THE extraordinary career of Lance Armstrong took another bizarre twist yesterday when an independent investigator cleared the American of drug-taking during the 1999 Tour de France, the first of his seven successive victories in the world’s premier cycling event.

In an interview that caused furore on both sides of the Atlantic, Emile Vrijman, a Dutch lawyer, also criticised the World Anti-Doping Agency (Wada), a guardian of the morals of international sport.

Vrijman was appointed by the International Cycling Union (UCI) to investigate claims that Armstrong took EPO, the stamina-enhancing drug, in 1999. The allegations were made in 2005 by L’Equipe, the French newspaper, and denied by Armstrong, who has always insisted that he has never taken performanceenhancing substances. The American is already taking legal action against several publications.

According to an interview in De Volksrant, the Dutch newspaper, Vrijman, who worked on the report with Adriaan van der Veen, a scientist with the Dutch Metrology Department, says that his report “exonerates” Armstrong completely of the charges.

Urine samples from the Tour de France were frozen in 1999 for possible later analysis, the year before a test for EPO became accepted internationally. Vrijman said the laboratory at Châtenay-Malabry, near Paris, had analysed the samples only as part of a research programme for the detection of EPO and so there were no confirmation or “B” tests.

Vrijman said: “If you look at how the result was obtained, it was so different from the analysis procedure required by Wada, it does not even qualify as a finding. It may suffice for research purposes but as a valid doping result — no way.”

Vrijman, himself a former head of the Netherlands anti-doping agency for ten years, said that samples may be used in research programmes only on the condition that all information tracing them to an individual is removed, but this was not the case.

Vrijman outlined a list of errors in how the sample was handled, saying: “Sometimes with doping cases you can say it was a technicality. These are not technicalities. These are fundamental issues which should have been done differently.”

He also claimed that Wada, the Parisian laboratory and the French Government had failed to provide documents and co-operate fully in his investigation.

The 132-page report recommended convening a tribunal to discuss possible legal and ethical violations by Wada and to consider “appropriate sanctions to remedy the violations”.

However, both the UCI and Wada attacked Vrijman yesterday for giving a media interview before sending the reports to them. Dick Pound, the Canadian president of Wada, said: “It’s clearly everything that we feared. There was no interest in determining whether the samples Armstrong provided were positive or not.

“I don’t know how a Dutch lawyer with no expertise came to a conclusion that one of the leading laboratories messed up on the analysis. To say Armstrong is totally exonerated seems strange.”

In a written statement, Armstrong, who has now retired, said: “Although I am not surprised by the report’s findings, I am pleased that they confirm what I have been saying since the witch-hunt began: Dick Pound, Wada, the French laboratory, the French Ministry of Sport, L’Equipe and the Tour de France organisers have been out to discredit me without any basis and falsely accused me of taking performance-enhancing drugs in 1999. Today’s report makes it clear there is no truth to that accusation.”

TESTING TIMES

June 2004: Armstrong announces that he is suing the authors and publisher of LA Confidentiel: Les Secrets de Lance Armstrong, and denies allegations that he took performance-enhancing drugs.

Sept 2004: Armstrong and Tailwind Sports, the company that owns his US Postal team, announces legal action against SCA Promotions, the American insurance giant, for withholding payment of a £2.85 million bonus after Armstrong wins his sixth Tour de France.

August 2005: L’Equipe publishes claims that the American tested positive in 1999 for epo. Armstrong denies the allegations.

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