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.
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