Cycling: 1999 Tour doping tests to be released

LONDON - The International Cycling Union (UCI) plans to disclose its investigation into reports of positive dope tests on the 1999 Tour de France within 10 days, the sport's world governing body said today.

French newspaper L'Equipe last week alleged that seven-times Tour winner Lance Armstrong took performance-enhancing drugs in 1999, the year he first won the world's greatest cycle race.

American Armstrong, who recovered from testicular cancer to become the most successful rider in the Tour's history, has consistently denied ever taking performance-enhancing drugs.

The UCI said in a statement: "Following the revelations published last week ... concerning the results of analysis of urine samples from the 1999 Tour de France, the UCI confirms it is pursuing its global assessment of the situation.

"Whilst regretting, once more, the breach of confidentiality principle which led to the divulgence of this information outside of the procedures foreseen within the regulations of the international sports instances, the UCI announces that it will communicate its conclusions on this case within the next 10 days."

L'Equipe, saying it had access to laboratory documents, reported last Tuesday that six of Armstrong's urine samples collected on the 1999 Tour showed "indisputable" traces of EPO (erythropoietin).

L'Equipe published what it claimed to be a results sheet from the laboratory which appeared to show six figures revealing traces of EPO.

The newspaper also published documents from the French cycling federation showing exactly the same figures under Armstrong's name.

The Chatenay-Malabry lab said in a statement that the samples they tested did not have names attached and they could not confirm if any of the samples were Armstrong's.

- REUTERS