Verdugo, Charles Wegelius
4 Lance Armstrong, Janez Brajkovic, Bernhard Eisel, Cadel Evans, Pierrick Fédrigo, Juan Manuel Garate, Andriy Grivko, Jesus Hernandez, Ignatas Konovalovas, Sebastian Lang, Levi Leipheimer, David Millar, Daniel Moreno, Serge Pauwels, Manuel Quinziato, Luke Roberts, Samuel Sanchez, Christian Vande Velde, Nicolas Vogondy
5 Alessandro Ballan, Matti Breschel, Alberto Contador, Cyril Gautier, Inaki Isasi, Sergei Ivanov, Vladimir Karpets, Alexandr Kolobnev, Karsten Kroon, Steve Morabito, Benjamin Noval, Jose Rojas, Nicki Sörensen, Alexander Vinokourov, Bradley Wiggins
6 Linus Gerdemann, Christian Knees, Egoi Martínez, Alessandro Petacchi, Francesco Reda, Mauro Santambrogio, Geraint Thomas
7 Jeremy Hunt, Andreas Klöden, Tony Martin, Christophe Moreau, Michael Rogers, Wesley Sulzberger
8 David De la Fuente, Ivan Gutiérrez, Danilo Hondo, Matthew Lloyd, Iban Mayoz, Dmitriy Muravyev, Rinaldo Nocentini, Daniel Oss, Kevin Seeldraeyers, Kanstantsin Siutsou, Jurgen Van Den Broeck
9 Denis Menchov
10 Carlos Barredo,Yaroslav Popovych