The head of the French Anti-Doping Authority (AFLD) has offered Lance Armstrong, seven times the Tour de France champion, the chance to dismiss the allegations of blood doping that have dogged his 1999 victory by suggesting that the American’s stored samples from that year’s race be retested.

“Mr Armstrong is a great champion,” Pierre Bordry said last night. “Everybody can understand how someone like him would want to come back to the Tour again. I would like that comeback to be in the best possible conditions, so I would suggest that we do a complete analysis of the six urine samples taken in the 1999 Tour. That would perhaps give him the chance to affirm he never cheated during his brilliant career.”

Shortly after Armstrong retired from racing in July 2005, L’Équipe, the French daily sports newspaper, alleged that traces of erythropoietin (EPO), the artificial blood booster, had been identified in samples taken from him in 1999 and subsequently tested in 2005, once a new EPO test had been validated. The allegations brought widespread condemnation of Armstrong in France, with Jean-Marie Leblanc, the Tour director at the time, speaking of a “betrayal” by the Texan.

In a further statement, the AFLD said yesterday: “The way these samples are preserved and the volume of them mean that you can do an analysis for the possible presence of EPO on at least five stages of the 1999 Tour de France. The AFLD offers Lance Armstrong an analysis of his samples from the 1999 Tour to prove his good faith.”

Armstrong has yet to respond to the offer, but he has always denied the many allegations of doping that have been made against him and has never tested positive. However, when announcing his return to racing last month, he said: “We’re going to be completely transparent and open. This is for the world to see.”

The controversy over Armstrong’s return may soon be overshadowed by further revelations about doping at this year’s Tour. Bordry, the AFLD director. also revealed that suspicious samples taken during the race in July had been subject to rigorous retesting to “surround the process with great scientific and legal security because it is a test that has never been used before”.

Speculation that up to ten highprofile riders may have been caught by the test to detect CERA, the new-generation strain of EPO that was found in samples taken from Ricardo Ricco, a Tour stage winner in this year’s race, has been fuelled by Bordry’s decision to run blood tests on samples that were considered suspicious.

“When we did the urine samples of those athletes, we had a serious suspicion that there was CERA,” he said. “The laboratory could not say definitively. The same analysis will be done, but this time on the blood samples.”

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