Olympic medallist banned

2005-04-19 08:45

Colorado Springs - US Olympic gold medal-winning cyclist Tyler Hamilton has been banned for two years for blood doping in the first case of its kind, the US Anti-Doping Agency (Usada) announced on Monday.

Hamilton's ban stems from a positive test for blood doping at the Tour of Spain on September 11, 2004, and he forfeits all competitive results from that date, Usada said, although the cyclist still has an avenue of appeal.

Hamilton had also tested positive for blood doping after winning time-trial gold at the Athens Olympics, but the "B" sample for that test was destroyed when it was frozen.

The International Olympic Committee had already ruled that it could not strip Hamilton of his medal without a viable B sample as a back-up test.

Hamilton had protested his innocence in both instances and took his case to the American Arbitration Association/Court of Arbitration for Sport. He can still appeal to the Swiss-based international Court of Arbitration for Sport, Usada said.

"Following the full evidentiary hearing, the majority of the AAA/CAS Panel directly rejected Hamiltons defences and found that his positive sample was 'due to a homologous blood transfusion,'" Usada said in a statement.

"Based on blood screens taken in the spring and summer of 2004, the International Cycling Union (UCI) warned Hamilton and his team that Hamilton was suspected of manipulating his blood," Usada said. "Following these warnings, UCI target-tested Hamilton and he tested positive."

Blood doping is a means of enhancing endurance by increasing the amount of oxygen-carrying red blood cells using one's own blood or a donor of the same group.

"A transfusion of another person's blood is a prohibited method under the Usada Protocol and the UCI Anti-Doping Rules, which adopted the World Anti-Doping Code and World Anti-Doping Agency's (Wada) Prohibited List," Usada noted.

At his hearing, Hamilton - whose ban came the same day that former team-mate and six-time Tour de France champion Lance Armstrong announced his retirement following this year's Tour - argued the test used to determine blood doping had yet to be proven in an anti-doping context, and there was no quantitative measure of apparently foreign cells that would determine a positive result.

And he also argued that a mixed population of cells in a sample in itself can't prove a blood transfusion because there are other possible explanations such as disease, bone marrow transplant and even exchange of cells between twins in the womb.

Despite that scientific evidence, the arbitration panel found that a blood transfusion was the most likely cause of Hamilton's test result.

"Based upon all of the foregoing, the Panel comes to the conclusion that it is comfortably satisfied that the mixed RBC population arising from the Vuelta sample analysis has a very high probability of having been caused by a blood transfusion..." the panel wrote in its decision.

- AFP