Spanish rider Inigo Landaluze will escape sanctions despite
testing positive for the male hormone testosterone after winning
the 2005 Dauphine Libere because of irregularities in the
analysis.
Landaluze's Euskaltel-Euskado team and the Court of Arbitration
for Sport (CAS) said on Wednesday the UCI's appeal against the
decision of the Spanish Cycling Federation (RFEC) to acquit the
rider had been rejected.
Although CAS dismissed most of the arguments given by the rider,
it did accept there had been an error in the analysis procedure
carried out by a laboratory in France.
"It has been indeed established that the person who conducted
the analysis of the B sample was also involved in the analysis of
the A sample, thus in violation of the international standard
applicable to accredited laboratories," CAS said in a statement on
its Web site (www.tas-cas.org).
"The Panel has considered that the non-compliance with this
standard constituted a procedural flaw serious enough to cause the
invalidation of the anti-doping test."
The CAS statement added that the error had been due to the heavy
workload in the laboratory and the decision did not mean that
Landaluze's name had been cleared.
"Even though Inigo Landaluze benefited from this flawed
procedure to be acquitted, the CAS decision does not constitute a
declaration of his innocence," said the statement.
Landaluze was the surprise winner of the eight-day Dauphine
Libere race in 2005, finishing ahead of favourites such as Santiago
Botero, Levi Leipheimer and Lance Armstrong.
Tour de France winner Floyd Landis, who tested positive for
excessive amounts of the male sex hormone testosterone after a
decisive stage of the Tour, responded quickly.
"The CAS decision to clear Inigo Landaluze of testosterone
doping charges on the basis of violations of testing procedure by
the [Laboratoire National de Depistage du Dopage] LNDD strengthens
my contention that the tests conducted on my sample were handled in
an incompetent fashion and analyzed on the basis of flawed
science'" the American said in a statement.
"The track record of scientific misconduct at Chatenay-Malabry
seems to grow by the day."
(China Daily December 22, 2006)