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Tour chief: Armstrong doping 'proven fact'
(AP)
Updated: 2005-08-24 20:53
PARIS - The director of the Tour de France said it was a "proven scientific
fact" that Lance Armstrong had a performance-boosting drug in his body during
his 1999 Tour win, and that the seven-time champion owed fans an explanation.
 In a story Wednesday, Jean-Marie Leblanc praised L'Equipe for an
investigation that reported that six urine samples provided by Armstrong during
the 1999 Tour tested positive for the red blood cell-booster EPO. The French
sports daily on Tuesday accused Armstrong of using EPO during his first Tour win
in 1999.
"For the first time 锟斤拷 and these are no longer rumors or insinuations, these
are proven scientific facts 锟斤拷 someone has shown me that in 1999, Armstrong had a
banned substance called EPO in his body," Leblanc told the paper.
"The ball is now in his camp. Why, how, by whom? He owes explanations to us
and to everyone who follows the tour," Leblanc said. "What L'Equipe revealed
shows me that I was fooled. We were all fooled."
Armstrong, a frequent target of L'Equipe, vehemently denied the allegations
on Tuesday, calling the article "tabloid journalism."
"I will simply restate what I have said many times: I have never taken
performance-enhancing drugs," he said on his Web site.
L'Equipe reported that six urine samples provided by the cancer-surviving
American during the 1999 Tour tested positive for the red blood cell-booster
EPO. The drug, formally known as erythropoietin, was on the list of banned
substances at the time, but there was no effective test to detect it.
The allegations surfaced six years later because EPO tests on the 1999
samples were carried out only last year 锟斤拷 when scientists at a lab outside Paris
used them for research to perfect EPO testing. The national anti-doping
laboratory in Chatenay-Malabry said it promised to hand its finding to the World
Anti-Doping Agency, provided it was never used to penalize riders.
Five-time cycling champion Miguel Indurain said he couldn't understand why
scientists would use samples from the 1999 Tour for their tests.
"That seems bizarre, and I don't know who would have the authorization to do
it," he told L'Equipe. "I don't even know if it's legal to keep these samples."
L'Equipe's investigation was based on the second set of two samples used in
doping tests. The first set were used in 1999 for analysis at the time. Without
those samples, any disciplinary action against Armstrong would be impossible,
French Sports Minister Jean-Francois Lamour said.
Lamour said he was forced to have doubts about L'Equipe's report because he
had not seen the originals of some of the documents that appeared in the paper.
"I do not confirm it," he told RTL radio. But he added: "If what L'Equipe
says is true, I can tell you that it's a serious blow for cycling."
The International Cycling Union did not begin using a urine test for EPO
until 2001, though it was banned in 1990. For years, it had been impossible to
detect the drug, which builds endurance by boosting the production of
oxygen-rich red blood cells.
Jacques de Ceaurriz, the head of France's anti-doping laboratory, which
developed the EPO urine test, told Europe-1 radio that at least 15 urine samples
from the 1999 Tour had tested positive for EPO.
Separately, the lab said it could not confirm that the positive results were
Armstrong's. It noted that the samples were anonymous, bearing only a six-digit
number to identify the rider, and could not be matched with the name of any one
cyclist.
However, L'Equipe said it was able to make the match.
On one side of a page Tuesday, it showed what it claimed were the results of
EPO tests from anonymous riders used for lab research. On the other, it showed
Armstrong's medical certificates, signed by doctors and riders after doping
tests 锟斤拷 and bearing the same identifying number printed on the results.
L'Equipe is owned by the Amaury Group whose subsidiary, Amaury Sport
Organization, organizes the Tour de France and other sporting events. The paper
often questioned Armstrong's clean record and frequently took jabs at him 锟斤拷
portraying him as too arrogant, too corporate and too good to be real.
"Never to such an extent, probably, has the departure of a champion been
welcomed with such widespread relief," the paper griped the day after Armstrong
won his seventh straight Tour win and retired from cycling.
Leblanc suggested that in the future, urine samples could be stashed away for
future testing as detection methods improve 锟斤拷 another possible weapon in the
fight against doping.
"We're so tired of doping that all means are good as long as they are morally
acceptable," he told L'Equipe.
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