Emanuel Sella is the latest cyclist to be found guilty of using CERA, the third generation EPO drug, it was reported.

The Societa CSF Gruppo Navigare rider has been banned for one year by the Italian Olympic Committee’s (CONI) anti-doping office after being caught in an out-of-competition test taken on July 23.

A one-year ban was handed down, instead of two, after the rider admitted his guilt and -operated with the court during his trial in August, ANSA news agency reported.

Sella was the surprise package of the 2008 Giro d’Italia, winning three climbing stages and the time trial at Plan de Corones.

However, he is the latest rider to fail a test for CERA, which has also snared Tour de France third Bernard Kohl and Riccardo Ricco, Leonardo Piepoli and Stefan Schumacher.

In September, Tour de France officials announced they would be retesting samples for CERA, with the International Olympic Committee following suit in October.

CERA is new variation of exogenous erythropoietin, or EPO. EPO is anemia-fighting agent and works by promoting production of red blood cells. CERA has been approved for therapeutic use in 2007 and its illegal use as a performance-enhancing drug was first documented during the 2008 Tour de France in the incidents involving Kohl, Ricco, and Piepoli.

Testing for CERA via urine samples reportedly lack validity because the compound does not pass through the kidneys.

In September, however, French doping officials came up with a blood-based doping control, which is found to be more accurate in testing for this EPO variant. French sports officials later announced that they will implement retroactive testing for 2008 Tour de France participants. Subsequently, the International Olympic Committee declared they will also be retesting samples taken from the participants of the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

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This 2008 Tour de France’s riders might have crossed the finished lines several weeks ago, but it looks like the rigors of the race is not yet over. The rigors of Tour de France drug screening, that is.

Retroactive testing for the new generation blood booster CERA, or Continuous Erythopoiesis Receptor Activator, is now being carried out by French laboratories. So far, two riders were caught using the banned compound since the retroactive testing was implemented. It was announced on Monday that Italy’s Leonardo Piepoli and Germany’s Stefan Schumacher both tested positive for CERA.  And race officials are expecting more positive tests in the coming weeks.

“The tests are still underway, they are not all done yet,” French Anti-Doping Agency (AFLD) head Pierre Bordry told Reuters on Wednesday.

“I imagine there could be one or two more cases,” race director Christian Prudhomme added, in a week when two Tour riders were exposed as drugs cheats.

Italian rider Riccardo Ricco was suspected of taking CERA when the race was still underway in July and was subsequently sent home. Spanish riders Manuel Beltran and Moises Dueňas, tested positive for EPO, and were also sent packing.

Why the late screening?

“People in the street ask me: ‘How did that come out so late?”‘ Prudhomme said. “In July, the process wasn’t legitimate at the time … These tests are of a new type.”

There are two labs which are currently testing the samples from all of the riders who competed in this year’s race.

The Chatenay-Malabry laboratory, which has developed a more effective blood test to find this EPO variant, and a WADA-approved Lausanne facility are testing blood samples. CERA is difficult to detect through urine samples.

“We are testing samples from July 3, 4 and 15,” Bordry said, adding there was no room for error.

“They are all tested by the Chatenay-Malabry lab, which is the official AFLD lab, but also in Lausanne, as a guarantee.”

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The International Olympic Committee plans to take the same track Tour de France has taken. IOC says blood samples taken at the Beijing Olympics are to be reanalyzed for the EPO (erythropoietin) variant CERA, or Continuous Erythropoiesis Receptor Activator.

Oh, we can almost hear Beijing Olympic dopers singing, “Que sera, sera (whatever will be, will be),” as their fates now rest on the hands of the anti-doping officials. From ABS-CBN:

The IOC’s announcement comes 48 hours after reanalyzed samples from the Tour de France using the latest technology unearthed two drug cheats - Germany’s Stefan Schumacher, a double stage winner on this year’s race, and Italian Leonardo Piepoli.

IOC spokesman Emmanuelle Moreau told AFP: “This is part of our normal procedure. We keep the samples for eight years and whenever a new test arrives we carry out new tests.”

The CERA form of EPO was detected for the first time at this year’s Tour in the sample of Italian cyclist Riccardo Ricco with a full test developed to combat it by the French laboratory at Chatenay-Malabry.

The laboratory is currently retroactively checking 15 samples from this year’s Tour with two of those producing Schumacher and Piepoli’s positive tests.

It was that double success that “prompted the IOC to retest samples from Beijing,” explained Moreau.

The IOC is now in the process of moving all the Beijing samples to its headquarters in Lausanne before finalizing the conditions and timing of the new tests.

“A joint IOC/WADA (World Anti-Doping Agency) commission is going to decide the procedure,” Moreau said.

At the recently concluded Summer Olympics in Beijing, over 1,000 blood samples were taken from participants as part of over 5,000 anti-doping screenings. Testing for CERA is found more effective using blood samples than urine samples.

Over 1,000 blood samples were taken at the Games as part of over 5,000 anti-doping controls. IOC officials bannered the 2008 Beijing Games as one of the ‘cleanest’ in the history of modern Olympics.

Although more than a dozen athletes were tested positive for illegal substances in the months leading up to the Beijing Olympics, only six athletes tested positive for banned compounds when the Beijing Olympics went underway. Spanish cyclist Maria Isobel Moreno was the first athlete to be ejected from the Games when she tested positive for EPO. The other athletes tested positive either for anabolic steroids or other performance-enhancing drugs.

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