Cycling: Manzano reveals team's 'drugs arsenal'

A second round of declarations by the former Spanish professional rider Jesus Manzano have outlined in detail both the huge arsenal of banned substances he claims were used regularly in his team, CV- Kelme, as well as the methods employed by riders to avoid detection in health checks.

A second round of declarations by the former Spanish professional rider Jesus Manzano have outlined in detail both the huge arsenal of banned substances he claims were used regularly in his team, CV- Kelme, as well as the methods employed by riders to avoid detection in health checks.

In a four-page interview with the Spanish sports daily AS, Manzano insisted: "If a rider is preparing for a major Tour, he will be taking EPO [a banned product which increases red blood cell levels] every day."

The rider then goes on to list a huge number of banned products, ranging from human growth hormone to animal growth hormone, corticoids and testosterone, complete with prices and methods used in their application, all of which he claims to have used at one point or another in his four-year career.

"If it weren't for all of this, I don't believe any of the major Tours would be run off at average speeds of over 40kmph," Manzano, who rode both the Tour de France and the Tour of Spain, asserted.

Manzano also denounced what he believed to be a deliberate policy by cycling's governing body, the UCI, to minimalise the number of riders providing anomalies in their health checks. "They always start their tests with the riders that they know will give the lowest hematocrit values" - which, when high, is considered to be an indicator, if not proof, of doping. "The other riders use the time lapse to take human albumen and glucose, substances which bring those values down," Manzano said.

The team itself continues to deny categorically that any of Manzano's claims could be true. The UCI's reaction was to describe it as "a massacre of the sport". However, the decision yesterday by both the Tours of Italy and France to reserve the right to admit CV-Kelme to their events this year is an indication of just how seriously the race organisers are treating this massive scandal.

Alasdair Fotheringham writes for Cycling Weekly