The International Cycling Union (UCI) on Tuesday asked the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) to “take a position” on carbon monoxide inhalation, a legal but controversial technique used by riders like Tadej Pogacar and Jonas Vingegaard.
“The UCI clearly asks teams and riders not to resort to repeated inhalation of CO. Only the medical use of a single inhalation of CO in a controlled medical environment could be acceptable. The UCI also officially asks the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) to take a position on the use of this method by athletes,” the body indicated in a press release following a seminar bringing together the different families. cycling for two days in Nice.
The use of this potentially lethal gas by at least three cycling teams was revealed last summer during the Tour de France by the specialist site Escape collective.
Among these teams are Israel PT as well as the UAE team of Tadej Pogacar, winner of the Tour de France, and Visma of Jonas Vingegaard, his runner-up.
Questioned during the Tour de France by the press, the two champions admitted to using the technique to measure the benefits of training at altitude.
“It’s a device to test how your body reacts to altitude,” Pogacar explained. We blow into a balloon for one minute for a test that we must do two weeks apart. I only did the first part, because for the second part, the girl who was supposed to do it never came. It’s not like we breathe that every day.”
In itself, use of this protocol is not illegal. But, in the event of repeated use, its use could be diverted to create artificial hypoxia by artificially creating the effects of effort at altitude.
The Movement for Credible Cycling (MPCC), which brings together several teams defending the objective of clean cycling, expressed its concern at the end of October, “strongly recommending against the use of this technique… pending its ban” in view of of its “potentially fatal health risk”.
