After urging the World Anti-Doping Company (WADA) to take a stance on the usage of carbon monoxide (CO) on the annual UCI Ladies’s WorldTour and WorldTour Seminar in November, the UCI took additional motion by formally calling for a ban on its use.
UCI President David Lappartient shared the announcement on social media following his participation in WADA’s Basis Board assembly in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
“On behalf of @UCI_cycling, I formally requested WADA in writing on the finish of November, following the Annual UCI Ladies’s WorldTour and UCI WorldTour, to ban the usage of carbon monoxide within the context {of professional} biking,” Lappartient said on X (previously Twitter).
The usage of carbon monoxide (CO) was first revealed through the Tour de France when it was found that some groups had been utilizing it to boost altitude coaching. Initially uncovered by Escape Collective, groups like Visma-Lease a Bike, UAE Group Emirates, and Israel-Premier Tech had been discovered to be utilizing CO rebreathers to measure and so optimise their riders’ altitude coaching.
Riders Tadej Pogačar and Jonas Vingegaard additionally confirmed they had been conscious of and had no less than partially used the rebreathing gear.
After initially stating that that they had no plan to name for a ban on CO rebreathers, the Motion for Credible Biking (MPCC) strongly suggested in opposition to the method in October and prompt it ought to finally be banned.
Detalo Well being, the corporate behind the rebreathers utilized by a number of WorldTour groups, informed cyclingnews that MPCC wanted to be extra particular in what it’s calling to be banned.
“The usage of carbon monoxide as a medical diagnostic instrument is, in fact, a wholly completely different factor the place the intent is to not enhance efficiency, however as a diagnostic instrument. And that ought to, in fact, not be forbidden, or can’t be forbidden. So there must be a transparent distinct therapy between the 2,” Carsten Lundby, CEO of Detalo Well being and a professor on the College of Southern Denmark mentioned.
On the annual UCI Seminar in Good, France, members had been additionally introduced updated on the present data of the consequences on efficiency of repeated carbon monoxide (CO) inhalation. The UCI requested riders and groups to not use “repeated inhalation” of the lethal fuel.
