Belgian cycling star Tom Boonen has been banned from competing in the Tour de France following his positive drug test for cocaine, the organizers, Amaury Sport Organization, (ASO) said on Thursday.
The 28-year-old Quick Step rider tested positive for cocaine in April, less than a year after he first tested positive for the drug in May last year.
“In the wake of Tom Boonen’s recent drug test, which followed a previous positive test in 2008, the Tour de France, having spoken to representatives from his Quick Step team, can only note that the image and the behavior of Tom Boonen are incompatible with the image of the Tour de France and the image that such an exceptional champion should try to display,” the ASO said in a statement.
“In these circumstances and in order to preserve his reputation, his image and those of the Tour de France, the ASO group has decided not to accept the presence of Tom Boonen in its event,” it said.
ASO said Boonen and Quick Step have the right to appeal to the arbitration panel of the French national sports and Olympic committee (CNOSF).
There was, however, some good news for Boonen, as the sport’s governing body, the International Cycling Union (UCI), announced they would be taking no disciplinary action against him for his positive test.
“Finally, the UCI management committee has decided not to institute disciplinary proceedings against Mr Tom Boonen for having allegedly taken cocaine out of competition, after the Belgian rider supplied a number of elements in his defense,” a statement from the UCI read.
The president of the Belgian Cycling Federation (LVB), Laurent De Backer, said the ASO’s decision was “regrettable.”
“Tom Boonen is accused of having taken cocaine, but outside competition,” De Backer told the news agency Belga.
“ASO is the boss of its own competition, but from a purely sporting perspective it strikes me as inconceivable to prevent a rider from taking part.
“Apparently at ASO they mix the sporting and the legal aspects of this case,” De Backer said. “Personally I expected another outcome. It’s regrettable for Belgian cycling.”
Revelations of positive doping tests for nearly two dozen Chinese swimmers that went unpunished sparked an intense flurry of accusations and legal threats between the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the head of the US drug-fighting organization, who has long been one of WADA’s fiercest critics. WADA on Saturday said it was turning to legal counsel to address a statement released by US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) CEO Travis Tygart, who said WADA and anti-doping authorities in China swept positive tests “under the carpet by failing to fairly and evenly follow the global rules that apply to everyone else in the world.” The
Taiwanese judoka Yang Yung-wei on Saturday won silver in the men’s under-60kg category at the Asian Judo Championships in Hong Kong. Nicknamed the “judo heartthrob” in Taiwan, the Olympic silver-medalist missed out on his first Asian Championships gold when he lost to Japanese judoka Taiki Nakamura in the finals. Yang defeated three opponents on Saturday to reach the final after receiving a bye through the round of 32. He first topped Laotian Soukphaxay Sithisane in the round of 16 with two seoi nage (over-the-shoulder throws), then ousted Indian Vijay Kumar Yadav in the quarter-finals with his signature ude hishigi sankaku gatame (triangular armlock). He
RALLY: It was only the second time the Taiwanese has partnered with Kudermetova, and the match seemed tight until they won seven points in a row to take the last set 10-2 Taiwan’s Chan Hao-ching and Russia’s Veronika Kudermetova on Sunday won the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix women’s doubles final in Stuttgart, Germany. The pair defeated Norway’s Ulrikke Eikeri and Estonia’s Ingrid Neel 4-6, 6-3, 10-2 in a tightly contested match at the WTA 500 tournament. Chan and Kudermetova fell 4-6 in the first set after having their serve broken three times, although they played increasingly well. They fought back in the second set and managed to break their opponents’ serve in the eighth game to triumph 6-3. In the tiebreaker, Chan and Kudermetova took a 3-0 lead before their opponents clawed back two points, but
Taiwanese gymnast Lee Chih-kai failed to secure an Olympic berth in the pommel horse following a second-place finish at the last qualifier in Doha on Friday, a performance that Lee and his coach called “unconvincing.” The Tokyo Olympics silver medalist finished runner-up in the final after scoring 6.6 for degree of difficulty and 8.800 for execution for a combined score of 15.400. That was just 0.100 short of Jordan’s Ahmad Abu Al Soud, who had qualified for the event in Paris before the Apparatus World Cup series in Qatar’s capital. After missing the final rounds in the first two of four qualifier