Slipstream-Chipotle, the American anti-doping cycling team, has an independent drug-testing system in which its riders receive drug tests on a weekly basis, not only to  prove they race clean but  also to build a data basis of each cyclist’s baseline blood makeup.

Now,  cycling’s governing body, the Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI), wants to do the  latter on a grand scale, starting next year. According to reports out of Geneva on Wednesday, the UCI wants  to build medical profiles for the pro-team riders  and use the baseline figures  to compare with future doping tests.

According to The Associated  Press, Anne Gripper, the UCI’s anti-doping chief, said: “The rider becomes his own reference point. We look for variations in a rider’s individual profile to determine whether there may be some indication of using a prohibited method or a prohibited substance … What we’re looking for is indirect evidence of the fact that cyclists may be doing something to increase the oxygen-carrying capacity of their blood either through blood doping or through small doses of EPO or something like that.”

Baseline figures of training output  were part of Floyd Landis’ defense in his fight to have a positive doping test overturned from the 2006 Tour de France. Landis’ attorney’s said his power outputs throughout  his Stage 17 win at the 2006 Tour were within his training norms, and evidence that he wasn’t doping, as charged.

But, alas, there was no baseline blood analysis with which to compare. That’s why it’s wise for teams to do independent testing — such as Slipstream, CSC and T-Mobile are doing, and now perhaps Astana will be doing  – so that they have independent numbers to counter any future lab mistakes such  the mistakes that were  epidemic  in the Landis case.

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