Report reopens doping debate

A Dutch investigator’s report that purports to clear Lance Armstrong of using performance-enhancing substances in the 1999 Tour de France ignited a controversy that roared through Europe and across the Atlantic on Wednesday, spotlighting the complexities and schisms that have riven a sport awash in allegations of doping.

The report, commissioned last year by the International Cycling Union after a French news account that six Armstrong urine samples from 1999 had tested positive in 2004 for the blood-booster EPO, asserted those tests were conducted so improperly it would be “completely irresponsible” to suggest they amounted to “evidence of anything.”

The 132-page report, made public Wednesday, was not immediately available. But according to news accounts, Dutch lawyer Emile Vrijman said his report “exonerates Lance Armstrong completely” with regard to the 1999 allegations. Armstrong, who has repeatedly denied the use of banned substances, said in a statement that Vrijman’s report “confirms my innocence.”

But the World Anti-Doping Agency, in Montreal, issued a statement expressing “grave concern and strong disappointment.” WADA, the statement also said, “continues to stress its concern that an investigation into the matter must consider all aspects,” including “the question of whether anti-doping rules were violated by athletes.”

WADA Chairman Dick Pound, who has long asserted the cycling federation, which goes by the acronym UCI, leaked the 1999 doping forms to the French newspaper L’Equipe, questioned how Vrijman had reached the conclusion that one of the top anti-doping labs in the world — the French national lab, near Paris — had so thoroughly botched tests. The lab is known by its French acronym, LNDD.

Vrijman’s report, for instance, asserts there is no way to know if the samples had been spiked with a banned substance, according to news accounts, which also said the report raises the possibility of misconduct by WADA and LNDD.

In a telephone interview, Pound said of the cycling federation, “They weren’t interested in what happened, only in how the information became public and — surprise, surprise — cleared the only organization that made it possible for this thing to happen. To say that UCI had no role — that’s nuts.”

Swiss-based UCI also issued a statement. It said its officials had “learned with great surprise” the “declarations conveyed to the Dutch press by Mr. Emile Vrijman,” making clear the report’s release was “prematurely voiced” and the UCI was still “waiting to receive the definite version.”

UCI, the statement went on to say, “firmly deplores the behavior of Mr. Vrijman,” a former head of the Dutch anti-doping lab. He has since been active in defending athletes accused of doping.

The release of Vrijman’s report comes as cycling grapples with a doping scandal in Spain, which has the potential to rival the scandal that shook the sport amid the 1998 Tour de France, when police nabbed a Festina team employee with drugs. Some Tour riders were ejected; others quit; the Tour almost collapsed.

Police in Madrid, in a raid last Tuesday, reportedly seized steroids, EPO and dozens of bags of frozen blood. Among those questioned was Manolo Saiz, director of the Liberty Seguros cycling team. The Boston-based Liberty Mutual insurance company responded by canceling its sponsorship of the team.

It has long been known in cycling circles — as in other endurance sports — that transfusing one’s own blood can increase oxygen-carrying red blood cells, thereby boosting endurance. Detecting such transfusions can be problematic, if not impossible.

EPO, or erythropoietin, is a synthetic hormone. It too can boost the oxygen-carrying capacity of the blood.

In 1999, though EPO was on the banned list, there was no effective test to detect it; UCI would not begin using such a test until 2001.

On Aug. 23, L’Equipe reported that six of Armstrong’s 1999 samples had come back positive for EPO when re-tested in 2004. The 1999 Tour marked the first of Armstrong’s seven straight Tour wins.

The French newspaper’s investigation was based on what doping authorities call the “B sample,” the second half of urine samples used in doping tests. The A samples were used up in 1999. The B samples at issue were among those hauled out of deep freeze in 2004 to perfect the French lab’s EPO testing procedures.

To make a typical doping case, then and now, authorities must prove a positive A and B sample. However, decisions issued in December involving U.S. track and field stars Tim Montgomery and Chryste Gaines, sparked by the BALCO matter, have made plain that a wide range of evidence can be used to build a doping case.

Armstrong’s critics maintained the L’Equipe story offered evidence pointing to doping but acknowledged that the B samples alone could not make a formal doping case against him. Armstrong, as he did again in his statement Wednesday, said he was the target of a “witch hunt.”