Associated Press

AMSTERDAM, Netherlands -- A Dutch investigator's report cleared Lance Armstrong of doping in the 1999 Tour de France on Wednesday, calling the accusations against him "completely irresponsible" and raising the possibility of misconduct by anti-doping authorities.

The 132-page report recommended convening a tribunal to discuss possible legal and ethical violations by the World Anti-Doping Agency and to consider "appropriate sanctions to remedy the violations."

The French sports daily L'Equipe reported in August that six of Armstrong's urine samples from 1999, when he won the first of his record seven straight Tour titles, came back positive for the endurance-boosting hormone EPO when they were retested in 2004.

Armstrong has repeatedly denied using banned substances.

"Today's comprehensive report makes it clear that there is no truth to that accusation," Armstrong said in a statement. "I have now retired, but for the sake of all athletes still competing who deserve a level playing field and a fair system of drug testing, the time has come to take action against these kinds of attacks before they destroy the credibility of WADA and, in turn, the international anti-doping system."

The International Cycling Union appointed Dutch lawyer Emile Vrijman last October to investigate the handling of urine tests from the 1999 Tour by the French national anti-doping laboratory, known by its French acronym LNDD.

Vrijman said Wednesday his report "exonerates Lance Armstrong completely with respect to alleged use of doping in the 1999 Tour de France."

The report said tests on the samples were conducted improperly, and fell so short of scientific standards that it was "completely irresponsible" to suggest that the results "constitute evidence of anything."

It said no proper records were kept of the samples, there had been no "chain of custody" guaranteeing their integrity, and no way of knowing whether the samples had been "spiked" with banned substances.

The report said WADA and the LNDD may have "behaved in ways that are completely inconsistent with the rules and regulations of international anti-doping control testing," and may also have been against the law. It accused WADA of putting pressure on the LNDD to summarize the results of the tests, and said both agencies violated rules of confidentiality by openly discussing them.

It said neither Armstrong nor any of the other riders that were tested retroactively could fairly be accused of violating anti-doping regulations based on the LNDD's examination.

WADA chief Dick Pound said he hadn't received the report yet but, based on what he had read in news accounts, was critical of Vrijman's findings.

"There was no interest in determining whether the samples Armstrong provided were positive or not," he told The Associated Press by telephone from Montreal. "We were afraid of that from the very beginning."

Pound reiterated his claim that the UCI had leaked the forms to a reporter from L'Equipe and was responsible for the doping samples being linked to Armstrong.

"Whether the samples were positive or not, I don't know how a Dutch lawyer with no expertise came to a conclusion that one of the leading laboratories in the world messed up on the analysis. To say Armstrong is totally exonerated seems strange," Pound said.

The report also said the UCI had not damaged Armstrong by releasing doping control forms to the French newspaper. Vrijman said a further investigation was needed regarding the leaking of the results.

He said a tribunal should be created to "provide a fair hearing" to the people and organizations suspected of misconduct and to decide on sanctions if warranted. Vrijman's statement did not specify what the alleged violations were.

"The report confirms my innocence, but also finds that Mr. Pound along with the French lab and the French ministry have ignored the rules and broken the law," Armstrong said. "They have also refused to cooperate with the investigation in an effort to conceal the full scope of their wrongdoing."

The UCI said it was upset with Vrijman for commenting on the report before all parties involved in the case were informed.

"Upon reception of the document, the UCI will study in details the content before publishing it in its whole," the UCI said in a statement.

In a separate statement, WADA expressed "grave concern and strong disappointment" over Vrijman's reported comments.

"Elementary courtesy and professionalism would have dictated that WADA should have been provided with a copy of the report before interviews were given to the media," the statement said.

"WADA continues to stress its concern that an investigation into the matter must consider all aspects -- not limited to how the damaging information regarding athletes' urine samples became public, but also addressing the question of whether anti-doping rules were violated by athletes."

The anti-doping lab at Chatenay-Malabry has been accused of violating confidentiality regulations.

Mario Zorzoli, the doctor who gave copies of Armstrong's doping control forms to L'Equipe, was suspended by the UCI for one month earlier this year. He has since been reinstated.

Vrijman, who headed the Dutch anti-doping agency for 10 years and later defended athletes accused of doping, worked on the report with Adriaan van der Veen, a scientist with the Dutch Metrology Laboratory.

EPO, or erythropoietin, is a synthetic hormone that boosts the oxygen-carrying capacity of the blood.

Testing for EPO only began in 2001.

The full report was sent to the UCI, the LNDD, the French sports ministry, WADA and Armstrong's lawyer. The International Olympic Committee also had requested a copy.

The accusations against Armstrong raised questions about how frozen samples, routinely held for eight years, should be used.

Why do you think they call it dope?
Kreidler
By Mark Kreidler
Special to ESPN.com
Archive

Let's tally up the losers and the louses in the latest round of the Lance Armstrong Derby. Lord knows -- and no offense to the members of the Dick Pound Fan Club, here -- there ain't a winner in sight.

It's amazing how muddy the back end of a car wash can get. Armstrong is coming through a week in which he ostensibly was supported in his long-held claim that he didn't cheat like a bandit to win the 1999 Tour de France.

Dick Pound
Dick Pound, shown in 2001, always has plenty to say on doping matters.

It took less than a full news cycle for the broad body of public opinion to start ricocheting back the other way.

People practically lined up to explain that what a Dutch lawyer concluded wasn't really acceptable. They noted you couldn't trust any finding that Armstrong didn't cheat back in '99. For that matter, what the lawyer came up with wasn't really a refutation of the charge that Armstrong doped his way to glory.

It's time to accept the inevitable: It won't ever be over for Armstrong. It won't ever be over for Barry Bonds, or Marion Jones, or any of the people who've been keelhauled by public opinion and various accumulations of fact, rumor and whisper (not to mention blood, urine and saliva).

Armstrong certainly understands that much; he said so in a Men's Journal interview in which Tom Brokaw asked the seven-time Tour champ whether he was finally "out of the doping business" in the sense of people no longer asking him about it.

"No, no, I'm not out of that," Armstrong replied. "There are too many people. It's really become a story … You have a guy like Dick Pound -- he absolutely hates me with a passion. He'll never let it die."

True dat. And on to the leaderboard.

Armstrong
Just doesn't come out looking much better, in the end. His support comes from Dutch lawyer Emile Vrijman, who was hired by the International Cycling Union to investigate the handling of Armstrong's urine samples from 1999, but Vrijman's report isn't going to sway anyone who already thought Armstrong was a cheater -- the case it makes is essentially the old samples-were-unreliable defense trotted out by so many disgraced athletes over the years.

The fact that Vrijman might be 100 percent correct about that - those samples look like they were trampled by hordes of invading forces before they were ever tested - isn't carrying the day, either. Instead, Pound issues his official doubts from whatever throne he's occupying these days, and a Texas specialist on athletes and substance abuse, John Hoberman, tells a reporter that the fact remains Armstrong dominated "the most drug-soaked sport in the world."

Nice. Armstrong, meanwhile, maintains that the report "confirms my innocence." Upon further review, apparently not.

World Anti-Doping Agency
This is the agency once thought to be sports' best hope against wholesale cheating. Alas, it comes out of the Vrijman report looking like just another passenger along for the ride.

It's impossible to separate WADA from the pompous Pound, its chairman, but Vrijman notes in his 130-page document that the agency didn't fully cooperate in his investigation of the procedures used to reach conclusions about Armstrong and the '99 samples. Vrijman also concluded that both WADA and the French national anti-doping laboratory didn't follow testing procedures and violated confidentiality rules.

Other than that, nicely played.

Dick Pound
Fast becoming the clown prince of the industry, Pound is the go-to guy for any reporter looking for a blustery quote about cheating in general, no matter how ill-informed or shoddily thought out it might be.

Pound responded to Vrijman's report himself, before his WADA peeps even had time to put together their official statement of disappointment in the findings -- and what he had to say was vintage Pound. In an interview with the Associated Press, Pound said it was clear from reading reports of Vrijman's document that "there was no interest in determining whether the samples Armstrong provided were positive or not."

Pound hadn't actually read Vrijman's findings, which make it clear Armstrong's samples were so badly mishandled that there isn't any conclusion from them to be trusted, least of all one that he cheated by using the synthetic hormone EPO. But, hey, why let that get in the way of a quote?

The French
Officials of the Tour publicly challenged Armstrong's truthfulness; the French lab that did the 2004 re-testing of the five-year-old samples blew all protocol; a French newspaper first reported the "scandal" … ah, forget it. No sense piling on.

Armstrong told Brokaw that he doesn't miss competitive cycling. He still might miss getting on his bike. That part was always OK. It's this stuff he doesn't miss. And that makes it all the more ironic that this -- the scum and the grime -- is what Armstrong won't be allowed to scrape away anytime soon.

Two French magazine stories slated for distribution this weekend charge that seven-time Tour de France winner Lance Armstrong allegedly admitted taking banned doping products after being diagnosed with cancer. The stories are based on evidence given under oath to a court in Dallas in late 2005 and early 2006.

The charges appear in Saturday's edition of French daily Le Monde and in this weekend's edition of L'Equipe magazine.

According to former friends of the American cyclist, Armstrong, who was diagnosed with testicular cancer in October of 1996, allegedly told a doctor in Indiana University Hospital later month, after undergoing brain surgery, that he had previously taken several banned substances including EPO, testosterone, growth hormones and cortisone.

The magazine stories are based on evidence given under oath in a Dallas court by Betsy Andreu, wife of Frankie Andreu, a former friend and teammate of Armstrong, who claim they were both present when the cyclist told the doctor of his past doping. The incident was originally described in the 2004 book, "L.A. Confidential," by Sunday Times of London sports reporter David Walsh and former L'Equipe cycling writer Pierre Ballister. Testimony by both Andreus is consistent with Walsh's description of the hospital conversation.

Frankie Andreu made the same statement in a late-2005, deposition, according to documents acquired by VeloNews. Both Andreus previously told the same story during a arbitration hearing between Armstrong and his insurance company SCA Promotions. Armstrong sued SCA after the company declined to make a $5 million payment to the cyclist after he won his sixth Tour de France. The company indicated a reluctance to make the payment after doping allegations were raised in Walsh's 2004 book. According to sources near the case, both parties reached a settlement in the case after the court indicated that the SCA contract contained no provision to negate the payment, even if cheating had occurred.

Betsy Andreu testified that the doctor asked Armstrong whether he had ever taken doping products, and that the cyclist replied "yes."

"He asks which ones. And Lance replies, 'EPO, growth hormones, cortisone, steroids, testosterone,"' Betsy Andreu said in sworn testimony in January.

Another Armstrong friend, Oakley representative Stephanie McIlvain, who was also present at the meeting with the doctor in 1996, denied having heard Armstrong say that he took doping products.

"I stand by my deposition," Betsy Andreu told VeloNews Friday. "I didn't ask to be dragged into this mess...We were served with subpoenas by a Michigan court and we had no choice but to testify."

In his own defense, Armstrong said in a November deposition that no doctor had ever asked him whether he had used doping products and that Betsy Andreu held a personal grudge against him. Armstrong suggested that Frankie Andreu had simply gone along with his wife's account in order to offer her support.

PARIS (AP) -- A French newspaper claimed Friday that Lance Armstrong admitted to doping three years before the first of his seven Tour de France wins in 1999.

Armstrong's attorney strongly denied the claim and gave The Associated Press a copy of an affidavit from one of the lead doctors who treated Armstrong's testicular cancer.

The Texan, retired from cycling since his seventh consecutive Tour victory last year, has consistently insisted that he never took banned drugs to enhance his performances and he was never sanctioned for any doping offense during his career.

But Le Monde said former Armstrong teammate Frankie Andreu, and his wife, Betsy, recently testified under oath to a Dallas court that Armstrong admitted in 1996 to having taken the blood-boosting hormone EPO and other banned substances. The paper said Frankie Andreu used to be best friends with Armstrong.

Le Monde claimed that Armstrong's alleged admission was made Oct. 28, 1996, to a doctor who was treating him for cancer. Betsy Andreu testified that the doctor asked Armstrong whether he had ever taken doping products, and that the cyclist replied "yes," according to Le Monde. The newspaper said she and her husband were with Armstrong on that day.

"He asks which ones. And Lance replies, 'EPO, growth hormones, cortisone, steroids, testosterone,"' it quoted her as telling the court in January. The newspaper said it obtained a copy of her testimony but did not say how.

Armstrong's attorney, Tim Herman, Texas denied the Andreus' claim, calling it "absurd."

In a sworn affidavit, Dr. Craig Nichols said he and other medical personnel visited with Armstrong that day about his medical history before he started chemotherapy.

Nichols was one of doctors treating Armstrong at Indiana University Medical Center. He is now the chair of hematology-oncology at Oregon Health and Sciences University.

"Lance Armstrong never admitted, suggested or indicated that he has ever taken performance-enhancing drugs. Had this been disclosed to me, I would have recorded it, or been aware of it, as a pertinent aspect of Lance Armstrong's past medical history as I always do," Nichols said.

"Had I been present at any such 'confession,' I would most certainly have vividly recalled the fact," Nichols said. "I would have recorded such a confession as a matter of form, as indeed, would have my colleagues. None was recorded."

The court was hearing a case brought by Armstrong against a company that withheld a bonus for his 2004 Tour win because a book alleged that he used performance-enhancers.

After hearing the evidence, including the Andreus' testimony, the three-member arbitration panel ruled against the company and ordered it to pay Armstrong.

Le Monde said that Frankie Andreu, who raced with Armstrong for the first two of his Tour wins in 1999 and 2000, gave a similar deposition last October, also alleging that Armstrong told the doctor that he used EPO, testosterone, growth hormone and cortisone.

But the newspaper said the Andreus' account was denied by a third person, Stephanie McIlvain, a friend of Armstrong's who supposedly was also at the session with the doctor. She testified that she did not hear Armstrong make such an admission, Le Monde said.

"There were probably 10 people in the room. Betsy was apparently the only one that recalls this alleged incident," Herman said.

In his own defense, Armstrong said in a November deposition to the court that no doctor had asked him whether he had used doping products, according to the newspaper. It said Armstrong also told the court that Betsy Andreu hated him and that Frankie Andreu had gone along with her account to offer her support.

Herman said he has 280 pages of medical records from Indiana University Medical Center, where Armstrong was treated for his cancer, that had spread to his brain, that refute the allegations.

Armstrong's doctors repeatedly asked him during his treatment about substances he may have taken and Armstrong answered only that he occasionally drank beer, Herman said.