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Two-year doping ban for Thomas Dekker

Rider who failed retest before last year's Tour de France calls EPO use a one-off "mistake"...

The 25-year-old Dutch cyclist Thomas Dekker has been banned for two years by the Monaco cycling federation (FMC), the body which holds the license of the cyclist, according to press reports in the Netherlands.

Dekker was suspended by Silence-Lotto shortly just days before last year’s Tour de France got under way in Monaco after it was revealed that traces of a previously undetectable type of EPO had been discovered in the re-test of a sample originally taken from the rider in December 2007, when he was still with Rabobank.

The rider had been singled out for retesting as a result of perceived abnormalities in data analyse under the UCI’s biological passport scheme, suspicions that turned out to be correct.

Rabobank itself had evidently had doubts over Dekker, leaving him out of its team for the 2008 Tour de France due to “abnormal blood values” in samples taken during that year’s Tour de Suisse from the rider, who had previously admitted being a client of Michele Ferrari, the Italian doctor who has been linked to allegations of doping.

The Dutch cyclist originally denied using performance-enhancing substances, but confessed after his B sample also proved positive, saying that he had used EPO once – although the abnormal data in his biological passport contradict that – and that it had been “a mistake” but he was nevertheless sacked by Silence-Lotto.

Dekker’s two-year ban has been backdated to commence at the time his A sample was retested last summer, although even if he did find a team willing to take him on should he return to the sport in 2011, it’s unlikely that Tour de France organisers would welcome him back with open arms given the shadow his failed test cast over last year’s Grand Départ.

 

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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2 comments

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Zaskar | 14 years ago
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Has anybody looked at drugs like Epoxygen inserting EPO producing genes into muscle cells?

Maybe life ban would scare off athletes using the drugs instead of 2 years of training...

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Zaskar | 14 years ago
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This is handy info  39

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