They can and do test for EPO in SA. But not often enough and possibly not yet for CERA. It's all budget related. More funds = more testing. Local Pro teams that really want to make a difference should be making donations to the Institute for Drug-free Sport which is SA's independent drug-testing organisation. This from a late 2007 news story I wrote: According to Fahmy Galant, Acting CEO of the SA Institute for Drug-Free Sport, funding is the most significant limiting factor to there being more widespread testing, not only in cycling, but all sports in South Africa. ?We allocate budgets each year to various sports, depending on certain factors such as the risk levels and the doping history of that sport. For 2007, we allocated R345000 to cycling.? This figure is relatively small when one considers that a standard drug test costs approximately R1800. Add in the R1500 test for EPO (a blood oxygen booster popular in endurance sports) and you have R3300. That?s only 150 standard tests and 50 EPO tests. There are more than 1000 cycle races on the annual calendar, excluding track cycling and BMX racing.
