UCI explains how doping will be tackled at the 2024 Tour de France

The 2024 Tour de France is just around the corner. The biggest cycling event on the planet has been in the center of many riders' year-long preparation. And cycling authorities will be also more than ready. That is - for riders who'd try to use any illegal techniques to make up for insufficient level heading into Grande Boucle. In a press release, UCI explains how the testing will be approached in (and during the run-in to) the grand tour.

All doping controls at the Tour de France will be targeted and performed at any time throughout the three-week race, not only at the finish line. At every stage, the yellow jersey and stage winner will be tested. This year, all samples will primarily be sent to the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA)-accredited anti-doping laboratory in Lausanne, Switzerland.

While around 600 blood and urine samples will be collected during the race, the period prior to the Tour de France is also key to guarantee a level-playing field during the race. Therefore, the ITA will have conducted around 400 out-of-competition tests in the month leading up to the event.

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At the end of the race, the ITA will make a selection of samples that will be kept for potential re-analysis over the next 10 years, and will keep monitoring athletes closely after the Tour de France based on all relevant data it will have collected before and during the race.

When it comes to the fight against technological fraud at the Tour de France, controls for the presence of any possible propulsion systems hidden in bikes will be carried out with the use of several non-intrusive tools available to the UCI such as magnetic tablets. In 2024, a new non-intrusive inspection tool will be added to the UCI's arsenal as part of the improvement of its detection programme using the latest technology. Further information on this subject will be communicated in due course after the 2024 Tour de France.

Before each of the 21 stages, a UCI Technical Commissaire will be at the team buses to check all bikes being ridden at the start of that day’s stage. These pre-stage checks will be carried out using magnetic tablets.

After each stage, checks will be carried out on bikes ridden by: the stage winner, riders wearing a leader’s jersey (yellow, green, polka dot, white), several randomly-selected riders, and any rider who gives rise to suspicion, for example following the pre-stage control, or incidents picked up by the UCI Video Commissaire.