Dekker protests his innocence; L'Equipe hints at more doping

Paris - Dutch cyclist Thomas Dekker protested his innocence on Thursday in the wake of a positive doping test for the blood booster EPO. French sports daily L'Equipe, meanwhile, suggested that up to seven further riders could have failed dope tests and join Dekker on the sidelines for the Tour de France which starts on Saturday. Dekker was caught in retests of a sample from December 2007 after new test methods were introduced. He was suspended by his team Silence-Lotto and faces a two-year ban. The 24-year-old protested his innocence, telling Dutch daily de Telegraaf 'I have the feeling that I was betrayed.' Dekker said he did not understand why the sample from 2007, which was negative at the time, was re-examined. However, the World Anti-Doping Agency ordered the retest due to suspicious blood levels over the past month. 'We have been watching Dekker for quite a while and conducted retests with new methods of his frozen samples in Cologne,' said Enrico Carpani, spokesman of the ruling cycling body UCI. Dekker was the subject of suspicion last year when he was not nominated for the 2008 Tour by his former team Rabobank. Lack of form was cited as the reason at the time, and Dekker then had to leave the team. He also did not compete as planned at the Beijing Olympics. But Carpani could not confirm a report from L'Equipe that 'four to seven' further riders could be axed from the Tour over positive tests, reportedly from the Tour de Suisse and Tour de Rommandie races earlier this year. 'I can not confirm that further exclusions from the Tour will take place after the Dekker case,' Carpani told the German Press Agency dpa.