AMSTERDAM, Netherlands (AP) - Dutch investigators cleared Lance Armstrong of doping in the 1999 Tour de France on Wednesday, and accused anti-doping authorities of misconduct in dealing with the American cyclist.
A 132-page report recommended convening a tribunal to discuss possible legal and ethical violations by the World Anti-Doping Agency and to consider "appropriate sanctions to remedy the violations."
The French sports daily L'Equipe reported in August that six of Armstrong's urine samples from 1999, when he won the first of his record seven-straight Tour titles, came back positive for the endurance-boosting hormone EPO when they were retested in 2004.
Armstrong has repeatedly denied using banned substances.
The International Cycling Union appointed Dutch lawyer Emile Vrijman last October to investigate the handling of urine tests from the 1999 Tour by the French national anti-doping laboratory, known by its French acronym LNDD.
Vrijman said Wednesday his report "exonerates Lance Armstrong completely with respect to alleged use of doping in the 1999 Tour de France."
The report also said the UCI had not damaged Armstrong by releasing doping control forms to the French newspaper.
The report said WADA and the LNDD may have "behaved in ways that are completely inconsistent with the rules and regulations of international anti-doping control testing," and may also have been against the law.
Vrijman, who headed the Dutch anti-doping agency for 10 years and later defended athletes accused of doping, worked on the report with Adriaan van der Veen, a scientist with the Dutch Metrology Laboratory.
EPO, or erythropoietin, is a synthetic hormone that boosts the oxygen-carrying capacity of the blood.
Testing for EPO only began in 2001.
Armstrong had challenged the validity of testing samples frozen six years ago, and how they were handled.
Vrijman said a further investigation was needed regarding the leaking of the results to the French paper.
He said a tribunal should be created to "provide a fair hearing" to the people and organizations suspected of misconduct and to decide on sanctions if warranted. Vrijman's statement did not specify what the alleged violations were.
The UCI said it was upset with Vrijman for commenting on the report before all parties involved in the case were informed.
"Upon reception of the document, the UCI will study in details the content before publishing it in its whole," the UCI said in a statement.
WADA chief Dick Pound said he hadn't received the report yet but, based on what he had read in news accounts, was highly critical of Vrijman's findings.
"It's clearly everything we feared. There was no interest in determining whether the samples Armstrong provided were positive or not," he told The Associated Press by telephone from Montreal. "We were afraid of that from the very beginning."
Pound reiterated his claim that the UCI had leaked the forms to a reporter from L'Equipe and was responsible for the doping samples being linked to Armstrong.
"Whether the samples were positive or not, I don't know how a Dutch lawyer with no expertise came to a conclusion that one of the leading laboratories in the world messed up on the analysis. To say Armstrong is totally exonerated seems strange," Pound said.
In a separate statement, WADA expressed "grave concern and strong disappointment" over Vrijman's reported comments.
"Elementary courtesy and professionalism would have dictated that WADA should have been provided with a copy of the report before interviews were given to the media," the statement said.
"WADA continues to stress its concern that an investigation into the matter must consider all aspects - not limited to how the damaging information regarding athletes' urine samples became public, but also addressing the question of whether anti-doping rules were violated by athletes."
The anti-doping lab at Chatenay-Malabry has been accused of violating confidentiality regulations.
Mario Zorzoli, the doctor who gave copies of Armstrong's doping control forms to L'Equipe, was suspended by the UCI for one month earlier this year. He has since been reinstated.
The full report was sent to the UCI, the LNDD, the French sports ministry, WADA and Armstrong's lawyer. The International Olympic Committee also had requested a copy.
The accusations against Armstrong raised questions about how frozen samples, routinely held for eight years, should be used.
Joined: Sun Oct 17, 2004 2:51 pm Posts: 2869 Location: Appalachian Hills of Tennessee Gender: Male
i just don't understand all the animosity towards lance armstrong. he's been tested so many times, more than any cyclist in history, due to his cancer recovery and what not. he's always been super confident that he's not going to fail a test, and the tests always come back negative. people just need to realize that he's a superior athlete. the guy was winning professional triathlons at the age of 15. e
what really disturbs me is that americans don't even trust the guy, and 90% of them don't know squat about cycling.
Joined: Fri Oct 22, 2004 12:47 pm Posts: 9282 Location: Atlanta Gender: Male
an absolutely amazing cyclist. I never thought I'd see better than Greg Lemond in my lifetime, Lance is better. It's hard for people to get their head around how amazing that guy is as an endurance cyclist. He is just better than everyone else.
Watching on television you don't get any sense of the speed or how ridiculous he was climbing the mountains. The people he raced against, Jan Ulrich...etc. are the best in the world and he absolutely blistered them all.
Joined: Mon Oct 18, 2004 12:14 am Posts: 8662 Location: IL
strongmendieyoung wrote:
what really disturbs me is that americans don't even trust the guy, and 90% of them don't know squat about cycling.
and for good reason... on both accounts
just bullshittin... you obviously know more than the rest of us about cycling, but it's hard to trust any athletes these days... too bad Barbaro had to go down
he left his wife (who stuck by him through cancer) for Kid Rock's leftovers...
_________________ “You’re good kids, stay together. Trust each other and be good teammates to one another. I believe there is a championship in this room.”
-Ernie Accorsi in his final address to the NY Giants locker room before retiring as GM in January of 2007
Joined: Sun Oct 17, 2004 2:51 pm Posts: 2869 Location: Appalachian Hills of Tennessee Gender: Male
pearljamminagain wrote:
inadvertent imitation wrote:
Ricardo Tubbs wrote:
Orpheus wrote:
How could anyone hate Lance?
he left his wife (who stuck by him through cancer) for Kid Rock's leftovers...
And he participates a sport that's less interesting to watch than those fishing shows on ESPN that they show on Saturday mornings.
man, you guys are great .... i second both of these.
the sport's not interesting to americans because they're too fucking fat and lazy to get out and enjoy it. oh and they also love throwing happy meals and shit at cyclists. i know this from personal experience.
Joined: Sat Oct 16, 2004 11:30 pm Posts: 7110 Location: the Zoo.
strongmendieyoung wrote:
pearljamminagain wrote:
inadvertent imitation wrote:
Ricardo Tubbs wrote:
Orpheus wrote:
How could anyone hate Lance?
he left his wife (who stuck by him through cancer) for Kid Rock's leftovers...
And he participates a sport that's less interesting to watch than those fishing shows on ESPN that they show on Saturday mornings.
man, you guys are great .... i second both of these.
the sport's not interesting to americans because they're too fucking fat and lazy to get out and enjoy it. oh and they also love throwing happy meals and shit at cyclists. i know this from personal experience.
Am I lazy? Probably. Am I fat? Not at all.
Do I feel that watching cycling is boring enough to make me bleed from the eyes? Yes.
Americans not enjoying cycling has nothing to do with them being fat (although I think/hope that your response was at least partly in jest). Tennis is an intensely physical sport that has experienced considerable success. Granted, it's not up to baseball/basketball/football levels of popularity, but it remains consistently popular, hitting peaks and valleys depending on what personalities/ambassadors the sport has to offer at a given time.
Of course you find it interesting, you're actively involved in the sport. If you were involved in billiards, I'm sure you'd come up with a million reasons why it's wonderful and why everyone should watch it and take interest in it. That doesn't change the fact that most people would rather lick a sidewalk in Calcutta than watch it.
It's a grueling, difficult, stamina-draining activity, but it's not a spectator sport. It's guys riding on a bike.
Then again, people watch NASCAR. I can't even begin to explain that shit.
Joined: Sun Oct 17, 2004 2:51 pm Posts: 2869 Location: Appalachian Hills of Tennessee Gender: Male
well, evidently it's a cultural thing, because europeans go apeshit for cycling. if you've ever watched for example, the tour de georgia or the tour of california, and compared it to even the smallest of races in europe, there's no comparison in the spectator-ship. americans, for whatever reason, just don't like cycling. i don't know what it is that makes them hate cyclists so much. some people act like some huge part of their life has been interrupted if they have to wait 3 seconds to drive around a cyclist on the road.
there was a case around here a month or so ago of a guy who was just minding his own business riding his bike down a backroad, and some doofus ran him over and nearly killed the guy. the driver's excuse was that he looked behind him to make sure the furniture he was carrying wasn't shifting and that he never even saw the cyclist. the driver was found to be at fault by the officer at the scene, but wasn't even issued so much as a citation. there's just something really fucked up about that. if i did the same thing and hit somebody's car or something, you're damn straight i'll be getting a ticket for wreckless driving.
my whole point is, even if americans in general aren't going to respect the sport of cycling, at least respect the lives of the people who participate in it. i mean there's plenty of shit i see on the road that i don't like, but i would never throw a beer bottle or a happy meal at someone.
Joined: Sat Oct 16, 2004 11:30 pm Posts: 7110 Location: the Zoo.
strongmendieyoung wrote:
there was a case around here a month or so ago of a guy who was just minding his own business riding his bike down a backroad, and some doofus ran him over and nearly killed the guy. the driver's excuse was that he looked behind him to make sure the furniture he was carrying wasn't shifting and that he never even saw the cyclist. the driver was found to be at fault by the officer at the scene, but wasn't even issued so much as a citation. there's just something really fucked up about that. if i did the same thing and hit somebody's car or something, you're damn straight i'll be getting a ticket for wreckless driving.
my whole point is, even if americans in general aren't going to respect the sport of cycling, at least respect the lives of the people who participate in it. i mean there's plenty of shit i see on the road that i don't like, but i would never throw a beer bottle or a happy meal at someone.
Yeah, that definitely is fucked up. However, it can be attributed to the fact that American culture is much more car-based than that of our European friends. People who ride bikes are seen as the little brothers of those in cars, inferior in a way. Not so much that it's some great social divide, but it's an antagonistic relationship, that's for sure.
Anyway, if American dominance in the sport through a figure as triumphant and decorated as someone like Lance Armstrong (especially considering his overcoming cancer) can't generate interest, I doubt there will ever be a major attraction to the sport.
Joined: Fri Oct 22, 2004 12:47 pm Posts: 9282 Location: Atlanta Gender: Male
Armstrong: "Yeah, but you have a guy like [World Anti-Doping Agency chairman] Dick Pound -- he absolutely hates me with a passion. He'll never let it die. He'll find a reason to investigate at some point."
-ESPN.com
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.... i second both of these.