Eurosport has updated the story. He was tested on April 24th between Fleche Wallonne and Liege-Bastogne-Liege. He will now ask for the B sample to be tested and claims to have no idea why he would have tested positive (literally he claims it is “unexplicable”). Astana has suspended him for the time being until it is clear if he is guilty or not.
Apparently breaking news, Matthias Kessler tested positive for testosterone in an unannounced test in April.
And he did follow Riis’ '96 director sportif Godefroot to Astana. But Godefroot has denied any involvement with doping on his part, so that cannot be it.
That sucks! He was great at the tour last year, one of the best to watch. After his big crash over the barrier he came back and ripped it up all the way to the end.
What a disappointing sport…
Eurosport has updated the story. He was tested on April 24th between Fleche Wallonne and Liege-Bastogne-Liege. He will now ask for the B sample to be tested and claims to have no idea why he would have tested positive (literally he claims it is “unexplicable”). Astana has suspended him for the time being until it is clear if he is guilty or not.
Apparently breaking news, Matthias Kessler tested positive for testosterone in an unannounced test in April.
Ummm…why are we STILL hearing about “A” samples being positive before the B sample confirms ???
Why don’t they just take the whole “anonymous testing until the B sample is confirmed” verbiage out of the WADA code? Nobody seems to be able to follow it (or care) anyway…
Who broke the story? WADA or Astana, or Kessler himself? If it was WADA / UCI, then that’s an issue. If it was the team or Kessler, then that isn’t an issue.
Quick check on the WADA and UCI site don’t have any mention of Kessler testing positive. On the Astana site they say they were informed TODAY (2 MONTHS and 3 days after the test) that he tested positive and is therefore suspended (http://www.team-astana.eu/e/actualite.php?id=595). So it would appear Astana made it public (no mention on Kesslers own website yet).
What I don’t understand is why it took more than 2 months to inform the team? Is there such a dramatic backlog of samples?
Who broke the story? WADA or Astana, or Kessler himself? If it was WADA / UCI, then that’s an issue. If it was the team or Kessler, then that isn’t an issue.
True…and it does appear that the team is the one who “spilled the beans”. It’s just that from a “fairness” standpoint, I fail to see how this helps either Kessler or the Astana team besides giving them a chance to say “See…we’re tough on doping!” all the while throwing Kessler under the bus. What if the B comes back negative (a la Marion Jones?)
It would be interesting to find out where the testing took place…especially since it’s an apparent positive for T. My gut feel is this came out of LNDD
I guess I’m like Slowman in this regard, in that I strongly believe in “respecting the process”. That goes for the teams as well as the testing organizations.
