Jeff Novitzky, the US Food & Drug Administration (FDA) Special Agent currently leading an investigation into alleged doping within professional cycling centred around Lance Armstrong, is reported to be visiting France’s anti-doping agency, the AFLD, this week.
The news has intensified speculation that last week’s raid by Italian law enforcement officials of the home of RadioShack rider Yaroslav Popovych may be linked to the ongoing enquiry in the United States.
Earlier this month, Popovych testified on penalty of perjury that he had never seen evidence of doping while riding for RadioShack, or previously at the Astana or Discovery Channel teams. The Ukrainian rode alongside Armstrong at all three teams.
According to an Associated Press report quoted on the CBS News website, an unnamed source has confirmed that a US delegation, said to include Novitzky, U.S. federal prosecutor Doug Miller, and Travis Tygart, CEO of the US Anti-Doping Agency, have already arrived in France ahead of the meeting.
Pierre Brodry, until recently head of the AFLD, has previously said that the agency would be prepared to hand over samples of Armstrong’s urine collected during the 1999 edition of the Tour de France, which marked the first of the Texan’s seven overall victories in the race, if US investigators requested them.
In 2005, the French sports daily L’Equipe made allegations that traces of EPO had been found in urine samples taken from the then US Postal Service rider at the 1999 Tour, although world cycling’s governing body, the UCI, subsequently cleared Armstrong of any wrongdoing.
The seven times Tour de France champion has consistently denied allegations of using performance-enhancing substances.
However, he has come increasingly under the spotlight since Floyd Landis, stripped of the 2006 Tour de France title for doping, publicly made detailed allegations in May this year of what he described as widespread doping within the USPS team when he rode for it, including against Armstrong himself.
Commenting on the prospect of investigators obtaining the 1999 samples, Mark Fabiani, counsel for Lance Armstrong, stated in an email to road.cc: "The samples were clean when originally provided and tested. So we have nothing to be concerned about. Period."
My commute takes me past a very popular state secondary school (that was attended by a famous rock star and has his name on one of the buildings)....
Makes sense for the modernisation of the Roman Catholic faith. Ticked off women's ordination, married priests and same-sex relationships. Now they...
Also, I shall always be grateful to her and Jason for recording a little "good luck" video to me when I was about to embark on my season of cycling...
You really make me laugh ...
I live in Carmarthenshire (though not in Llangadog) and we've got the same issue - ever since the 20mph thing came in, a bunch of petuant children ...
Troll 7 normal posters 0
Campagnolo "hub cap" tools for Record-style hubs should be on the list. They're expensive and not something you need very often, but the...
Really sad for all the staff who have lost their jobs, especially if the above is true and minimum legal notice periods were not met etc. Like the...
Isn't it the end user that should be choosing? The developer is providing what is requested (presumably based on feedback, marketing dept and so on...
These things happen so often yet every single one of them still produces a sickening feeling when I read about it....