Cycling: Armstrong Cleared of Doping

Independent investigators have cleared Lance Armstrong of doping during the 1999 Tour de France, 10 months after French sports newspaper L'Equipe claimed to have seen "indisputable" evidence of his guilt.

Dutch law firm Scholten, called in by the International Cycling Union (UCI) to investigate in October, accused the World Anti-Doping Agency (Wada) and the French national anti-doping laboratory (LNDD) of misconduct in a 132-page report on Wednesday. The report, prepared by Emile Vrijman - a former director of the Netherlands national anti-doping agency - found Wada had "behaved in ways that are completely inconsistent with the rules and regulations of international anti-doping control testing."

L'Equipe reported last August it had access to laboratory documents and six of Armstrong's urine samples collected on the 1999 Tour, showed "indisputable" traces of the blood-boosting drug erythropoietin (EPO). American Armstrong, who first won the Tour that year and retired after his record seventh consecutive victory last July, has always denied taking banned substances.

In February the UCI revealed its chief medical officer Mario Zorzoli had provided the newspaper with the documents. Zorzoli said he must have provided all the forms but only so the journalist could write an article proving Armstrong never asked to use drugs after successfully overcoming testicular cancer. He was suspended for a month but reinstated in March.

The UCI was unhappy the findings had been released before it had had a chance to study them. "The UCI strongly deplores the behaviour of Mr Vrijman, who expressed himself in a premature manner, contravening the agreements that all parties implicated would be informed before any public comment was made on contents of the report," the International Cycling Union said in a statement.

The UCI added it was still waiting to receive the final report and "underlines its deep displeasure with regards to the regrettable development of this case", and would publish the document after studying its findings.