The summit on doping in cycling scheduled to take place in Paris on October 22-23 could result in the use of a 'blood passport' as a way of tracking and catching cheaters. The method of measuring blood values over time to find suspicious changes could be in place in time for the 2008 Tour de France.
World Antidoping Agency (WADA) president Dick Pound and his vice-president Jean-François Lamour, will address the issue at the summit organised by the French ministry of Health, Youth and the Sports. "It is the principal topic which we approached with [French minister] Roselyne Bachelot," Pound explained to AFP.
The concept of a blood 'passport' is already in use in some fashion on the internal antidoping programs of the CSC, Slipstream and Plowman Craven teams, and is currently being studied by the UCI as a system for detecting suspicious changes in blood values that could indicate a rider is doping.
For the system to be used to produce doping convictions, Lamour noted, "It will be necessary that the blood tests [being used to establish the reference values] are taken under good conditions, i.e. in an unexpected way", Jean-François Lamour noted.
The Paris summit will address a reduced timeline for the introduction of the passports as well exact methods. The main discussion will revolve around what will happen if a suspicious value is detected - a prohibition from racing (which exists for too high hematocrit values already) or a doping conviction.
