Chris Froome is free to race at the Tour de France this year after cycling's world governing body closed a doping case against him.
So what does the news mean for him, the Tour, cycling and sport’s entire anti-doping system.
Q: What has been announced?
A: Confirmation from cycling’s governing body the UCI that it will not charge Froome with an anti-doping rule violation (ADRV) after his adverse analytical finding (AAF) for the asthma drug salbutamol at last September’s Vuelta a Espana.
Q: Hold on, that is a lot of acronyms – what do they mean?
A: Salbutamol is what the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA, sorry, bear with us) calls a specified drug. That means it is not completely banned, like an anabolic steroid, but is allowed up to a certain amount. These drugs are mainly asthma medications and the thresholds are based on what you would expect to find in a urine sample if an athlete was using them for purely therapeutic reasons – the amount a doctor would advise for treating asthma and not any larger dosage that could have performance-enhancing effects.
Q: So what happened with Froome?
A: On his way to winning the 2017 Vuelta, Froome returned a sample after the 18th stage that contained twice the allowed amount – 2,000 nanograms per millilitre (ng/ml), as opposed to the limit of 1,000 ng/ml.
As mentioned, WADA has set this limit on the basis of what you would expect to find if somebody took no more than 1,600 micrograms of salbutamol in 24 hours, or 800 micrograms in 12 hours. This equates to 16 puffs on an adult inhaler a day, or eight in half a day.
Q: Wait, he was double the limit?
A: Yes, but this is where it gets even more complicated. As it was the third week of a long and arduous bike race, he was clearly dehydrated, so the sample’s “specific gravity” was corrected to a number just over 1,400ng/ml. Still significantly over but now much closer to WADA’s so-called “decision limit” of 1,200 ng/ml – a ‘wiggle-room’ threshold that acknowledges some people can sometimes take a permitted amount of puffs and still breach the 1,000 ng/ml ceiling.
Q: The limit is not really a limit, then?
A: Well, if it ever was it certainly will not be any more. Because what Froome, Team Sky and their no-expense-spared legal and scientific team have done over the last nine months is collect as much evidence as they can about how his body secretes the drug, what impact dehydration/illness/stress can have and, most importantly, how common it is for athletes in Froome’s situation to exceed that limit. Which brings us to this latest news again.
Q: Right...remind me?
A: That the UCI’s anti-doping division has looked at the mountain of evidence Froome’s team provided on June 4th (which is understood to include every other sample he gave during that race and others, as well as a salbutamol study based on dogs), sent it to WADA for guidance and then decided it cannot proceed to an ADRV. Case closed.
Q: That’s it?
A: As far as Froome and Team Sky are concerned, yes. They have put out a statement to say they welcome the decision and feel fully vindicated by it, as they always predicted they would.
The timing is remarkable, as the Tour de France’s organisers ASO had decided not to invite him to this year’s race, invoking their rule about not damaging their image. Sky had already lodged an appeal against that decision and a hearing is scheduled in France on Tuesday. They would have probably won anyway but the UCI verdict makes it a certainty.
So he will line up in Noirmoutier-en-L’Ile on Saturday, aiming to join Jacques Anquetil, Bernard Hinault, Miguel Indurain and Eddy Merckx as the only riders to have won the Tour five times. Now 33, he will also be chasing Merckx’s record of a fourth straight Grand Tour win, having won last year’s Tour and Vuelta, and this year’s Giro d’Italia.
Q: And how will this be greeted elsewhere?
A: This is an unmitigated disaster for WADA. Its salbutamol policy is in tatters. It may also face several claims for compensation from athletes who were given bans for samples containing a lot less salbutamol than Froome’s.
It is not a great chapter for the UCI, either.
This case should have been dealt with in private but it was leaked to the media and the controversy has overshadowed the entire season. Many in the sport felt Froome should have sat out while this was being dealt with but he rode on.
And the fact he has not been charged will not satisfy his and his team’s detractors. Froome and Sky have grown used to being given a hostile roadside reception in France, particularly on those thirsty days in the mountains, where sun-cooked fans get very close to the riders. That is where and when we will get the verdict from the court of public opinion.
