Remember me
Being available to be tested every day of the year throws up strange and amusing scenarios. Kuss, O'Connor and other stars tell all.
Sepp Kuss had to get a taxi to avoid missing a doping test. (Photo by Tim de Waele/Getty Images) (Photo: Getty Images)
Jonas Vingegaard and Tadej Pogačar getting woken up at 2 a.m. and 5 a.m. for International Testing Agency (ITA) mid-race tests has made headlines during the last week of the Tour de France.
However, those would probably not even make it into the professional peloton’s top 100 stories for strangest doping test moments.
Given WADA Whereabouts rules and in-competition testing, every rider in the UCI Registered Testing Pool has to be available for random, unannounced potential testing every day of the year. The tests are carried out by the ITA’s doping control officers (DCO).
Cyclist provide a specific hour-long time slot each day when they guarantee their availability, which can be amended any time before it starts.
With many, often quickly-changing travel plans, it is a daily feat of administration, planning and updating. It also means that any moment of everyday life can be interrupted – sometimes when the WorldTour’s stars least expect it.
Going to the chapel, going to get tested
2015 Milan-Sanremo winner John Degenkolb has an amusing anti-doping anecdote. (Photo: Szymon Gruchalski/Getty Images))
“Probably the most iconic one was when I attended the wedding of my teammate Koen de Kort in Girona,” former Paris-Roubaix winner John Degenkolb (Picnic PostNL) tells Velo. “During the ceremony basically, the chaperone turned up and did a doping control with me.”
Speaking of the August 2015 event, Degenkolb added: “We are having a walk through Girona, doing photos with the wedding dress and so on and suddenly he was standing next to me.”
“In the end, it was also a bit my fault not filling in that there was a wedding that day. It was all fine: it’s also part of the game.
“Honestly, I cannot really complain about the tests. I think also as a clean athlete, you are the one who benefits from them.”
Sepp Kuss’ emergency taxi
Sepp Kuss: saved by quick thinking and four wheels. (Photo: Tim de Waele/Getty Images)
Sometimes, riders are at the mercy of luck. “I was leaving somewhere for my birthday party or something, then the car broke down,” Visma-Lease a Bike super domestique Sepp Kuss tells Velo. “My friend was staying at my house and told me that the doping control officer was there, then I had to rush back.”
The American indicated that he had to get a taxi home: “It was many years ago, but at the end of the day, nobody wants to put each other in a bad position. You have to see the human side of it and not put someone between a rock and a hard place.
“We all want to be there, do a control and make it as clean a sport as possible. Sometimes, you find yourself in interesting situations!”
George Bennett’s mum saves the day
George Bennett at the Tour de France this year. (Photo by Gautier Demouveaux/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
New Zealand road race champion George Bennett remembers his weirdest scenario well. He was on a big night out partying during the winter off-season in 2014 and had given between 6 a.m. to 7 a.m. as his testing window.
“My mum was over from New Zealand, staying with me. At six, I still wasn’t home yet and she called me, ‘where are you? The drug tester’s here.’”
Obviously, Bennett did not want it to go down as a missed test: “I remember sprinting home, hardly able to walk, getting through the door and trying to piss in the cup. That was back when cycling was a different time. I was with Liquigas, having a month off the bike.”
The NSN Cycling Team rider says that it can be bizarre when doping control officers turn up when he is at home with friends who know nothing about pro cycling.
“I was in an Airbnb with a bunch of school mates and the drug testers came and the shock … that’s when you realize how strange it is,” he says.
“When other people are like, ‘what’s going on here?’ and you’re like, ‘this is normal.’
Beaten by the drug tester at video gamesThe New Zealander also had one doping test where he could not urinate so he played soccer console game FIFA with the tester for a while on the Playstation while waiting.
“He was better than me at it,” Bennett says.
“It [the doping test] is a weird thing so it always throws up weird situations.”
French climber Aurélien Paret-Peintre (Decathlon CMA CGM Team) is not such a fan of the blood tests because he sometimes faints. Not very handy on a race rest day.
Bottle of wine and a doping testMeanwhile, Jayco-Alula star Ben O’Connor has had dinner parties with a few bottles of wine on the table when the doping control officer shows up. While sometimes it can take as little as half an hour to do a blood test and follow the procedure, it is a bit of a mood dampener.
“It’s one of those shitty things where you do everything right, there’s clearly people who do things wrong and we have to cop the consequences of anti-doping because of their values and morals,” O’Connor says.
“I don’t think [star golfer Rory] McIlroy is being woken up at two in the morning before playing the final round of the U.S. Open.
“It’s not really fair, is it?”