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Vinokourov Questions French Laboratory Findings

Reuters
Jul 28, 2007

French gendarmes stand by a Astana cycling team car parked at the Palmeraie Hotel in Pau, July 24, 2007, after it was revealed that Kazakhstan's Alexandre Vinokourov tested positive for blood doping after the individual time-trial in Albi last 21 July. (Dominique Faget/AFP/Getty Images)
French gendarmes stand by a Astana cycling team car parked at the Palmeraie Hotel in Pau, July 24, 2007, after it was revealed that Kazakhstan's Alexandre Vinokourov tested positive for blood doping after the individual time-trial in Albi last 21 July. (Dominique Faget/AFP/Getty Images)


ANGOULEME, France—Alexander Vinokourov, who left the Tour de France after a positive test for blood doping, questioned the competence of the French laboratory (LNDD) that tested his A sample.

"I have always raced clean", the Kazakh said in a statement released by his lawyers on Saturday.

"Never before this year's Tour de France have I ever been accused of violating any doping law," he added.

"These test results simply make no sense. Given all the attention paid to doping offences, you would have to be crazy to do what I have been accused of, and I am not crazy."

Vinokourov tested positive for homologuous blood doping, a method using blood from another person that has been detected since 2004.

The statement questioned the efficacy of the "flow cytometry instrument" that the LNDD used to find him positive and which the laboratory was using for the first time on the Tour.

"As of now, the public has only heard one side in these test results. We encourage everyone to keep an open mind about the test results and not to assume that the LNDD has done everything correctly or has achieved accurate results," said Vinokourov's lawyer Maurice Suh.

Vinokourov, who was sacked by his Astana team, was tested following his win in last Saturday's time trial in Albi.

He had crashed during the fifth stage on July 12, hurting both knees, needing stitches in one of them, and losing one minute and 20 seconds over the favourites.



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