Vaughters says night controls could have stopped blood-doping era

July 20 : Former professional cyclist and Cannondale-EF team boss Jonathan Vaughters weighed in on the row over pre-dawn doping tests at the Tour de France, saying they could have exposed cycling's blood-doping era decades earlier had they existed at the time.

Riders including race leader Tadej Pogacar and Jonas Vingegaard were woken in the early hours of Sunday for unannounced doping checks ahead of the 15th stage, prompting complaints that the disruption to sleep was unfair and potentially dangerous.

Vaughters, who rode professionally through the late 1990s and early 2000s, defended the practice.

"2 a.m. testing is one of the very effective ways to prevent peptide (EPO, hGH) and testosterone micro dosing," Vaughters wrote on social media.

"If UCI had tested us in 2001 at 2 a.m.? We'd all have been suspended and saved the sport 25 years of drama."

DOPING HISTORY

His comments carry particular weight given his own history with doping.

Vaughters was a teammate of Lance Armstrong on the U.S. Postal Service team and later admitted using performance-enhancing drugs, including EPO, during his career.

He subsequently testified in the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency's investigation into Armstrong, who was stripped of his seven Tour titles in 2012 after USADA concluded he ran what it called the most sophisticated doping program the sport had seen.

Vaughters went on to found the team now known as Cannondale-EF, positioning it as an advocate for clean racing.

RIDERS' UNION RAISES CONCERNS

His remarks come as riders pushed back on the timing of Sunday's tests.

Vingegaard, tested at 2 a.m., said the visit cost him roughly 40 minutes of sleep before a mountain stage on which he later crashed and broke his collarbone.

Pogacar, tested at 5 a.m., said he