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Thibaut Pinot, the Groupama-FDJ rider, has admitted he is concerned by the current lack of out-of-competition drug testing. In an interview with L’Equipe, Pinot revealed that his last test was back in October of last year.
While that predates the coronavirus pandemic, the lockdown currently being enforced across much of the globe in an attempt to slow the spread of Covid-19 has led to huge reduction in out-of-competition testing.
That is being seen by some as a ‘golden window’ for athletes to cheat with impunity.
Pinot’s words follow similar warnings from other athletes worldwide. American swimmer Katie Ledecky admitted last week that she had “a little bit of concern” about the lack of testing during the pandemic.
“I do have hope it will ramp up in Olympic year, but it’s a little concerning and I don’t think it will give some athletes the same kind of confidence that they’re competing against clean athletes,” she told USA Today.
Even before this summer’s Games were postponed, Travis Tygert, the chief executive of the United States Anti-Doping Agency and the man who brought down both Lance Armstrong and Sir Mo Farah’s former coach Alberto Salazar, was warning that they had to be delayed as they risked becoming “the dirtiest Games ever”.
Tygart said there was a “window of opportunity” for athletes who were not “willing to compete clean”.
Some anti-doping agencies around the world have halted their testing programmes completely during the pandemic while others, including UK Anti-Doping, have announced a “significant reduction”.
Nicole Sapstead, the Ukad chief executive, responded to criticism of that announcement by insisting that athletes were “strongly mistaken” if they believed the rules could be broken amidst the coronavirus outbreak.
Sapstead said: "There will always be a minority that will seek to dope, and whether that is now, when they think they are effectively off the radar of national anti-doping organisations, or at any other time, my message to them is very, very clear - we will continue to process intelligence, we will continue to monitor whereabouts, and we will continue to monitor the raft of information we have available to us, such as the athlete biological passports.”
Her words will not inspire huge confidence, although without the lockdown being lifted, and social distancing rules eased, it is difficult to know what can be done. Usada has begun trialling a remote testing programme with various Olympic stars.
More than a dozen athletes, including Olympic swimming champions Ledecky and Lilly King, have been invited to take part in a trial which involves the athletes collecting their own urine and blood while being observed remotely on Zoom or FaceTime by officials.
Testing kits have been sent to those involved, who must produce samples of their blood and urine upon receiving an unannounced call from a Usada doping control officer.
A spokesman for UK Anti-Doping told Telegraph Sport last week that it was “watching with interest” to see how the trial went.
