The 2006 season was not a good one to be a cycling doctor, but the string of doping scandals that traumatized cycling last year could have a positive effect on the sport.

In the wake of the departure of franchise rider Jan Ullrich, T-Mobile has instituted a groundbreaking monitoring program it says will guarantee that its riders are not cheating. And in the process, they hope to help rebuild the credibility of the sport in the eyes of fans and media.

Dr. Lothar Heinrich has been a T-Mobile doctor since 1995. But he nearly quit cycling following the revelations that came out of the Operación Puerto investigation in Spain.

Working with team manager Bob Stapleton and other team staff, Heinrich has helped create a new system of internal controls and health checks that he insists will demonstrate that T-Mobile riders are clean.

VeloNews.com recently talked with Heinrich about the new testing program and what’s at stake for the future of cycling. Here are excerpts from the interview:

VN.com: Last year the team went through a tumultuous period with some of the team’s riders linked to the Operación Puerto investigation. It’s probably not a good time to be a cycling doctor, is it?

LH: It was a bad year last year. We’ve changed a lot of things, the management changed and a lot of riders went to other teams. We have real good support for our riders now. The most important thing to prevent doping is to have the support of the riders to get their abilities to a point to be competitive. We have a good scientific training coordinator, we have a sports psychologist, nutritionalists, a lot of things to try to get peak performance in a clean way.

VN.com: Do you believe it was possible that former riders on your team, riders that you’re testing and monitoring regularly, could be working illicitly with someone like Fuentes without you knowing?

LH: Absolutely. Cycling is not like football. You’re not all together all day. I don’t see the athletes every day. I see them at races and training camps, but when they are at home, they are in Italy, Switzerland or perhaps in Spain, they have a lot of free time to do whatever they want. What the riders need is confidence in their teammates, to create a strong team that everyone else is of the same page.

VN.com: One of the big problems seems to be with external trainers. Are they still allowed with the new rules at T-Mobile?

LH: External trainers are possible, but they have to check with us first. If a rider is working 10 years with a coach and he’s a really serious coach, then it’s okay.

VN.com: The team is introducing DNA testing, blood-volume testing, an independent panel to oversee the testing program — do you believe that’s a necessary step?

LH: We are allowed to do any kind of testing to test our riders and DNA would be one possibility. We are working with the anti-doping agency to get better support from them, that the riders get checked more often to make sure they are clean. We have health screenings and anti-doping screenings methods that are extra [from UCI controls]. We have a blood volume test and total hemoglobin mass checks that are not just official tests. These are tests to screen our riders to see if something is changing. Then we have an independent screening panel that looks at all the data. They look at it and then we decide what to do. The management can then punish riders if something is wrong.

VN.com: The blood volume test that could demonstrate blood doping is groundbreaking. Tell us more about how it works.

LH: It’s really simple. When someone does blood transfusions or EPO doping, it changes your hemoglobin, your hematocrit and your blood volume. What changes when you do a transfusion is a total volume. With this test, you inhale a little amount of carbon monoxide and test your blood before and after. With some formulas you get the total hemoglobin mass, during the year it doesn’t change too much. Then if it is changing a lot during the year, we know something is wrong and we have to see what has happened. Has he been sick or is it something else? We have our independent specialists look at the evidence.

VN.com: Do you think the new testing and monitoring program at T-Mobile will be able to stop the cheaters?

LH: I hope so. We think with the system we’ve set up, it will be very hard for a rider to cheat. We have considered all possibilities. We are confident in our abilities to monitor our riders and we believe it’s a model for other teams to follow. I know there will always be doping, cheaters are always there. For the doctors, it has been a very hard year. I was thinking about stopping after the Tour, but with the chance that Bob [Stapleton] gave me, now we can do things the way I always wanted to. We have a big budget to create something really new. If I have learned something in the last year, we have to go active and forward. We start with our team. We are sure with us we will be clean.

VN.com: How often will team riders be checked by T-Mobile controls?

LH: All riders will be checked four times when they know about it and have two more surprise tests during the races.

VN.com: What kind of pressure are the riders under? Are they supporting the changes the team has instituted?

LH: T-Mobile wouldn’t accept another year like 2006. The riders are there for the money but they are also interested in clean sport. I am really glad to say that all of our riders have signed and know what they’ve signed with a code of conduct.

VN.com: Why was it necessary for T-Mobile to take such steps?

LH: To provide credibility. Credibility is everything in cycling after a year like 2006. It’s hard to work on that, but we try to. [Bob Stapleton] and I spoke during the Tour de France and he asked me to build the best program I could think of. I was in agreement, yes, we do this or nothing else. This gives me a lot of confidence. I hope we can pass this confidence to the fans.