US riders aiming to drag cycling out of the ditch: report

0 Comments | AFP, February, 2007

NEW YORK (AFP) — A US cycling team is reportedly undergoing a 50-week testing program to show they peddle without performance-enhancing products in a bid to restore faith in their sport.

According to the New York Times, Team Slipstream riders are given blood and urine tests 50 times a year to measure their body's biological norms so any test showing a major deviation would indicate doping or a drug undetectable in standard dope tests.

"We're doing something to help pull cycling out of the ditch," Pat McCarthy, a 25-year-old cyclist who rode in the 2006 Tour de France for Phonak, told the Times.

Phonak's Floyd Landis won the Tour last July but tested positive for doping in a scandal that led to the folding of the Phonak team. Landis denies doping and is...