Doping at The 2007 Tour de France - During The Tour

During The Tour

Despite Petacchi's positive result prior to the Tour prologue, the first stages were uneventful in terms of doping allegations. It was not until Stage 8 before the first doping allegations surfaced against one of the participants. German cyclist Patrik Sinkewitz tested positive for elevated levels of testosterone at a June 8, 2007 pre-Tour training camp.

Immediately prior to Stage 12, reports began to surface that the then current race leader, Michael Rasmussen had been dropped by the Danish Cycling Union in the month prior to the Tour following claims he had missed three out-of-competition doping tests. Tour director Christian Prudhomme nevertheless allowed the rider to continue in the absence of a positive test result.

Days later on 24 July, pre-race favourite Alexandre Vinokourov was withdrawn from the Tour after Stage 15. Vinokourov had returned a positive A test for an illegal blood transfusion from a compatible donor before the Stage 13 individual time trial on July 21, in which he placed first. The result of the positive test was confirmed to the Tour authorities by the Astana Team and not by the Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI), the international governing body for competitive cycling. In addition to Vinokourov, who was in 23rd place overall, the entire Astana Team team was withdrawn from the race, affecting highly-placed riders such as 5th placed Andreas Klöden and 8th placed Andrey Kashechkin (Kashechkin later also tested positive for a transfusion from a compatible donor, leading to speculation that he and Vinokourov had mistakenly been transfused with each other's blood).

The following day, after finishing Stage 16 - which had begun with a protest by riders (see below, Reaction to events) - it emerged that Italian cyclist Cristian Moreni had tested positive for testosterone after Stage 11, in which he finished 102nd. He was immediately pulled out of the race by his team, Cofidis (who had participated in the day's protest). Team Cofidis then voluntarily retired the rest of their riders from the Tour.

In a dramatic twenty-four hour period, Michael Rasmussen was withdrawn from the Tour by his team Rabobank (still in the yellow jersey) hours after winning Stage 16 after his team decided Rasmussen had violated the team's internal rules. The Danish rider had given incorrect information to Rabobank's sports director about his whereabouts which followed on from earlier reports that he had missed previous doping control tests.

With the sport reeling from the revelations, the Tour continued as allegations began to surface regarding new race leader Alberto Contador (see Alberto Contador below). While no further rider or team withdrawals occurred before the race's conclusion in Paris, it later emerged that two more riders Andrey Kashechkin and Iban Mayo had tested positive for doping during the Tour's later stages.