Nairo Quintana‘s lawyer has described the Colombian’s tramadol case as “very strange”, calling the UCI’s rules and processes into question as he prepares an appeal.
Quintana was stripped of his sixth place finish in the Tour de France this week, when the UCI announced he had twice tested positive for tramadol, an opioid painkiller that has been banned in cycling since 2019.
It is not a doping case, given the substance is banned on medical grounds and is not prohibited by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA). Quintana is not suspended but will has pulled out of the Vuelta a España in order to fight to recover his results from the Tour in a process that could also influence his future at the Arkéa-Samsic team.
Quintana and his representatives have enlisted the services of Colombian sports lawyer Andrés Charria, famous for overturning the case against track cyclist María Luisa Calle in 2004 that saw the International Olympic Committee strip her bronze medal from the Athens Games and later hand it back.
“The truth is, it’s a very strange process. What’s happening with Nairo is something new, that the UCI has concocted,” Charria said on Colombia’s Blu Radio this weekend.
“This is not doping, but it appears like doping,” he added. “It’s important to ask what the UCI is looking for, because if it’s about health, that’s a fundamental pillar of WADA, and if WADA doesn’t consider it [tramadol] harmful on health grounds… it’s complicated.”
Charria called into question almost every aspect of the UCI’s tramadol ban, right down to the “absurdity” of having to pay for the costs of the test.
“There is a badly made rule, a strange sample collection, a laboratory that isn’t accredited…” he said.
According to UCI regulations, tramadol tests are carried out on certain riders at the finish of certain races using the ‘Dried Blood Spots’ method taking using a finger-prick device. Analysis is conducted ‘independently’ at a laboratory at Geneva University, using a peer review method to detect the amount of tramadol and its two main metabolites. Results are submitted to the University of Lausanne’s Anti-Doping Sciences department for review before being delivered to the UCI medical director.
“The sample wasn’t analysed in a WADA-accredited lab,” said Charria. “OK, I know it’s not a doping case, but they have access to the WADA lab, so why not use it?
“We don’t know where the sample was stored, there is no B-sample… it’s strange. I’m sure the process itself is…
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