THE UNFORTUNATE INEVITABILITY of another drugs failure at le Tour De France has arisen, and once again the charge has been denied by the accused.
Last night the UCI – the cycling world’s governing body announced that former world championship runner-up and Olympic bronze medalist Russia’s Alexandr Kolobnev, had tested positive for a masking agent during the Tour De France.
The team 30-year old Team Katusha rider gave a urine sample after stage five last Wednesday and the testing found traces of a “prohibited specific substance.” Kolobnev has asked for his B sample to be tested, but the rider and his team decided to stand him down from the 2011 race.
The governing body said in a statement: “The UCI anti-doping rules do not provide for a provisional suspension given the nature of the substance, which is a specified substance.
“However the UCI is confident that his team will take the necessary steps to enable the Tour de France to continue in serenity and to ensure that their rider has the opportunity to properly prepare his defence.”
Kolobnev becomes the first cyclist to fail a doping test during this year’s race. However it appears he is denying any wrongdoing and wrote on his website this morning that the police have found nothing unusual in the laboratory when they searched it. (You will have to excuse the translations – which really seems to have been lost from Russian to French and then French to English.)
The full UCI statement on Kolobnev’s substance fail reads:
Earlier today, the UCI advised the Russian rider Alexandr Kolobnev of an Adverse Analytical Finding (presence of Hydrochlorothiazide based on the report from the WADA accredited laboratory in Châtenay-Malabry) in the urine sample collected from him at an in competition test at the Tour de France on 6 July 2011. Mr. Kolobnev has the right to request and attend the analysis of his B sample.
The UCI Anti-Doping Rules do not provide for a provisional suspension given the nature of the substance, which is a specified substance.
However the UCI is confident that his team will take the necessary steps to enable the Tour de France to continue in serenity and to ensure that their rider has the opportunity to properly prepare his defense in particular within the legal timeline, which allows four days for him to have his B sample analyzed.
Under the World Anti-Doping Code and the UCI Anti-Doping Rules, the UCI is unable to provide any additional information at this time.