TNT Sports
Tour de France
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Published 10/07/2004 at 11:53 GMT+1
Lotto-Domo rider Christophe Brandt has been suspended from the Tour de France after testing positive for the banned narcotic methadone. The Belgian was withdrawn from the race by his team following a postive test after Monday's Stage 2.
Eurosport
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The 27-year-old, who joined the Belgian team in 2001, is the first rider to fail a dope test on this year's tour.
"I don't understand. I have never heard about this product," Brandt told reporters. "I long to have the results of the B sample.
"Maybe tests should be made on the vitamins I took in recent days, but I never took methadone," he added.
Methadone is a potent synthetic narcotic drug, less addictive than morphine or heroin, which is used as a substitute for these drugs in treatment programmes for addicts.
It is also used for chronic pain management.
COULD BE FIRED
"It's a shame and a pity, especially coming from a rider we know well, but his team director took the right decision. That's what we expected," Tour director Jean-Marie Leblanc said in a statement.
Lotto-Domo preferred to suspend Brandt - 75th overall after Friday's Stage 6, 13' 03" off the yellow jersey - while awaiting the results of the B-sample test, but the rider protested his innocence.
"Christophe Brandt says he is innocent and does not understand what happened," Lotto-Domo manager Christophe Sercu told Belgian media.
"Let's hope that the second test will shed more light on the case," Sercu said. "But the cyclist could be fired if the second test also proves positive."
Spanish rider Gorka Gonzalez was declared unfit to start the Tour de France after blood tests before the prologue in Liege, Belgium last week.
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