OFFICIAL: UCI bans controversial carbon monoxide rebreathing "to protect the health of riders"
Cycling
It is official, the UCI have banned the controversial carbon monoxide rebreathing in the peloton after much discussion and speculation over the last few months. The ban is set to come fully into effect on the 10th of February.
"To protect the health of riders, the UCI Management Committee approved a ban on the repeated inhalation of carbon monoxide (CO). The ban will come into force on 10 February 2025," announces the sport's governing body in a press release. "As a reminder, CO is commonly used in sports medicine to measure total haemoglobin (Hb) mass and blood volume, especially to examine the effects of endurance training and altitude exposure on oxygen carrying capacity. However, its repeated inhalation can result in acute and chronic health problems, for example headaches, lethargy, nausea, dizziness, and confusion. Such symptoms can worsen at any time and develop into problems with heart rhythm, seizures, paralysis, and loss of consciousness."
"The new regulation forbids the possession, outside a medical facility, of commercially available CO re-breathing systems connected to oxygen and CO cylinders. This ban applies to all licence-holders, teams and/or bodies subject to the UCI Regulations and to anyone else who might possess such equipment on behalf of riders or teams," the statement continues. "The inhalation of CO will remain authorised within a medical facility and under the responsibility of a medical professional experienced in the manipulation of this gas for medical reasons and in line with the following restrictions: only one CO inhalation to measure total Hb mass will be permitted. A second CO inhalation will only be authorised two weeks after the initial Hb measurement."
Although the UCI often follows the protocol of WADA in cases of doping, this time it is the cycling organisation that is leading the way. "The UCI’s ban is independent of the World Anti-Doping Code and the UCI Anti-doping Regulations, however the UCI has officially requested the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) to take position on the repeated use of CO in and out of competition," the press release explains.
"The UCI takes a bold and necessary stance by banning the repeated use of carbon monoxide inhalation on medical grounds. Our priority is to protect the health and safety of our athletes and today’s decision is another significant step in this direction," says UCI President David Lappartient. “By modifying the participation rules for the UCI WorldTour and UCI Women’s WorldTour, organisers, riders and fans can be sure that all events in these two leading series for men’s and women’s professional road cycling will feature the best teams in the world."
The UCI bans repeated inhalation of carbon monoxide, and introduces measures to ensure participation of best teams in top-tier road events https://t.co/xythdr8myw pic.twitter.com/2FdXgw2VcT
— UCI_media (@UCI_media) February 1, 2025
They are doing whatever they can do that is allowed by the current testing. The same as every other sport--except cleaner than the vast majority since cycling has a real testing program. I am not sure why anyone would expect or want anything different.
After carefully evaluating years and years of results in the three grand tours, I gotta go with Jacques Anguetil that you can't win these races on mineral water alone. I think half of the peloton uses a new sort of doping which will become public in a few years from today after scientists discover the magic formula. Major offenders: UAE and Visma/Lease a Bike.
So you’re saying what, half the peleton knows of something and is keeping it secret from the other half or half is refusing to participate? And how did this come about? UAE and Visma knew how and THEN employed and pushed Pog & Vin to participate or Vin and Pog both had access and sold their strategy to the teams when signing? Must be pretty stressful in these days of expensive unexpected transfers, do you just hope no-one opens their mouth, find the price to pay them off or let them take the tech/product with to the next team, levelling the playing field, so e.g. little Swiss newbies can perform too? And if in the end everyone uses it, how to explain the huge gap that remains between the best and others, how to explain that a team like Ineos who were so suspect before are now so behind, they suddenly went clean, is there an unwritten rule that each team gets its turn to shine? These conspiracy style theories throw up more unanswerable questions than they manage to explain something nobody really knows needs answering - WHY would half the peleton have to dope? If you would say there are a few, maybe a dozen random riders ok, but systematic organised doping? Sorry, too complex
There’s also no need for baseless accusations. Argue with some facts, evidence, logic or even just give is criteria on which your thinking is based and start a real discussion. Otherwise your statement/opinion is no more relevant or useful than the thousands of similar equally pointless or those of people telling us the date they think the world will end, which at least are never in the past, unlike punishment for doping.
Not 20 years ago, we had Lance Armstrong, Ulrich, and before that Anquetil, Merckx and Hinault. Whatever they claim, all were dopers (before stricter control). The Tour has only gotten harder. A lot. And you think superhumans like Pogacar (and, for that matter, the entire UAE team) and Vingegaard (to name just 2) tapdance through 21 days of this as if it's a flat parking lot?
There is without doubt a suspicion that something is going on. We seem to blessed/cursed depending how you look at it, with riders who's talent is way above the norm. It has always been so as far as I recollect. However the peletons speed has increased overall quite sharply in the last ten years. Another member commented that Pidcock has just won a low quality race against packfodder second grade riders. I watched that race and was gobsmacked at the speed of those second grade riders. If those guys are packfodder, top quality riders should be very worried. I'm just musing here but I can't get away from the feeling that there is some sort of questionable performance advantage being used - and I don't just think it is the newly banned Co2 inhalation.
I’m sorry, I’ve been around a long time and I am gobsmacked at the speeds ALL half serious cyclists ride at today and for sure none of the amateurs have access to this so-called top secret elusive product or technique, if they had, someone would spill the beans. Can you imagine how much a desperate ex pro like Wiggins or whoever could sell his story to some outlets for if he could provide even half-verifiable information about how top teams evade getting caught? It’s gotten a lot harder and riskier to count on collective omertas, too much money involved in different directions today. Why should cycling not speed up when running still does, the whole range from 60m to marathon and ultra even though far more is invested in technology for cycling and there is far more to be gained technologically from efficiency, especially aerodynamics. Look qt the speeds or distances today of tennis, golf, base or cricket balls, look at speeds us amateurs reach compared to the historical elite, I’m approaching 60 and when the guys in front push us, we still reach average race speeds over 40, on water and often no food for lack of time or hunger at breakfast. It’s not like the peleton suddenly improved by 5% and it’s not like the top guys are riding the others into the ground my abnormal margins, proportionally everything’s the same with maybe a 1km/h increase above the historical growth in speed over the past decade, that doesn’t sound like a sudden discovery but collective change in approach towards preparation, training racing strategy, lifestyle and hygiene, changed approach to incentivising riders for exciting fans more, etc. In the past I, having come from a different sport, I was always a bit surprised at how unprofessional cyclists were about training and how unserious the talent promotion seemed to be, many young riders being destroyed prematurely and many being selected more through networking than a form of meritocracy, the sad side effect of it being considered more a team than individual sport even though ironically we’re only interested in that one top performer of a team. If cycling didn’t have such a heavy doping burden to carry around, we wouldn’t even be having this discussion in this era.
Probably like for a lot of other criteria in the passport, variations in biomarkers during spot tests. I think the whole thing is overblown, mostly because there is mass confusion about the way or why it is used. It is very easy for articles to mislead (intentionally or not) people into thinking a legitimate testing procedure is the same as doping, so firstly everyone has go be very clear what we are trying to ban. In the end, all training with CO rebreathing as doping does is REPLACE altitude training, not sure many riders (with one notable exception who hates altitude training) would volunteer for that anyway. Instead of limiting the number of tests, why not suggest that testing be done by a few designated independent laboratories, removing the suspiciousness of in-house use?
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- He attacked Pogi after he saw him crashed and then Connor Swift stopped for quit sometime. He slow when he can't take some more time and Pogi blitztering his pace like a mad man to catch Swift then drop him after and that's the time he realized he will NOT beat Pogi in all races even he crashed.
James2631809-03-2025 - He already is the GOAT. Merckx rode decades ago when the sport was far less professional and the opposition weaker. You might as well say Djokovic is approaching Rod Laver or Messi is getting near to Stanley Matthews. If a sport advances and you are at the top, you are the GOAT.Renz09-03-2025
- Excellent point about when it’s too late to respond. I was watching the ‘23 Flanders race again, and the break, the bridge, and Mads Peterson all did the right thing. Not enough, but still, the attempt was the thing. I love watching Pogacar race, but I am really hoping for more of that kind of early hard attack in the coming months.RidesHills09-03-2025
- Pure class and nice for him to wait. After Tadej shared some liquids earlier. And besides Tadej took out that gap pretty instantly. No offense to Pidcock but he sat up at the top of a climb with the bridge over was obvious. And this is meant as no offense.mij09-03-2025
- What a ride! 💪
leedorney09-03-2025 - Pure classCrashjames08-03-2025
- If you have a hack to watch it on TV ;-)Mistermaumau08-03-2025
- Katalin Szőke, how many media do you think ever got that right? In Britain, you’re asking for trouble to register your kids’ name with an accent, in France, even something as simple as á is refused as their software doesn’t have it.Mistermaumau08-03-2025
- Awesome job today and I hope you can have a lot opportunities! Forza, Connor!
maria2024202408-03-2025 - Sorry, but a lot of cyclists can testify that there is truth to this training/race day paradox.Mistermaumau08-03-2025