The United States Anti-Doping Agency (USDADA’s) last night exonerated Chris Horner of any wrong doing over officials’ inability to find him for an out-of competition doping test yesterday morning.
Testers arrived at the RadioShack team hotel yesterday morning only to find that Horner was not present as he’d moved to another hotel in order to spend the night with his wife.
As rumours swirled about Horner supposedly missing a test, the team published a confirmation email from USADA’s whereabouts system, demonstrating that Horner had notified the agency on Sunday morning of the hotel change.
USADA has conceded this, and said that the updated information did not reach the testers in time.
In a statement, the USADA said: "In response to public statements from Team RadioShack today concerning Chris Horner, USADA can confirm that we were coordinating an out-of-competition test with the Agencia Española de Protección de la Salud en el Deporte (AEA) while Mr. Horner was in Spain.
"Mr. Horner properly updated his whereabouts information in advance of the test attempt, but given that the information was received in the United States, the AEA doping control officer on the ground in Spain did not receive the updated information prior to arriving at the hotel.
"This is not considered a missed test and neither anti-doping organisation provided information to the media regarding this situation."
On Sunday, Chris Horner finished the Vuelta a España in the leader's jersey to became the oldest grand tour winner ever, at 41.
15 thoughts on “USADA admits Chris Horner blunder: whereabouts was not communicated to testers”
Well thats him off the hook
Well thats him off the hook then.
Phew – thats a relief – such a fine upstanding athlete can now take the plaudits he so richly deserves.
I wonder if he will be announcing a Vinokourov type retirement now too?
Some Fella wrote:Well thats
This is such horse shit, you have some proof he took drugs, FFS he did EVERYTHING right, EVERYTHING that was asked of him and yet you still slur him with drugs because the USDA messed it up, jesus give the guys a break, these bullshit views are not helping cycling.
I agree he did everything by
I agree he did everything by the book. Brilliant ride, gave an old boy like me some hope! Lets just drop all the suspicion of everyone who dares to put in a good performance. Nuff said! :B
mikeprytherch wrote:Some
He did everything by the book….’The Secret Race’. It is all there. Including the ‘change the address at the last minute’ malarkey. Team RadioShack’s mock indignation is laughable. They’re playing the game, but did they at any point try to point the testers in the right direction?
I’m glad people here think can still discuss this stuff in an intelligent fashion. It’s important to be able to discuss this stuff because OTHERWISE YOU’D JUST LET THE LIKES OF LA GET AWAY WITH IT.
Colin Peyresourde wrote:
People prefer to believe in fairytales!
Quote:”This is not considered
Who did then?
jstreetley wrote:Quote:”This
I’d bet the hotel(s) involved.
One comment in and we’ve
One comment in and we’ve already implied he cheated, great work.
All this cynicism from the fans is the reason I cant be bothered to participate in online discussions anymore, if you hate pro cycling that much, dont watch it.
JonMack wrote:One comment in
I too have made the vow never to contribute to discussions online….wait, what? Oh.
Jasonahewitt wrote:JonMack
I too have made the vow never to contribute to discussions online….wait, what? Oh.— JonMack
I am not contributing to this discussion and nor is my wife!
JonMack wrote:One comment in
You just have. It wasn’t that hard was if?!
Yet you still felt compelled
Yet you still felt compelled to add just 1 last post :H
I don’t think this could have
I don’t think this could have possibly been more poorly timed for Horner. Enough people were already asking questions and even after his exoneration it sure won’t help his defense
If this guy can book into a
If this guy can book into a hotel with the missus the night after riding up every hill in Spain for three weeks then he must have enough testosterone coursing round his body already without having to cheat. God knows, I do a two hour spin on a Saturday morning and I can’t even make it to Match of the Day without nodding off.
What I don’t get is why
What I don’t get is why didn’t someone in his team at the hotel the testers turned up at give him a call and say ‘bit of a problem, where are you?’ Someone must have known the right hotel or a mobile number and been able to work out the simple logic of misses test = even if in right it will look horribly wrong. easier than team tactics to work out consequences