The UCI anti-doping inspector on the Tour de France has responded to accusations made by Pierre Bordry, the director of the French Anti-Doping Agency (AFLD), during this year's race.
Britain’s Barry Broadbent, one of two UCI anti-doping inspectors at the Tour de France, was accused of favouring the Astana team before stage eight from Andorra-La-Vielle to Saint-Girons on July 11.
Broadbent waited until the end of the Tour de France to respond to Bordry’s comments to avoid damaging the work between the UCI and the AFLD during the race.
“It was nice to start the Tour with an agreement that we’d work in harmony but I was astonished when they started making public comments about the way we were working,” Broadbent told Cycling Weekly.
“I can’t understand why someone in a responsible position makes public statements about the work other people and his own organisation. All the business of me having a coffee with the Astana team was a load rubbish and they should get their facts right before going to the press.”
“We’re all fighting doping and have to be clever and smart about what we do. Putting things in the press is not the right thing to do. There should be no doubt that we treat all the teams and all the riders the same way. Me and fellow UCI anti-doping inspector Jan Van Gestel of Holland have more than 50 years of experience between us. Riders are just numbers to us, we don’t make any exceptions but we do try to treat them with respect.”
Broadbent also criticised Bordry for failing to inform the UCI anti-doping inspectors of others anti-doping tests carried out by the AFLD during the Tour de France.
One morning during the third week of the race, the UCI inspectors arrived to test a rider only to discover he had already been tested by the AFLD on the request of the Movement For Credible Cycling (MPCC) teams association.
“They failed to tell us that they were doing other tests and so we went to do a test after the rider had already been tested. That made us look stupid,” Broadbent said.
“It would be better to get these aspects right rather than making public statement to improve the AFLD’s own image.”
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