Top SA Cyclist Admits To Doping Charge

The South African Institute for Drug-Free Sport (SAIDS) has charged professional cyclist, Kevin Evans, with doping after identifying serious irregularities in his Athlete Biological Passport (ABP) - a profile of the athlete’s blood parameters*.

The SAIDS’s Expert Panel and an independent, international ABP expert reviewed Evans' blood profile and unanimously concluded that the profile was indicative of doping.

Kevin Evans of Nedbank 360Life drives the pace on the third and final stage of the 2012 sani2c, presented by BoE Private Clients. Evans and team-mate David George took their second shared victory in the three-day mountain bike race, which started in Underberg on Thursday and finished in Scottburgh on the KwaZulu-Natal South Coast on Saturday..Photo by
Image by: Coetzee Gouws / Full Stop Communications / Gallo Images

As per the ABP regulations, the athlete was afforded an opportunity to provide documented medical evidence that could explain the irregularities in his blood profile.

Evans accepted the charge of doping and did not contest the findings.

The ABP is a longitudinal analysis and the suspicious readings were identified over a period of time therefore the athlete’s results extending back to March 14, 2014 will be recommended to Cycling SA for disqualification.

He will be banned from sport for four years as of March 4, 2015. The athlete has indicated that he has retired from professional cycling.

Evans, from Plettenberg Bay, has been one of South Africa’s foremost mountain bikers in recent years.

He represented his country at the mountain bike World Championships each year from 2003-2012, either in the Marathon or Cross Country discipline.

Evans also won the South African National Marathon Series title for six consecutive years and contested 10 Cape Epics, finishing on the final overall podium four times.

* WADA has explained the ABP as follows: “The fundamental principle of the ABP is to monitor selected biological variables over time that indirectly reveal the effects of doping rather than attempting to detect the doping substance or method itself,” explains the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA). In other words, a variety of tests are conducted over time (longitudinal profile) to establish an individual athlete’s biological parameters.