Show caption The Tour de France leaders ride past the Arc de Triomphe during the final stage of the 2015 event. Photograph: Laurent Cipriani/AP Tour de France 2016 Tour de France will use thermal cameras to detect motors on bikes • Organisers say Tour cheats using hidden motors ‘can be worried’

• French government requested introduction of thermal technology Reuters Mon 27 Jun 2016 06.53 EDT Share on Facebook

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Thermal cameras will be used at the Tour de France to detect motors in bikes, according to the French secretary of state for sport.

In a joint news conference with the Tour de France director, Christian Prudhomme, the French cycling federation president David Lappartient and the International Cycling Union (UCI) head Brian Cookson, Thierry Braillard explained that there would be random checks on the July 1-24 Tour.

“With this technology which has been approved by the UCI and by the Tour de France [organisers], those who will want to cheat will be taking very very big risks,” Braillard said. “It’s a complement to what the UCI has been doing.”

“Those who want to cheat can be worried,” added Prudhomme.

The thermal cameras have been set up by the French Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission, at the request of the government.

The UCI has been using magnetic-resonance testing to detect motors. Both methods should be used on the Tour.

The magnetic-resonance testing helped the UCI find one motor this year, in the bike of the Belgian Femke Van den Driessche at the Under-23 cyclo-cross world championships.

Two months ago the TV station France 2, in collaboration with the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera, reported that hidden motors were used in the Strade Bianche one-day race and the Coppi e Bartali race in Italy this season.