No doping at Tour de France, says UCI

AIGLE, Switzerland - There were no positive doping tests at the 2013 Tour de France, the UCI announced today at a media day in Aigle, Switzerland.

Cycling Anti-Doping Foundation (CADF) Director Francesca Rossi said his organisation took 622 blood and urine samples during the 100th edition of the Tour (versus a total of 566 samples in 2012). This broke down to 202 pre-competition samples and a further 419 samples during the race. Reinforcing the strategy of targeted testing, 198 of the samples taken during the race were for the purposes of the biological passport (versus 149 samples in 2012).

"This target testing strategy has been hugely facilitated by the excellent on-site cooperation between CADF and AFLD during the race,” said Dr Rossi.

The samples were tested in WADA-accredited laboratories at Châtenay-Malabry (France), Lausanne (Switzerland) and Cologne (Germany) and will be stored for potential retrospective testing as new anti-doping controls are invented.