UCI issues further clarification on Landis Tour de Suisse allegations

Cycling's international governing body today issued a statement (full text below) further refuting Floyd Landis' claim that the organisation colluded in the covering up of a failed blood test by Lance Armstrong at the Tour de Suisse. On Friday the UCI pointed out that Armstrong did not compete in the 2002 edition of the race. Today it turned its attention to the  2001 Tour de Suisse which was won by Lance Armstrong – the Landis email is open to interpretation as to which edition of the race he is referring too.

Today's statement from the UCI thus addresses the tests taken at the 2001 race went further stating that none of the samples taken at the 2002 Tour de Suisse returned positive results:

"the International Cycling Union wishes to stress that none of the tests revealed the presence of EPO in the samples taken from riders at the 2001 Tour of Switzerland."

The Swiss-based organisation then goes on to list the labs then accredited by it to test blood for EPO and the number of positive tests returned by each over a two year period covering 2001 - 2003. According to the UCI statement the International Olympic Committee received a copy of the reports of all the positive blood tests, as did Swiss Olympic - the primary anti-doping body in Swizterland, and from 2004 onwards WADA also received a copy of the lab report on any positive test.

By these statement the UCI is clearly trying to show that the systems already in place would have made it impossible for the report of a positive test to have been suppressed. It would also seem highly unlikely that no news of such an occurrence in relation to Lance Armstrong could have gone un-noticed by the media either.

UCI statement – Floyd Landis’s accusations: clarifications from the UCI

25.05.2010

Due to the controversy following the statements made by Floyd Landis, the International Cycling Union wishes to stress that none of the tests revealed the presence of EPO in the samples taken from riders at the 2001 Tour of Switzerland. The UCI has all the documentation to prove this fact.

Between 2001 and 2003, only the Paris, Lausanne, Cologne, Barcelona and Madrid laboratories, commissioned by the UCI, detected the presence of EPO in the samples that had been entrusted to them for analysis. During this period, the first laboratory carried out three positive analyses for EPO, the second 18 and the three last laboratories one each. None of the samples concerned had been taken at the 2001 Tour of Switzerland.
The International Olympic Committee received a copy of all the reports for the positive analyses mentioned above. Furthermore, in 2001, all the analysis reports carried out at the Tour of Switzerland were sent to Swiss Olympic.

Since 1st January 2004, the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) receives a copy of any analysis reports which show an abnormal result. WADA has not reported any abnormal analyses from any of its accredited laboratories that have not been duly dealt with by the UCI.

The UCI wishes to reassert the total transparency of its anti-doping testing and categorically rejects any suspicion in relation to the concealment of results from parties involved in this field.