It’s the next good thing that we hear in Cycling, after Lance Amrstrong announced his decision to come back and go for an eighth Tour de France crown. After spending a huge amount of man-hours and money on research, we may finally have a successful technique to uncover dopers. This “biological passport” is a program in which athletes provide blood and urine samples to create individual drug profiles. The milestone could come through in weeks or months, most likely in cycling and will soon produce its first cases. Ofcourse, it wouldn’t be an overnight success as some dopers would always find a way to manage their drug use just below the radar screen level.

What makes this technique superior to others is this. Unlike regular testing, blood screeners aren’t looking for specific drugs or doping methods. Instead, they’re searching for doping’s telltale traces in the body. Illegally enhancing performance with blood transfusions or hormones like EPO throws the body out of whack and skews blood values. By spotting those abnormalities, scientists believe they can prove an athlete must have doped, even without identifying the specific drug or method.

But Pat McQuaid, the head of UCI (cycling’s governing body) wants to tread very carefully and ensure that the first doping case is a 100% clear cut case and can withstand an appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport. If the first case proves to be a dud, it means more sorry PR for the drug-tainted sport of cycling.

Via Yahoo