Adam Hansen, head of the professional riders' union, says riders are “100 per cent against” the use of a “power data passport” to catch dopers.
Speaking on the Domestique Hotseat podcast, Hansen says that while the scheme is being trialled on a voluntary basis, he sees a slew of issues.
These include the potential for power meters and bike computers to malfunction, or to simply run out of battery mid-ride, as well as the fact that riders' training plans – and therefore the power they produce on a bike – will naturally vary substantially during a season.
Ultimately, Hansen has a bucket load of apparently unanswered questions about the scheme. He says: “This just adds to the extra stress for the athletes. To me, it’s just getting too much.”
A new longitudinal performance-monitoring tool
According to the sport’s governing body, the UCI, the International Testing Agency (ITA) is “developing a new longitudinal performance monitoring tool based on power data from men professional road riders”.
The scheme was quietly announced a few days before the start of the 2025 Tour de France, and has received limited attention until now.
According to Hansen, the new power-based scheme will require athletes to “submit all their power data” for the anti-doping authorities to scrutinise.
Hansen says: “If they [the ITA] see things that are irregular then they’ll do more target testing, or maybe in the future this could also mean a sanction.”
For Hansen, this is where the problems arise because he says unanswered questions remain over what happens if riders don’t submit their power data – whether intentionally or because of technical issues such as a bike computer that is broken, lost or simply runs out of battery mid-ride.
“There’s so many factors where a rider just won’t have his training [data], and if he can’t submit it, is that a missed [doping] control? Because a missed control is very severe.”
“It’s getting too much”
Hansen says the proposed scheme is being trialled with four professional teams during the 2026 season, in addition to existing tools such as post-race anti-doping controls, the Whereabouts system and the athlete biological passport.
“This just adds extra stress to the athletes. To me, it’s just getting too much – and that’s why you see these younger guys are just burning out. They can’t survive.”
Extra stress aside, Hansen also says the proposed scheme is flawed because “there are so many variables” that can affect a rider’s power output from day to day.
These include what training they’ve been prescribed, or have done during previous days, how well they’ve slept, whether they’ve had caffeine before training, and so on.
As for what he’d like to see done to combat doping in professional cycling, Hansen says “they should improve the testing for banned substances” because that would create less stress for the riders.
