New doping positives at 2008 Tour de France: Stefan Schumacher now tests positive for EPO

Reports today out of Europe say that there are 2 'new' cyclists testing positive in the EPO retest at the 2008 Tour de France although was reported earlier.  The new name is Stefan Schumacher who won time trials at the 2008 Tour.  The old name is Riccardo Ricco's teammate Leonardo Piepoli.  To Cycling Extreme:

Make it six riders who have now returned positive drug tests from the 2008 Tour de France.  The latest two riders’ positive test results were announced Monday.

German Stefan Schumacher, who surprisingly won both Tour de France individual time trials, has tested positive for a new generation of the Erythropoietin (EP0) called CERA (Continuous Erythropoisis Receptor Activator), according to the web site of French daily sports newspaper, L'Equipe, and as reported by Agency France Press (AFP).

The Italian Olympic Committee (CONI) also announced Leonardo Piepoli, who won the race's 10th stage to Hautacam in the Pyrenees, tested for positive for CERA.Piepoli, climbing specialist, was a key helper of former Saunier Duval teammate Riccardo Riccò, also a double Tour de France stage winner this year. Last week, Ricco was banned for 20 months after testing positive for CERA at the Tour.

Piepoli was kicked off the tour for murky reasons which were unclear; those reasons are clear now.

Italian Riccardo Ricco was expelled from the Tour after testing positive for CERA, while team-mate Leonardo Piepolo twice tested positive for the blood booster.

Schumacher won both time trials during this year's Tour and Hans-Michael Holczer, director of the Gerolsteiner team, told Belgian newspaper La Derniere Heure: "The director of the Tour, Christian Prudhomme, has confirmed [that Schumacher has tested positive] - I have no doubts about it."

Holczer confirmed Schumacher has been suspended by the team, but the German denies any wrongdoing.

"I am hearing it from you for the first time," Schumacher is quoted as telling German news agency SID. "I can only say that I have not doped. This is complete nonsense."

Four cyclists - Manuel Beltran, Moises Duenas, Ricco and Dmitri Fofonov - failed drugs tests at this year's race and were subsequently thrown out of the Tour.

Comments

[Student]

I wonder if Stefan Schumacher is an embarassment to the French race, just like Amaury said Armstrong was? Ha!

[StevieG]

I wonder if Beltran is an embarrassment to Armstrong: I believe he rode with one of his teams as well and was not mentioned in the other post's list of riders that rode with LA and have either admitted to use or test for the use of performance enhancing substances. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manuel_Beltr%C3%A1n