CYCLING TOUR DE FRANCE:AS THE Tour de France riders set out on the 16th stage today, the 157 kilometres from Cuneo to Jausiers, they do so having been given further evidence of a new approach to drug-testing in this year's race.

A late-night visit on Sunday by the Italian Olympic Committee (CONI) to the hotel of the new yellow jersey, Frank Schleck, illustrated the change, which has been marked, according to one insider, "by its unpredictability in terms of who and when they test, and by the fact they're being very smart and targeting people".

This year the drug-testing is being carried out not as in the past by cycling's world governing body, but by the French Anti-Doping Agency (AFLD).

Yet the surprise appearance of CONI anti-doping officers reinforces the opinion that unpredictability is the key. Having tested Schleck and five other riders on Sunday evening, CONI said during yesterday's rest day its visit was pre-arranged with the AFLD.

In the first two weeks of the Tour there have been three positives, equalling the previous record for an entire Tour, set last year, but the expectation is that there will be more - possibly today, the laboratories having returned to work yesterday after the weekend.

The race director, Christian Prudhomme, predicted at the weekend there might well be a fourth and fifth positive, though he seemed not so much resigned as relaxed and described those doping as "dead men walking".

All of which reinforces the impression the testers are being as clandestine as the dopers - and suggests that, if forewarning is equivalent to forearming, what might be happening is the disarmament of at least some cheats.

Jonathan Vaughters, director of the Garmin team, is among those who have welcomed the new approach and commended the AFLD.

For perhaps the first time there is the suggestion that - with regard to at least one new substance - the testers have edged ahead of the cheats. For example, when it was announced last Thursday that Riccardo Ricco, the double stage winner, had tested positive, a rumour followed that it was for "third-generation" EPO.

It was then speculated that the other two riders expelled, Manuel Beltran and Moises Duenas, had also been caught using third-generation EPO. Vaughters observed that those riders might have used the product believing it was undetectable.

They were not the only ones. Michel Audran, a leading expert on blood doping, also expressed surprise. He did not think a test for third-generation EPO had been validated by the World Anti-Doping Agency, leading him to speculate the product must have been found on Ricco's person, rather than in his urine or blood.

First-generation erythropoietin (EPO) was developed in the mid-1980s and synthesised from animal cells. This EPO was markedly different from naturally produced erythropoietin - a hormone generated by the kidneys and liver to regulate the production of red blood cells - and is easy to detect in a urine test that was developed in 2000.

Second-generation EPO followed. Since it is manufactured in human cell cultures, it is more difficult to detect, though at the 2002 Winter Olympics three cross-country skiers were disqualified after a newly developed test revealed the presence of darbepoetin, or second-generation EPO.

Third-generation EPO, known as continuous erythropoietin receptor activator (CERA), has been described as "delayed action EPO", requiring a dose every month rather than every few days.

Yesterday, Frederic Donze of the World Anti-Doping Agency, explained that a new test had been developed in collaboration with Roche, the Swiss pharmaceutical company that manufactures a commercially available brand.

"We've been working with Roche since 2004," said Donze. "Part of our work is based on intelligence, and finding ways to detect substances before they come on the market is part of that. In this way we can anticipate doping trends.

"We are trying now to cooperate with pharmaceutical companies at a very early stage in the development of new products."

Asked whether there could be other new tests deployed at the Beijing Olympics, Donze said, "That may be the case but of course it's not in our interests to reveal everything we're doing in terms of research and developing tests.

"The dopers," he pointed out, "don't inform us of what they're doing."

Guardian Service