THE UCI’S CHIEF medical officer Dr Mario Zorzoli has backed the anti-doping advancements cycling has adopted.
Speaking at the Aspire4Sport conference in Qatar on Tuesday, Zorzoli said there was now a far greater scope to detect doping among athletes, particularly with the introduction of biological passports.
Zorzoli was part of the review and decision-making committee set up to investigate the doping case brought against former cyclist Lance Armstrong.
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“I think that nowadays we have more tools in the anti-doping community, which allows us to fight more efficiently against doping,” Zorzoli said.
“I refer specifically to the athlete’s biological passport which allows us to indirectly detect doping so that we don’t look anymore at the substance or the metabolites we look at the effect the substance has induced on the body.
“This means theoretically we could convict an athlete of doping without exactly and precisely know which substance is used but seeing the effects we can say that this is not normal and if the athlete cannot provide an explanation or medical evidence that he could provide then he can be convicted of doping.”
Zorzoli also pointed to agreements put in place with the World Anti-Doping Agency and pharmaceutical companies to detect new drugs before they are commercialised.
“Additionally, another aspect to the fight against doping in the recent years is the agreements the World Anti-Doping Agency has signed with different partners, on one side pharmaceutical companies, so the anti-doping community can know in advance which drugs are in the pipelines and could have a performance enhancing effect so athletes could be tempted to use them,” he said.
“This partnership with the pharmaceutical companies also allows the showing of technical information which will benefit the anti-doping laboratories to validate detection methods prior to the commercialisation of these drugs.
“The other important aspects are the agreements the World Anti-Doping Agency has with Interpol, with customs organisations so that sensible information can be shared, an athlete can be targeted and we can also rely on this information to convict athletes of doping, so we don’t have to have a positive test, additional intelligence information can be used to prosecute athletes.
“I think that cycling has shown in the last year its commitment in the fight against doping, we were the first to introduce many anti-doping tests, we introduced the athlete’s biological passport so clearly there is a commitment from cycling against the fight against doping.”
UCI optimistic it can win drug war
THE UCI’S CHIEF medical officer Dr Mario Zorzoli has backed the anti-doping advancements cycling has adopted.
Speaking at the Aspire4Sport conference in Qatar on Tuesday, Zorzoli said there was now a far greater scope to detect doping among athletes, particularly with the introduction of biological passports.
Zorzoli was part of the review and decision-making committee set up to investigate the doping case brought against former cyclist Lance Armstrong.
“I think that nowadays we have more tools in the anti-doping community, which allows us to fight more efficiently against doping,” Zorzoli said.
“I refer specifically to the athlete’s biological passport which allows us to indirectly detect doping so that we don’t look anymore at the substance or the metabolites we look at the effect the substance has induced on the body.
“This means theoretically we could convict an athlete of doping without exactly and precisely know which substance is used but seeing the effects we can say that this is not normal and if the athlete cannot provide an explanation or medical evidence that he could provide then he can be convicted of doping.”
Zorzoli also pointed to agreements put in place with the World Anti-Doping Agency and pharmaceutical companies to detect new drugs before they are commercialised.
“Additionally, another aspect to the fight against doping in the recent years is the agreements the World Anti-Doping Agency has signed with different partners, on one side pharmaceutical companies, so the anti-doping community can know in advance which drugs are in the pipelines and could have a performance enhancing effect so athletes could be tempted to use them,” he said.
“This partnership with the pharmaceutical companies also allows the showing of technical information which will benefit the anti-doping laboratories to validate detection methods prior to the commercialisation of these drugs.
“The other important aspects are the agreements the World Anti-Doping Agency has with Interpol, with customs organisations so that sensible information can be shared, an athlete can be targeted and we can also rely on this information to convict athletes of doping, so we don’t have to have a positive test, additional intelligence information can be used to prosecute athletes.
“I think that cycling has shown in the last year its commitment in the fight against doping, we were the first to introduce many anti-doping tests, we introduced the athlete’s biological passport so clearly there is a commitment from cycling against the fight against doping.”
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