The International Testing Agency defended its controversial overnight anti-doping controls at the Tour de France after riders blasted being woken up in the middle of the night before Sunday\u2019s key mountain stage.<\/p>\n
Tour favorites Tadej Poga\u010dar and Jonas Vingegaard were both tested, saying the surprise visits disrupted their sleep before the Tour\u2019s first major summit in the French Alps.<\/p>\n
The agency insisted the ability to test at any hour is allowed under rules and remains an essential tool in modern anti-doping efforts.<\/p>\n
\u201cEffective testing must, in limited and justified circumstances, be capable of occurring outside standard daytime hours,\u201d the ITA said in a statement.<\/p>\n
The statement marks the ITA\u2019s first public response after Tour de France riders and teams questioned the timing and fairness of Sunday\u2019s overnight anti-doping controls.<\/p>\n
The middle-of-the-night visits on the eve of Sunday\u2019s first major summit finish in the French Alps struck a nerve across the peloton.<\/p>\n
Yellow jersey rivals Poga\u010dar and Vingegaard were among the Tour riders tested before the grueling climb to Plateau de Solaison.<\/p>\n
Vingegaard said officials came knocking around 2 a.m. He later crashed out of Stage 15 with a broken clavicle, saying his tire slipped out in a traffic circle.<\/p>\n
Poga\u010dar, who said he was tested around 5 a.m., wondered whether the disrupted sleep could have contributed to the crash. Poga\u010dar also revealed he has been target-tested several times already this season.<\/p>\n
Surprise controls are a key tool in anti-doping efforts<\/h2>\n
Visma-Lease a Bike rider Matteo Jorgenson called the timing \u201ca complete lack of respect\u201d for riders\u2019 recovery after more than two weeks of racing.<\/p>\n
The ITA said the surprise testing is permitted under the World Anti-Doping Code, UCI regulations and French law, with safeguards designed to protect \u201criders\u2019 welfare, equity and fundamental rights.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThe ITA is conscious that night-time testing may be disruptive to riders\u2019 rest and recovery,\u201d the statement read. \u201cDue consideration has therefore been given to minimize as much as possible the impact testing activities have on riders.\u201d<\/p>\n
Anti-doping experts say off-hour surprise controls make it harder to exploit predictable testing schedules and can help deter practices such as micro-dosing and blood doping.<\/p>\n
The ITA has independently managed the UCI\u2019s anti-doping program since 2021. It has more than 40 staff working at this year\u2019s Tour and expects to collect about 600 in-competition samples during the three-week race.<\/p>\n
The 2026 Tour enters its decisive final week Tuesday with an individual time trial following Monday\u2019s final rest day.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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[analyse_image type=”featured” src=”https:\/\/velo-cdn.outsideonline.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/GettyImages-2286615448.jpg”] Andrew Hood Updated July 20, 2026 05:34AM The International Testing Agency defended its controversial overnight anti-doping controls at the Tour de France after riders blasted being woken up in the middle of the night before Sunday\u2019s key mountain stage. Tour favorites Tadej Poga\u010dar and Jonas Vingegaard were both tested, saying the surprise […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[226,71],"class_list":["post-2054539","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","tag-crawlmanager","tag-velo-outsideonline-com"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2054539","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2054539"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2054539\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2054539"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2054539"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2054539"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}