Hamburg - Tour de France doping samples will be retested for illegal own blood transfusions which could reveal further drug cheats at the famed race. The head of the French anti-doping agency AFLD, Pierre Bordry, told German state network ZDF on Wednesday that a new test to detect this illegal method is currently being developed.
He said that samples from around 30 riders, who had abnormal blood levels at the start of the July race, will be retested.
"We have already received strong hints of own blood doping cases. We won't be able to say until a later date whom that involves," Bordry told ZDF.
"Soon we will be able to detect own blood transfusions and we will then conduct the retests."
The statement came after retests for CERA (Continuous Erythropoiesis Receptor Activator), saw three riders test positive for this latest generation of the blood booster EPO: Riccardo Ricci, Leonardo Piepolo (both Italy) and Stefan Schumacher (Germany).
Ricco already tested positive for CERA during the Tour and is banned from competition.
The newly developed CERA test was also conducted among the riders with abnormal levels. The AFLD was responsible for the anti-doping programme at the 2008 Tour.
The new CERA test also prompted the International Olympic Committee to order retests of the samples gathered at cycling and all other sports at the Beijing Games.
"The IOC intends to retest the samples collected this summer during the Olympic Games in Beijing. Substances that will be tested for across all sports include EPO CERA," IOC spokeswoman Emmanuelle Moreau told Deutsche Presse-Agentur
