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Chris Froome celebrates winning the 2013 Tour de France (picture copyright Simon Wilkinson:SWpix.com)Chris Froome admits missing out-of-competition drugs tests
Chris Froome has admitted missing two out-of-competition drugs tests during his career – the first in 2010, the second earlier this year.
The latest missed test happened when he was on a break in Italy with his wife and hotel staff refused to allow drug testers access to the Team Sky rider when they arrived at 7am, reports Telegraph.co.uk.
He attributed the earlier one to his own carelessness, after he decided to go for a training ride and was away from home when testers turned during the hour he had fixed for out-of-competition testing.
Meeting the press ahead of the Tour de France, which starts a week on Saturday in Utrecht, Froome was asked his views on Mo Farah, recently revealed to have missed two out-of-competition anti-doping controls in 2010 and 2011.
Under the World Anti-Doping Code, athletes must notify their whereabouts at a set one-hour period each day via the ADAMS system, to allow out-of-competition tests to be carried out.
Three missed tests in a 12-month period is considered an anti-doping rule violation and can lead to a two-year ban.
Froome said: “I have missed a drugs test, earlier this year actually. I had a couple of recovery days and I took my wife down to quite an exclusive hotel down in Italy.
“And on the first morning we were down there the authorities pitched up at 7am and the hotel staff actually wouldn’t give them access to our room and even refused to let them call up to the room.
“So when we came down at 8.30am they said to us: ‘Oh, the anti-doping guys were here to test you this morning but it’s our hotel policy not to let anyone disturb our clients’.
“So that was a hugely frustrating situation for me. I did appeal it and try to explain the circumstances to the authorities but at the end of the day I do take responsibility for that missed test.
“I should have been more proactive in letting the hotel know that this is a possibility that I could be tested. I certainly learnt my lesson there.”
“Obviously I have stayed in hotels all over the world and I have been tested all over the world without any issues at all. Unfortunately I just didn’t see this one coming,” he continued.
“But yeah, it has opened my eyes and I am certainly going to be more proactive in the future. I think it is an athlete’s responsibility to make sure he or she is available for testing.”
As for that earlier missed test in 2010, Froome said: “Again it was careless on my side.”
While most athletes accept that the rules need to be in place, some have criticised the ADAMS system for being too onerous, for example when plans change at the last minute.
But according to the World Anti-Doping Agency, “athletes are ultimately responsible for their whereabouts.
“As a result, they cannot avoid responsibility by blaming their representative or the team for filing inaccurate information about their whereabouts or for not updating their whereabouts if they were not at the location specified by them during the 60-minute time-slot.”
Froome said he believed that missing two tests five years apart was probably not unusual. “I’m quite sure that a lot of guys have missed tests,” he explained. “It is common. But I would say it is unprofessional.”
He is not the first big-name British cyclist to have admitted missing an anti-competition test. In 2012, Mark Cavendish – reigning world champion at the time – confirmed he had missed one the previous year.
In a statement at the time, Cavendish said: “I missed an out-of-competition test last April, it was my mistake.
"I was with a film crew from the BBC and Giro d'Italia on Mount Etna. It was a simple, genuine admin error.
"Of course I totally understand the importance of testing in sport. I was tested by the UCI a couple of weeks before that and twice in the fortnight after and had around 60 tests in all last year.
"It's part of the job. And it's my job to make sure that I don't miss another," he added.
Froome also said he was in favour of night-time testing, identified by the UCI’s Cycling Independent Reform Commission (CIRC) as one way to tackle micro-dosing.
“I would imagine you would probably get a few grumpy people at 2am or 3am, but I would be willing to do it during the Tour de France,” he said.
He is the only current rider who agreed to be identified as having testified to the CIRC when it published its report earlier this year, said it was “disappointing” that so much attention was placed on one anonymous witness’s assertion that 90 per cent of the current peloton is doping – instead, he puts the figure at “Less than five per cent.”
He said: “I would be shocked if more than five per cent of the current peloton was doping. Maybe I am being overly optimistic but I don’t believe that any of my current performances would be possible if people were still doping.”
Simon joined road.cc as news editor in 2009 and is now the site’s community editor, acting as a link between the team producing the content and our readers. A law and languages graduate, published translator and former retail analyst, he has reported on issues as diverse as cycling-related court cases, anti-doping investigations, the latest developments in the bike industry and the sport’s biggest races. Now back in London full-time after 15 years living in Oxford and Cambridge, he loves cycling along the Thames but misses having his former riding buddy, Elodie the miniature schnauzer, in the basket in front of him.
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52 comments
If the athletes were billed for time and travel costs every time a test is missed they might be just a little less careless.
Busted, give it up.
Were all those people who called Lance a cheat until he confessed conspiracy theorists?
Innocent until proven guilty or no smoke without fire?
...... and I thought all the conspiracy theorists were in the US, banging on about the moon landing and Kennedy's death and other half-arsed causes, without as much as a sniff of real evidence. Obviously I was wrong.
Honestly, this is ludicrous.
He was under no obligation to let us all know about his missed tests, most athletes have missed tests. The hotel has a policy, the young guy on the door adheres to it strictly. I can see that happening.
Yesterday, I had a very important parcel that I waited in to sign for, and guess what I somehow (no idea how) didn't hear the knock on the door. It happens. Once is not a cause for suspicion.
THe doubters on here may have suspicions, but it's just wrong to go on and on and on about Sky and froome. The earlier post about Sky going against their own manifesto? Are you referring to the TUE's? They were within the rules. If you disagree with the rules, fine. But that's not Sky's fault.
I'd say you people are ruining the sport as much as the dopers. If they're caught, or there is some genuine proof (Armstrong). In the previous "era" big names were getting caught often. That hasn't happened in a while, can only be a good thing.
IF you hate it this much, go and watch golf.
Can we have a separate website for doping sceptics?
Nope, not referring to TUE's - do your research and you may find Sky are not the squeaky clean team they would have you believe.
However, as you mention the TUE, do you really believe a guy who is so ill that he needs steroids at the start of a top-level 1 week stage race should then be capable of winning that race? The problem with the TUE system is that if you know how to play it, you can dope legally! Nicole Cooke was very critical of the Froome TUE!
Void
Nope, not referring to TUE's - do your research and you may find Sky are not the squeaky clean team they would have you believe.
However, as you mention the TUE, do you really believe a guy who is so ill that he needs steroids at the start of a top-level 1 week stage race should then be capable of winning that race? The problem with the TUE system is that if you how to play it, you can dope legally! Nicole Cooke was very critical of the Froome TUE!
Gosh, I have heard of blind faith, but that is ridiculous. The guy probably never turned up. I waited in for a parcel once. Tracked it online, and then watched in disbelief as the webpage said delivery attempted, and no one had been down our road. We got the delivery firm to confess they never attempted it and didn't bother.
The same can be said of athletes. Why take them at their word? They tell you the story they want you to hear……this is what Lance did. The claims and rebuttals are all the same. As far as I can tell professional sport is full of dopers, just look at how much rugby players have changed. We demand bigger, higher, better, faster, and athletes meet that demand, and drugs give the means…..and they need us to believe it is them and not the drugs. Sport is a pantomime….but it doesn't mean you cannot enjoy it.
Sorry that is not right and just a guess. Coming from a rugby background I can tell you that the guys coming in are bigger and faster than the guys going out and it has stuff all to do with PEDs (that is not to say that rugby like all sports is 100% clean). There are guys at 19-20 years old that are physically the match of guys with 5-10 years on them. It is totally down to professional standards coming in and focused training regimes.
Take a guy like Sarries' Maro Itoje, 20, a spectacular athlete making his mark already and an outside bet to make the RWC final squad. Are you seriously suggesting he got there as a product of some "East German" performance style program? Of course he didn't. He is a product of his school system and the Sarries' academy and competing on equal terms.
Apologists and They're-all-at-it-ists are equally tedious. You have no evidence, your """opinion""" is of no importance. This is not a news story. Obviously winning is 'im-possible' these days or not allowed like a school sports day.
They're all at it. Get over it.
dE - your stance on drugs is known yet when it comes to a certain team you will go on and on about them, very similar to a stalker.
Froome has called for more testing time and time again and all you can come up with he's a drug cheat because he's a good rider and because he misses a test he's a hypocrite.
He was the one who announced it to the press otherwise no one would be any the wiser.
It would be nice to see how many times he has been tested this year but i doubt that would even register with you.
Hidden in plain sight.
Personally I think the recent feats of Team Sky are incredible, in-credible.
I call them out because Brailsford started this team with a biblical-sized manifesto that layed out their ethics and the lengths they would go to to guarantee a clean team and offer transparency so they would be beyond suspicion. This is clearly not the case in reality, and there are numerous examples of where they have blatantly acted against their own manifesto whilst not being transparent about those actions. Not only that, they arrived on the scene in a cloud of arrogance with little or no respect. They set themselves up for a fall, so don't be surprised if they are hounded by the continental press if they get a whiff of suspicion about any Sky rider or the team as a whole!
As for Froome's view on testing - He asked for more testing on Tenerife when other teams had joined the party but not previously when it was a Sky den. He also agreed with Cooke on 24 hour testing, probably in the knowledge that the UCI are not going to roll that out. Perhaps I'm being too cynical, but if Froome believed 100% in these points is it not odd that he is a little bit lax when it comes to making sure he abides by out-of-competition testing rules?
I'd say you are, yes.
I think the hotel story is plausible. He is slightly in the public eye, and paparazzi will use many tricks. Understandable why the hotel wouldn't let them through. It wasn't a training break but a cosy couple of days with his missus. Presumably a hotel known for its privacy rather than bike storage.
Froome said himself it was his error not to inform hotel staff this could happen
I have to say the hotel excuse seems a bit far-fetched to me. It seems implausible to me that a hotel would refuse access to a guest's visitor or even refuse to advise the guest of that visitor's presence ... for an entire hour ... despite the visitor having official ID, equipment and an instruction from the guest detailing the hotel as their location during the appointed hour. Of course, shortly after the appointed hour is over, Froome magically reappears for breakfast.
What if that had been a third missed test? Would Froome now be taking legal action against the hotel for loss of earnings due to their negligence?
As feeble excuses go this one is right up there with JTL's boozy night out.
Spot on! (and Farah's 'didn't hear the door bell')
Stumps - read my comments on drugs and you might see what my stance on doping is - what I can't stand are holier-than-thou hypocrites!
Spot on! (and Farah's 'didn't hear the door bell')
Stumps - read my comments on drugs and you might see what my stance on doping is - what I can't stand are holier-than-thou hypocrites!
So what he missed a test.
Has he done anything wrong - simple answer is no.
Has it been proved he's a drug cheat - simple answer no.
Yet some people still go on and on and on about him.
Mind you it makes you laugh when certain people are sooooo anti drugs yet their forum name is after a massive drugs abuser....
The correct "simple answer" to this question is "no one knows".
I have never seen comparable stores for Spanish riders. Infact the only stories I have seen of anyone (any sport) missing an allowable number of out of competition tests have been for brits
I have spoken to Italians who actually know NOTHING about cycling or have the slightest interest! Hard to believe I know.
I think its because
1. He is riding for Britain, above all reproach
2. He seems to advocate even more testing than already being used( unless he has mastered minded doping-doubt it see Armstrong)
3.I haven't seen that many other Spanish or other riders proposing even more rigorous testing- happy to be disproved
So he told the testers where he would be, and when, and he was there.
Had he told reception "if they come to test me, don't let them up' that would be story.
Would he risk them actually allowing them in if was up to something dodgy, I don't think so.
Seems like a simple error to me.
Interesting how quick people are to defend Froome but get the knives out, particularly, for the Spanish riders.
Given the Operación Puerto kick it in the long grass, circle the wagons debacle probably not so surprising and not just cyclists either, certain tennis and footballer stars too.
seems borderline malicious from the hotel to me.
'oh the drugs testers were here, but we wouldn't let them disturb you' I wonder if they would had the same response for an Italian athlete.
Like Mulder from the X Files "I want to believe"...
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