Innocent Armstrong

Not that it comes as much of a surprise, but Lance armstrong has been cleared of all allegations of doping:

An independent investigation has cleared seven times Tour de France champion Lance Armstrong of doping during the 1999 event and strongly criticised the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA).

"The report confirms my innocence, but also finds that (WADA president) Mr (Dick) Pound along with the French lab and the French ministry have ignored the rules and broken the law," the American said in a statement.

"They have also refused to cooperate with the investigation in an effort to conceal the full scope of their wrongdoing."

He added: "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."

Dutch lawyer Emile Vrijman, assigned by the International Cycling Union (UCI) to investigate newspaper allegations, said on Wednesday testing procedures were insufficient to label Armstrong's sample positive.

He also referred to "misconduct" by WADA and the French national doping laboratory LNDD.

Armstrong had been accused by the French sports paper L'Equipe of using the endurance-boosting drug EPO on the way to the first of his seven victories.

And in an strongly-worded press release on Wednesday, the UCI said that they 'deplored' the behavior of Vrijman, claiming that he had released the report without their permission to the Dutch press and before all "interested parties" could comment.

"The UCI underlines its deep displeasure with regards to the regrettable development of this case," read a statement.

The 132-page report by Vrijman and his panel comes down firmly in favor of Armstrong, who has strenuously denied using banned substances.
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