Geneviève Jeanson

Geneviève Jeanson

Jeanson at the 2002 Women's Challenge
Personal information
Full name	Geneviève Jeanson
Born	August 29, 1981 (1981-08-29) (age 30)  Canada
Team information
Discipline	Road
Role	Rider
Infobox last updated on September 7, 2008

Geneviève Jeanson (born on August 29, 1981 in Lachine, Quebec) is a former professional bicycle racer from Quebec, Canada. She won the world junior road and time trial championships in 1999 and the Tour de Snowy in 2000. Later that year she won La Flèche Wallonne World Cup race. She joined the Canadian Olympic team that year. She acknowledged in a documentary on Radio-Canada (the French-language CBC) on September 20, 2007, that she had taken EPO more or less continuously since 16.^[1]

She now resides in Phoenix, Arizona.

Contents 1 2000 Olympic selection 2 2000 Olympics 3 2001 racing 4 Hematocrit (HC) level 5 2005 Tour de 'Toona 6 Palmares 7 See also 8 References 9 External links

2000 Olympic selection

Controversy dogged Jeanson throughout her career. Before the Olympics in 2000, she was accused of seeking special treatment by wanting an exemption from Olympic selection rules adopted by the Canadian Cycling Association. She said the procedure considered cumulative results for 1999 and 2000 but that she had raced as a junior in 1999 and could not achieve the results needed for selection. She and the Canadian Cycling Federation agreed that she would qualify for the Olympic selection race if she could finish in the top eight of two of five selected races.^[2] This she did by winning the Tour de Snowy and La Flèche Wallonne. Then, in July 2000, she qualified by finishing ahead of the other candidates in the Canadian Road Cycling Championship.

2000 Olympics

Controversy followed her to the Olympics. Towards the end of the road race, her teammate Lyne Bessette was in a break. Jeanson's detractors maintain that, on instructions from her coach, André Aubut, Jeanson helped chase the break and denied her teammate an opportunity to win a medal. Jeanson's defenders said she had ridden near the front as expected of a teammate trying to break the chase, and moved forward only to close a small gap when the break was almost caught.

2001 racing

In 2001, she won four of five stages at Redlands, winning overall by nearly 10 minutes, an unprecedented margin. Then, at the Tour of the Gila in early May, she won four of five stages and the overall victory, this time by an unprecedented 15 minutes. On some stages she broke away early and rode alone the rest of the way. In early June, she won the Montreal World Cup, lapping most of the field and winning by more than seven minutes.

Hematocrit (HC) level

In late 2003, while with the national team preparing for the world championships in Hamilton, Ontario, Jeanson had a hematocrit level (a measure of red cells in the blood) above the limit and was not allowed to race for two weeks. She missed the championships. Jeanson blamed the finding on an oxygen tent used as part of her training. Subsequent doping tests were negative.

2005 Tour de 'Toona

On 25 July 2005, at the Tour de 'Toona stage race in Pennsylvania, Jeanson had an out-of-competition test. Jeanson said months later that she tested positive for EPO, a banned substance. She denied taking a banned substance but in January 2006 she announced her retirement. On November 28, 2006, the United States Anti-Doping Agency said she had accepted a two-year suspension from 25 July 2005, the day her sample was taken.

In an interview on Cyclingnews.com on 20 December 2006, Jeanson said that although she could race again from mid-July 2007, she "won't race ever again." She said she had "changed so much this past year that I have a hard time imagining who I was before.". She finally admitted to doping to a French CBC journalist.^[3] She is currently residing in Phoenix, Arizona and is not planning on a return to professional cycling.

Palmares

See also

• List of doping cases in cycling
• List of sportspeople sanctioned for doping offences

References

1. ^ "Canadian cyclist Jeanson admits to doping". CBC. September 20, 2007. http://www.cbc.ca/sports/story/2007/09/20/jeanson-doping.html. Retrieved 2007-09-20. 
2. ^ "Jeanson gets shot at Olympic team". Canoe. http://www.canoe.ca/2000GamesJeanson/jeanson_99dec15.html. Retrieved 2007-09-20. 
3. ^ "Canadian cyclist Jeanson admits to doping". CBC. September 20, 2007. http://www.cbc.ca/sports/story/2007/09/20/jeanson-doping.html. Retrieved 2007-09-20. 

External links

• A fan site in French.
• Terse biography on Canoe
• Interview on Cycling News
• Toronto Star article on Jeanson lifetime suspension
• La Presse article on Jeanson's lifetime suspension (in French)
• USADA announces 2-year suspension November 28, 2006
• Velo News article on USADA action in re Jeanson
• Cyclingnews article by Matthew Hansen where Jeanson announces she will never return to cycling

Persondata
Name	Jeanson, Genevieve
Alternative names
Short description	Canadian racing cyclist
Date of birth	1981-08-29
Place of birth
Date of death
Place of death