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

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

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 Sept 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.

The case will go to CAS and although no date has been set it would appear there will be no ruling in time to stop Froome competing at the Giro d’Italia, which starts in Jerusalem May 4.

German judge Ulrich Haas will oversee the case according to French sports daily L’Equipe.