Hamiton frozen out
ByReuters
Published 28/09/2004 at 16:12 GMT
Russia are to appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) after American cyclist Tyler Hamilton was last week cleared of doping violations by the International Olympic Committee (IOC), in their bid to get the American's medal rescinded so that Russ
Hamilton twice tested positive for a blood transfusion, first in Athens on August 18 after winning the Olympic time trial gold medal and then following his victory in a time trial in this month's Tour of Spain.
However, the IOC said the result of the B sample in Athens was "non-conclusive" because the sample had been destroyed by being deep-frozen.
Hamilton would have lost his gold medal if his B test was positive with Russia's Vyacheslav Ekimov, who won the event at the Sydney Olympics in 2000 but was second in Athens, being promoted to gold.
Alexander Gusyatnikov, president of the Russian Cycling Federation, said Russia would appeal to the Lausanne-based CAS and criticised the IOC for letting the American off the hook.
"It was simply outrageous," he was quoted as saying in Tuesday's Sport-Express newspaper.
"Any person with commonsense would laugh at the comments by Arnie Ljungqvist, head of the IOC's medical commission, that Hamilton's B sample was destroyed."
Ljungqvist said last week: "The blood sample was unfortunately destroyed. It should not have been deep frozen (in the laboratory). It was human error."
"Hamilton's A sample was deemed clearly positive by a panel of outside experts and was also agreed upon by the chief of the laboratory in Athens."
Gusyatnikov added: "Well, it's good that they didn't manage to destroy his (Hamilton's) B sample from the Vuelta.
"In any case, if a man tests positive for a blood transfusion twice in a month, you can say with all certainty that person used blood doping on a regular basis.
"It's that simple."
Scan me
Related Topics
Share this article
Advertisement
Advertisement