Raleigh's Fleeman to post blood profile results online

Team Raleigh rider Dan Fleeman has announced that he will be publishing his
blood profile results exclusively on the BikePure.org website - a coup for the flourishing anti-doping organisation.

Fleeman, who recently joined Team Raleigh after spending the 2009 season with Cérvelo, was a driving force behind Bike Pure when it began in 2008.  Its aim is to restore honesty and integrity to a sport dogged by doping scandals for many years.

During Fleeman's time Cervelo, it was mandatory that all riders on the team form part of the Bio-Passport programme, where riders provide blood and urine samples at various stages of the season.

Because Fleeman has moved to Raleigh for 2010, a UCI Continental team,
they fall outside the UCI's bio-passport programme, meaning riders on the
team won't form part of the anti-doping programme, although will still
subject to tests at events.

Fleeman's 2009 season with Cervelo didn't go as he had planned. A broken
wrist in May put him off the bike for several weeks and he only returned to
race fitness towards the end of the season.

"I had a difficult season at Cervelo, my results weren't as good as I would have liked but I'm training hard for 2010 and very motivated to prove myself in Team Raleigh," he said. "With the unfortunate distrust there is within the sport, if I have a great season,
some small minded people will point the finger saying that as I'm no longer
part of the bio-passport, the temptation to dope may be there. I wish to
show, as I have done throughout my career that an athlete can be competitive
in top level cycling without doping."

Fleeman also feels his testing will be more rigorous than that of the bio-passport, "Under the bio-passport riders have to be tested at least four times in any one year, whereas I will be testing every six weeks."

Fleeman will go further than most riders. He will be emailing his personal results and data directly to the UCI and, should they feel the need to scrutinise them further, the tests conducted will be the same as those the UCI carry out under the main bio-passport.

The rider will be paying for the testing himself with his results published on the Bike Pure website and open for scrutiny. "I would have liked to have been tested more often but Dr Michael Stokes, who will be carrying out the tests, advised against this as
the volume of blood taken can have a detrimental effect on performance and
iron levels."

Andy Layhe, founder of Bike Pure, says Fleeman's move is 'very positive'.

"To have a rider of Dan's ability, go out of his way to provide the public with open and transparent analysis of his own blood levels on our website goes a long way," he said. "He'll have a busy season ahead anyway and to show his strong anti-doping stance says a lot about him as a person. Clearly the health aspects are a pivotal source of information for Dan and if this helps him gain the success he so deserves then that can only be a good thing for the sport of cycling."

Fleeman has already started the testing and results from tests he undertook
in October and December 2009 will be available on the Bike Pure website from
next week. As and when additional results become available Bike Pure will
publish them.
 

He previously rode for Sean Kelly's An-Post team in 2008 and hit the
headlines when he won the prestigious Tour of the Pyrenees stage race and
finished 7th overall in the Tour of Britain.