UCI demands B sample test

2006-07-31 21:33

Paris - Cycling's governing body the International Cycling Union (UCI) demanded on Monday the B sample of Tour de France winner Floyd Landis be tested so that the doping scandal could be resolved sooner rather than later.

The 30-year-old American is facing the loss of his title and a two year ban after he returned a positive test for abnormal levels of testosterone following his win in the 17th stage of the Tour earlier this month.

However while Landis has protested his innocence the UCI moved on Monday to hasten up the process - by asking the laboratory Chatenay-Malabry to go ahead and test the B sample as Landis has failed to ask them himself - as they believe a quick solution to the affair would be better for the sport.

"We have done this so the whole thing can be speeded up," a UCI spokesperson said.

"We took this decision because of the importance of the case.

"Also the longer it goes on the more damage the sport risks suffering."

The laboratory is likely to test the sample between Thursday and Saturday morning, provided Landis agrees to it.

If the UCI had stood by and waited till Wednesday for Landis to appeal for the B sample to be tested the result would not be known for several weeks as the laboratory shuts for the holidays at week's end.

Landis has said that he expects the second sample to return a similar result to the first but insists that he is innocent.

"I ask not to be judged and much less to be sentenced by anyone," Landis said last Friday.

"I'd like to make it absolutely clear that I'm not in any doping process," he added.

"I will proceed to undergo all of these tests" to show the levels "are absolutely natural and produced by my own organism," he promised.

The American added that he wished to state "categorically that my Tour win was exclusively due to many years of training and dedication" to his sport.

"I declare convincingly and categorically that my winning the Tour de France has been exclusively due to many years of training and my complete devotion to cycling.

"I was the strongest guy. I deserved to win, and I'm proud of it."

If Landis is stripped of his title he would be the first ever champion to suffer that fate.

- SAPA