"Pogacar and Vingegaard face possible doping suspicions."

The overnight doping tests carried out on Tadej Pogačar and Jonas Vingegaard before the 15th stage of the 2026 Tour de France were authorised by a Judge of Liberty and Detention at the Paris court. This exceptional measure, requested by the International Testing Agency (ITA), was applied for the first time in the history of the Grande Boucle since the introduction of specific regulations in 2015. The surprise tests took place in the middle of the night: at 2 a.m. for the Dane of Visma | Lease a Bike and at 5 a.m. for the Slovenian of UAE Team Emirates XRG.

As reported by L'Équipe and confirmed by the Paris prosecutor's office, the procedure strictly followed Article L.232-14-4 of the French Sports Code. Since this is a drastic restriction on the athlete's rights, comparable to a criminal search, the law requires extremely stringent criteria: the presence of serious and consistent suspicions of a violation of anti-doping rules ; the identification of a real risk of loss of evidence; and compliance with the strict proportionality between the restrictions and the objectives of health protection and fair competition. The public health departments of the French courts are constantly cooperating with the UCI and the ITA during the event. This ensures that the magistrates of Paris and Marseille maintain concurrent jurisdiction to rule as quickly as possible on requests for nighttime testing to protect the sport.