(UPDATE Nov. 25: Lab confirms earlier positive test on Heras) The accusations about illegal doping in cycling have been flying fast and furious lately. The cyclists, the laboratories, the tests and the sports administrators have all come under attack in the past year.
What a bad time for a laboratory to announce it needs more time to test Spanish cyclist Roberto Heras's “B” urine sample for blood boosting agent EPO.
Under so much scrutiny, it's not surprising that the lab wants to make sure the process is done correctly. But taking an extra couple of days also raises the question of someone trying to cook the results.
Several weeks after Heras won the Vuelta a Espana for the record fourth time in 2005, news leaked that Heras had tested positive for EPO from samples taken in the next to last stage. Two samples are always taken so such results can be double-checked. The B sample was checked Monday, with results expected by Wednesday or Thursday.
On Wednesday, Heras and his attorney said the lab had been unable to reach a conclusion.
According to VeloNews, laboratory spokesman Francisco Rodriguez said the testing process “is not quite finished,” adding, “There's been a delay only because we had to take more measures.”
The laboratory in Madrid is run by the Consejo Superior de Deportes, a government agency that oversees Spanish sports, according to the New York Times.
Heras's attorney said the lab statement and delay “provides clear evidence that the method is flawed. It doesn't offer any guarantees.”
It could also be inferred that the lab wanted to make sure it did everything correctly because Heras's attorneys say a positive result would end up in court.
Heras has professed his innocense all along. He was quoted in CNN:
“I passed 12 doping controls during the last Vuelta. I was leading the race by four and a half minutes and had victory in my pocket. It would have been madness to have committed a doping offense. It would have been incomprehensible and absurd.”
Before Heras's troubles, Lance Armstrong shone in the EPO spotlight after the French newspaper L'Equipe accused the 7-time Tour de France winner of having EPO traces in his urine from tests taken in 1999.
The motives behind those accusations, which can't be supported or refuted because all the samples are gone, has caused a bitter dispute between the World Anti-Doping Agency and the Union Cycliste Internationale, the cycling governing body.
Meanwhile, the case of American cyclist Tyler Hamilton still hangs out there. He's appealing his two-year ban from cycling for allegedly using blood transfusions to boost his red-blood cell count. He too had said the test is flawed.
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