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Tour Of California Organizers Acknowledge Not Testing For EPO |
Organizers of the Tour of California, who “boasted after last year’s race that no riders tested positive for banned substances, have acknowledged that riders were not tested for” EPO, according to Edward Wyatt of the N.Y. TIMES. The lead sponsor for the race is Amgen, a California-based biotechnology company that produces the “genetically engineered version of EPO, which is sold primarily to help cancer and dialysis patients battle anemia.” A spokesperson for Amgen, which had “marketed its sponsorship as a way to educate people against improper use of its drug, expressed outrage at the failure to test for it, saying that the company had been repeatedly assured last year that EPO testing was done.” AEG, which operates the race, and USA Cycling said that doping controls “were the responsibility of the International Cycling Union [UCI].” AEG spokesperson Michael Roth added that AEG “did not know that EPO was not part of the [UCI’s] standard test, but that the company asked for it to be included this year.” Wyatt wrote how a sport “battling a reputation for cheating among its athletes could have left such a gaping hole in its drug enforcement regimen raised serious questions about its ability to convince fans, sponsors and participants that the sport was clean” (
N.Y. TIMES, 2/17).