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However, some riders of that era were also adept at managing their haematocrit blood tests to stay within the prescribed limits, by dodging drug testers and timing their consumption of EPO.

Despite taking EPO for seven weeks, seeing steady rises in my haemoglobin and haematocrit counts, and gaining a significant performance benefit, I was clean.

The haematocrit test measures the percentage of the volume of blood that is made up of oxygen-bearing red blood cells.

A normal haematocrit value in a trained athlete would be somewhere in the 40s, with a wide degree of natural variation.

Without a test for EPO, cycling regulators turned to an indirect measure­ment called the haematocrit--the percentage of blood volume made up of red blood cells.