David Lappartient: "It is still necessary to do a lot of testing"

UCI president David Lappartient has talked about the fight against doping in a recent interview, and has put across some of the points on where the battle currently stands and in what ways it can be improved upon.

“Today it is still necessary to do a lot of testing. It's good that there were no positive doping tests last year, but I'm not naive. It is important that we invest more money in the fight against doping and that is what we are doing... Our fight against doping has no end," Lappartient told VeloNews.

With the recent debates over the use of ketones, and the sport's past right up until the most recent decades, Lappartient stresses that it is an effort than can still improve in the coming years: “There have been some positive tests in recent years, but not at the highest level. That's because there's plenty of testing. But more can and should be done, even at the lower levels. From my own experience I can say that the budget is not high enough for that.”

“I can tell you that I watch a lot of competitions. Sometimes I also see suspicious things. And I also hear the stories from the radio peloton. I'll have that examined. It is important to know what the peloton thinks about doping. I've talked to enough riders and managers to know what the peloton thinks about doping. Of course they sometimes have question marks. I just don't think they will ever go away, if you look at the sport's doping history," he concluded.