Froome setback as UCI send salbutamol case to anti-doping court

PARIS: The UCI, cycling’s governing body, has rejected Chris Froome’s explanations as unfounded and referred his case to an anti-doping court, French daily Le Monde reported on Friday.

Sky and Froome had hoped the UCI would find there were no grounds to penalise the four-time Tour de France winner, instead the UCI have opened the door to disciplinary proceedings by sending the adverse doping test Froome returned at the Vuelta a Espana last season to the Court for Arbitration in Sport.

In previous cases, Diego Ulissi tested positive for a similar level of the same drug, salbutamol, at the Giro in 2014 and was banned for nine months by a Swiss disciplinary panel.

In the 2007 Giro, Alessandro Petacchi tested positive for salbutamol and was then banned for a year by the Italian authorities.

Froome had around twice the allowed amount of asthma drug salbutamol in his urine when tested on September 7 on his way to victory in the Vuelta. He argued there were natural reasons for this.

The 32-year-old Froome insists there was no wrongdoing on his or the team’s part. He is allowed to continue competing until the case is decided upon.

“It is well known that I have asthma and I know exactly what the rules are.

“I use an inhaler to manage my symptoms and I know for sure that I will be tested every day I wear the race leader’s jersey,” Froome said when the news of the finding broke.

“My asthma got worse at the Vuelta so I followed the team doctor’s advice to increase my salbutamol dosage.

“As always, I took the greatest care to ensure that I did not use more than the permissible dose.” — AFP