Nairo Quintana's Arkea-Samsic team under investigation over alleged doping at Tour

The French-based Arkea-Samsic team, led by former Giro d’Italia and Vuelta a España champion Nairo Quintana at this year’s Tour de France, is under preliminary investigation for suspicion of doping practices after the team’s hotel in Méribel was searched by public health officers last Wednesday.

The prosecutor Dominique Laurens in Marseille confirmed on Monday that an inquiry had been opened and cited the “discovery of many health products, including drugs and especially a method that could be qualified as doping”. The newspaper Le Parisien reported that one of the team’s two doctors and a Spanish physiotherapist were taken into custody on Monday morning, while Quintana and his brother and teammate, Dayer, were also said to have been interviewed.

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Further reports by Le Parisien also stated that what was described as “100ml of saline and injection equipment” were found by public health officers during the search. Laurens stated that the investigation focussed on the “prescription to an athlete without medical justification of a prohibited substance or method within the framework of a sports event, aid in the use and encouragement to use a substance or method prohibited to athletes, transport and possession of substance or method prohibited for use by an athlete without medical justification”.

The inquiry, Arkea-Samsic general manager Emmanuel Hubert maintained, “concerned only a very limited number of riders, as well as their close entourage, not employed by the team. The team, its general manager as well as its staff, are absolutely not questioned and consequently are not kept informed of any element relating to the progress of the investigation, which is not targeting either the team or its staff directly. If it turns out that at the end of the current investigation, elements confirm the veracity of doping practices, the team will immediately dissociate itself from such acts.”

Hubert added that his team, as members of the MPCC (Movement For Credible Cycling), “has always demonstrated its commitment to ethics and taken a stand in favour of the fight against doping”.

Quintana finished second overall in the 2013 and 2015 Tours and third overall in 2016, on each occasion to Chris Froome. He won the 2014 Giro d’Italia and 2016 Vuelta a España.

The 2020 Tour was won by Tadej Pogacar, riding for UAE Team Emirates, who took the yellow jersey to Paris following a remarkable turnaround in Saturday’s pivotal time trial in which the 22-year-old usurped his Slovenian compatriot Primoz Roglic, of the Jumbo Visma team.