Why Are Tour de France Riders Being Woken Up at 2am for Drug Tests?

Riders at the 2026 Tour de France are being woken up in the middle of the night for surprise drug tests. Top cyclists like Tadej Pogačar and Jonas Vingegaard were knocked on their hotel room doors as early as 2am and 5am. Officials are checking whether riders are using banned substances to help them race faster. This is the first time ever that these late-night tests have been used at the Tour de France.

Pogačar, who is on track to win his fifth Tour de France title, was woken at 5am on Sunday morning by a drug-testing officer. His biggest rival, Vingegaard, was tested at 2am the same night. Later that day, Vingegaard crashed out of the race with a broken collarbone. Some people wondered if losing sleep made him more likely to crash, though there is no proof of that.

Riders from at least five teams have been tested in the middle of the night during this year's race. Cyclist Matej Mohorič confirmed he was also tested at 5am. The results of these tests have not been made public. Test results are only shared if a rider tests positive for a banned substance.

So why test riders at night? Anti-doping officials believe some athletes may be 'micro-dosing.' This means taking tiny amounts of a banned drug — just enough to boost performance, but small enough to leave the body within a few hours. If a rider takes a banned drug at midnight, it might not show up in a morning test. Testing at 2am makes it much harder to cheat this way.

To test a rider between 11pm and 6am, anti-doping agencies need special permission. They must get approval from the World Anti-Doping Agency, also called WADA, and a local judge. The rules say this permission can only be given if there is 'serious and specific suspicion' that a rider might be doping. Officials from the International Testing Agency (ITA) asked for this permission before the race even started.

Not all cyclists are happy about being woken up. Rider Remco Evenepoel called the nighttime tests 'pretty disrespectful' and 'inhumane.' He said sleep is the only way riders can recover during a three-week race. Pogačar said he accepts the tests if they help prove riders are racing clean, but added that losing sleep during the Tour is really tough.

The riders' union, called the Professional Cyclists Association (CPA), said it questions whether nighttime tests are a good idea. Its president, Adam Hansen, said more tests are not the answer. He believes the money should instead be spent on better lab equipment to find cheats more effectively. Cycling already pays about €10 million every year toward anti-doping efforts.

Not everyone is against the nighttime tests, though. Jonathan Vaughters, a team manager who admitted to using the banned drug EPO as a rider in 2001, strongly supports them. He said that if officials had tested riders at 2am back then, many cyclists would have been caught and the sport could have been cleaned up much sooner. He even said he owes an apology to today's riders for what his generation did.

On Monday evening, all 165 riders still in the race were tested at the same time between 8pm and 11pm. Each rider gave a blood sample for a program called the Athlete Biological Passport, or ABP. This program tracks changes in a rider's blood over time to spot signs of cheating. All 184 riders who started the race also gave blood samples two days before the Tour began.

If a rider does test positive, they and their team are told right away. Some banned substances might allow a rider to keep competing while their case is reviewed. Others lead to an immediate suspension. Officials say results from tests taken at Stage 15 and beyond might not be made public until after the race ends in Paris.