Tests on seven backup urine samples taken from Floyd Landis at last year's Tour de France have revealed traces of synthetic testosterone, the French sports newspaper L' Equipe reported yesterday.
Landis, who won last year's tour but tested positive for doping in the race, and his lawyers did not confirm or deny the report in a teleconference on Monday, saying they expected to receive the full results of those tests shortly from the French lab that conducted the testing.
The samples taken during the tour had been deemed negative last year, but the French lab conducted a more sophisticated test on each sample this time to determine whether they contained man-made testosterone.
PHOTO: AP
The new round of testing was done at the request of the US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA).
"First of all, I won the tour fair and square," Landis said on the teleconference on Monday afternoon. He added that he was disappointed, but not surprised, that the results were leaked to the French newspaper. He blamed the French lab or the USADA for revealing the results prematurely.
Michael Henson, Landis' spokesman, criticized the French lab's testing methods.
"There were errors in the scientific methods, and our observers were aware of that from the time they hit the ground in Paris," Henson said. "They don't have a grasp of the basic tenets of the science that they were dealing with."
Henson said that Landis was tested twice randomly in the first week of the tour, then six more times when he was wearing the yellow jersey as the race's leader.
The new test results were the latest phase of the case involving Landis, 31, and his failed doping test from the race. Despite a chronic hip injury, he won the tour after an improbable comeback in the Alps in Stage 17. But his feel-good story was cut short.
A day after the race ended, a urine sample he provided after Stage 17 tested positive for a ratio of testosterone to epitestosterone of 11-1, nearly three times the maximum set under World Anti-Doping Agency rules. Synthetic testosterone was also found in his urine samples. Landis quickly professed his innocence.
In September, the USADA charged Landis with a doping violation and Landis appealed, blaming the French lab that conducted the testing for the mistake.
A hearing before a three-person arbitration panel is scheduled to begin on May 14.
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