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news
UCI checking Tinkoff bike for hidden motor (source Facebook video still).JPGMechanical doping: French cyclist who used hidden motor in Cat-3 race receives five-year ban
A French cyclist who was caught using a hidden motor in a Category-3 race last October has received a five-year ban from racing.
Cyril Fontaine, aged 43, will also be barred from holding a licence for the same period after the national disciplinary commission of the French Cycling Federation (FFC) found him guilty of technological fraud, reports Le Figaro.
The rider’s bike had been specifically targeted by France’s national anti-doping agency, the Agence française de lutte contre le dopage (AFLD), for testing for a hidden motor after a dramatic improvement in his results.
The hidden motor was discovered on 1 October at a race in the Dordogne, the Grand Prix de Saint-Michel-de-Double.
> Amateur rider reportedly caught using hidden motor in French Race
The control was carried out by gendarmes accompanied by AFLD regional representative Christophe Bassons, who gave up his career as a professional cyclist after being frozen out of the sport when he suggested that Lance Armstrong was doping.
According to a report in December in French satirical newspaper Le Canard Enchainé, which also has a strong record in investigative journalism, magistrates from a specialist anti-fraud unit based in Paris are currently investigating allegations that hidden motors are being used by riders at the highest levels of the sport.
> Top magistrates in France reportedly investigating motor doping
In August last year, a hidden motor was found in a bike belonging to Italian amateur rider Alessandro Andreoli, aged 53, after he finished third in a race near Bergamo, Lombardy.
> Italian amateur accused of motor doping has a string of excuses
In April 2016, Belgian rider Femke van den Driessche, then aged 19, was banned for six years after a concealed motor was discovered in a bike prepared for her for the under-23 women’s race at the UCI Cyclo-cross World Championships earlier in the year.
> Mechanical doping: Six-year ban for Femke Van den Driessche
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.
Latest Comments
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Stuff like this seems more relevant than ever after the Trump victory. sorry not a funny
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Pog having just found out it's chips for tea tonight maybe?
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More likely the telling phrase is " In 2015, it was sold to private equity firm TZP Group" Hedge fund bell-ends with more lawyers than sense...
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Spaghetti Junctions from around the world American ones seem the craziest.
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If I sell my Park Tool truing stand I can afford ten percent of one these front wheels. Result!
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Certainly can't be as bad as those carbon monoxide alarms - I always get a headache from their loud beeping
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Citation needed - or could it be that it's actually because they are regularly associating with criminals (the ones you point out - perhaps at the...
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8 comments
Mechanical cheating needs a serious deterrent such as a mandatory ban for racing of 10 years.
Why even bother...?
I think that this was the guy who raced for crisps and sausages as prizes?
He must have been very hungry to be driven to this.
I hope he won, otherwise that was a real waste of time and money.
Oh, the goings on.
Scuse my ignorance, but is a French Cat 3 race the same as a British cat 3 race? In which case it seems a hell of a lot of trouble to go to to win a few quid and some points.
I believe it's similar. Certainly not worth either the cost of the motor or the penalty but cheats don't always make sense.
... or he was given a wedge by a UCI Pro Tour team to test out some new tech. And if he gets caught, who cares? It's just as likely as anything else these days!