Ketones continue to create controversy, Jean-René Bernaudeau asks for them to be banned

The veteran director of TotalEnergies, Jean-René Bernaudeau, calls on the UCI to ban the use of ketones, a product that, according to his statements, harms the credibility of cycling. A supplement that continues to create division in the peloton and whose use is opposed by the teams members of the Movement for Credible Cycling against teams like Visma-Lease a Bike or Alpecin-Deceuninck that use ketones without the slightest shame.

Ketones again in the eye of the hurricane

The fashionable supplement to improve cyclists' performance is once again in the spotlight with the statements of Jean-René Bernaudeau who joins the voices calling for the ban on the use of ketones in professional cycling. Voices led by the Movement for Credible Cycling or cyclists like Guillaume Martin or Romain Bardet.

Ketones, substances generated by the body when it processes fats to be able to use their energy, become an extra and long-lasting energy supply when provided externally that safeguards the valuable glycogen deposits for moments of maximum intensity, thus improving the cyclist's performance.

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Although performance improvements seem clear according to various studies, the risks that their consumption could entail are not so clear. While the MPCC is totally opposed to the use of ketones and prohibits its members from using them, the UCI simply does not recommend their use, leaving ketones in a gray area that, according to Bernaudeau, does very little for the credibility of cycling, which still cannot shake off that stigma of a sport associated with doping that it has been dragging since scandals such as the Festina case or Operation Puerto.

The veteran director also claims, in line with the MPCC's discourse, that ketones would be harmful to health in the long term although there are still no studies that attest to this while we wait for the study carried out by the UCI itself and whose results should have been published throughout last year, an aspect that was also criticized by the director of TotalEnergies.

Bernaudeau claims that banning ketones would help improve the image of cycling as he claims that potential Asian sponsors have conveyed to him, who are hesitant to invest in cycling, fully aware of the rules, ethics, and transparency.