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WASHINGTON - Tour de France cycling winner Floyd Landis believes his bid to have doping charges thrown out has been strengthened by the case of Spanish rider Inigo Landaluze.
Landaluze escaped a two-year ban despite testing positive for the male hormone testosterone after the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) cited irregularities in the analysis by a laboratory at Chatenay-Malabry.
Landis tested positive for testosterone during this year's Tour but has claimed for months he should be cleared due to procedural errors from the same Paris-area lab.
He said mistakes in the Landaluze testing by the Laboratoire National de Dopistage du Dopage strengthened his contention that the tests conducted on his sample were handled in what he described in an "incompetent fashion".
If the 31-year-old Landis is unsuccessful in his quest to have the doping charges dropped, he would be the first Tour de France winner stripped of his title.
"Going through what I am now, I feel personally for Landaluze and hope that everyone recognizes that it has taken him 18 difficult months to clear his name from what was revealed to be a grievous error by the LNDD," Landis said in a statement.
Landaluze was the surprise winner of the Dauphine Libere race in 2005, finishing ahead of favourites Santiago Botero, Levi Leipheimer and Lance Armstrong.
But the CAS said on Wednesday that the person who conducted the analysis of the B sample was also involved in the analysis of the A sample, a violation of testing procedures.
American Landis tested positive for a higher than allowed ratio of testosterone to epitestosterone after a dramatic effort in the 17th stage of the Tour.
"The track record of scientific misconduct at Chatenay-Malabry seems to grow by the day," Landis said.
- REUTERS
