Lance Armstrong lost his record seven Tour de France titles for using drugs to enhance his body’s performance. With that cheating method under closer scrutiny than ever, some recent cyclists have tried to gain an unfair advantage not with their bodies, but with their bikes.
The International Cycling Union (UCI) will have none of that either.
According to Reuters, the agency will physically dismantle bicycles it suspects of being “technologically doped,” or having their gears or other mechanisms altered to give their riders a boost. The agency will randomly select equipment after races and use x-rays to get a closer look at the bike’s composition.
If an illegal alteration—such as a miniature engine—is detected, the rider will face a suspension of at least six months and a fine of approximately $210,000, Reuters reported.
The UCI has already been using thermal imaging and magnetic scanning via tablets at the past two iterations of the Tour de France, Reuters reported. It was further revealed in a UCI press release published by Law In Sport that the UCI will use portable x-rays on trucks at race events across all five UCI-covered continents. The x-rays can scan a bike in five minutes.
“Six months to the day after my election, the UCI is sending a strong message to the cycling family with this action plan against technological fraud,” UCI president David Lappartient said in the release. “Thanks to both current methods and those being developed, we possess both short- and medium-term measures that will reassure stakeholders, fans and the media.”
Also reported in the press release was a partnership between the UCI and CEA, a French-government research agency to develop enhanced technology that will be able to continuously detect if an illegal engine is being used throughout the course of a race, and further down the line, develop a technology that can detect for alterations in the frame and wheels of a bike.
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SportTechie Takeaway:
We first reported on technological doping in 2016, four years after Lance Armstrong admitted to using PEDs to ride his way to seven now-stripped Tour titles. The UCI’s current president, Lappartient, was elected in September 2017 and has since made it a point to counteract any type of cheating in the sport. Thus, it comes as little surprise that world cycling, which has been rocked by scandals not just from Armstrong but also from other well-known riders, would do everything it can to move towards eliminating doping entirely, whether pharmacological or technological.