October 9/08 6:49 am - Reports of Up To 30 Blood Doping Cases at Tour

Posted by Editor on 10/9/08
 

Reports of Up To 30 Blood Doping Cases at Tour

La Gazzetta dello Sport is reporting that up to 30 riders are being investigated from the Tour de France for blood anomalies that could indicate blood transfusions. The so-called practice of 'blood boosting' allows athletes to increase their red blood cell count, which is a benefit in endurance sports, since it allows more oxygen to be delivered to the muscles.

Officials are saying that they hope to catch previously undetectable cases of autologous blood transfusion - when the athlete receives transfusions of their own stored blood. Until now, they have been limited to catching homologous transfusion cases (from another person), as in the cases of Tyler Hamilton at the 2004 Vuelta and Alexander Vinokourov at the 2007 Tour.

Read the La Gazzetta dello Sport report (in Italian) Here.