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http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/28/sports/othersports/28doping.html?_r=1&th&emc=th
February 28, 2009 Cycling to Use Blood Profiles in Doping Case By JULIET MACUR
A new front in the fight against doping has formed, with the embattled and bruised sport of cycling taking the lead.
One or more professional cyclists will soon face a doping case based not on a failed drug test or a criminal investigation, but rather on telltale changes in the blood that signal the use of performance enhancers, the sport’s governing body, the International Cycling Union, said.
Pat McQuaid, the group’s president, said it was in the final stages of gathering scientific data and legal paperwork to bring a doping case against at least one rider whose blood profile had shown evidence of doping.
He said it would be the first case born purely from evidence that an athlete’s blood profile, called a biological passport, had changed in comparison with a baseline drawn from earlier tests.
“It’s a completely new form of fighting against doping,” Mr. McQuaid said last week at a news conference held during the Tour of California. “I do believe that the whole biological passport program is going to be the future of antidoping or one aspect in the arsenal of the future of antidoping.”
Mr. McQuaid would not say how many cases were being prepared or how many athletes were involved, adding that it may be one or three or six riders. He said the doping actions would begin in “the coming days and weeks.”
Moving forward with such an aggressive antidoping plan, he said, would show cycling’s effort to right itself after years of doping scandals involving many of the sport’s top riders. Floyd Landis, the 2006 Tour de France winner, was stripped of his Tour title for using synthetic testosterone and served a two-year ban.
Any riders whose blood profiles trigger a doping case will also face a two-year suspension if it is their first doping offense.
“It will bring back the credibility of cycling, which is badly needed,” Mr. McQuaid said.