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Adam Davy
Froomerang

Froome dismisses reports that he's ready to accept a short ban as 'completely untrue'

Chris Froome was found to have twice the permitted level of asthma drug salbutamol in his urine after providing a test at last year’s Vuelta.

BRITISH CYCLIST CHRIS Froome has denied a report in Italian daily newspaper Coriere Della Sera that he is to accept a short suspension rather than attempt to prove his innocence after returning an adverse analytical finding for salbutamol at the 2017 Vuelta a España.

The four-time Tour de France champion, who won last year’s Vuelta, did not technically test positive for the asthma drug, but was found to have twice the permitted level of the substance in his urine.

To avoid a lengthy ban as well as the probable stripping of both his Vuelta title and world championship silver medal, Froome must provide a satisfactory explanation as to why this was the case.

Corriere reported this morning that Froome was ready to accept a six or nine-month sanction for ‘negligence’ in order to avoid an anti-doping trial – an idea they claimed was concocted by his wife, Michelle.

The Italian publication reported that Froome “has understood he has lost the war and is ready to sign an honourable armistice”, suggesting the idea that Froome’s kidneys could have somehow retained a quantity of salbutamol and skewed his sample has only irritated the UCI as well as a number of cycling doctors.

It also noted that the prospect of undergoing a pharmacokinetic test in a laboratory – where scientists would recreate the Vuelta environment in which Froome returned his adverse analytical finding – could massively backfire, for if Froome failed to reach a level even close to his Vuelta return, he would face a ban of between 12 and 24 months.

Corriere say that a six or nine-month ban would be backdated to the day of his Vuelta test – 7 September – and would therefore allow the 32-year-old to race this year’s Giro d’Italia and Tour de France as planned.

However, UCI rules insist that in the event that no provisional suspension is imposed, any ban resulting from an adverse analytical finding being confirmed as an anti-doping rule violation begins on the day on that confirmation is delivered.

In any case, Froome has taken to Twitter to quash any notion that he’ll accept a short ban rather than fight his case, labeling Corriere’s report ‘completely untrue’.

Team Sky remain unmoved in their stance that Froome did not exceed the permitted salbutamol dosage and that the focus is on exploring variables that could have skewed the sample he provided last September.

Froome is expected to make his season debut in February or March.

‘He is an odious individual who has problems with the law’

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