BAGNERES-DE-LUCHON, France — Less than a month after the USA Pro Cycling Challenge lost its most popular name, Andy Schleck, to injury, it likely lost another major cyclist to a positive doping test.
His brother.
Frank Schleck, Andy’s older brother, was pulled from the Tour de France late Tuesday and is all but out of Colorado’s second annual race next month. (Andy Schleck is recovering from a fractured pelvis suffered in last month’s Criterium du Dauphine.)
Frank Schleck, 32, had a positive A test for xipamide, a diuretic often used for weight loss that has been used as a masking agent for performance-enhancing drugs. His team, RadioShack-Nissan, pulled him before the results of the B test returned. A negative B test is the only way Schleck will compete in Colorado, a team spokesman said.
“The chance is low but there is a chance, yes,” team spokesman Philippe Maertens said Wednesday. “Ten percent. In theory it’s going to be positive. It happens maybe one out of 100 times that the B sample has an opposite result.”
Shawn Hunter, CEO of the USA Pro Cycling Challenge, said Wednesday from Bagneres-de-Luchon, that he and event officials “anticipate that he’ll still be in our race. We’re not part of the process of what’s going on in France.
“Our expectation is he’ll be (in Colorado). We know he wants to be here. I know he and his brother love Colorado and loved racing here. Our anticipating is he’ll race here Aug. 20.”
Asked how he could think that after a positive drug test and Hunter said: “We need to see that process play out.”
Another hope for the USA Pro Cycling Challenge is that the World Anti-Doping Agency classifies xipamide as a “specified substance,” meaning it is “more susceptible to a credible, non-doping explanation.”
Schleck didn’t meet with the media Wednesday but claimed in a statement he was sabotaged.
“If this analysis confirms the first result,” his statement said, “a complaint will be filed against an unspecified person for poisoning.”
Schleck, who finished third in the Tour de France last year, wasn’t having a good race. Entering Wednesday he stood 12th, 9:45 behind leader Bradley Wiggins, and looked sluggish on and off the bike. He withdrew during Stage 15 of the Giro d’Italia in May.
Nevertheless, he and Andy, who won the 2010 Tour de France, have major stature with the peloton and racing public. Before last year’s inaugural USA Pro Cycling Challenge, the amicable brothers fished together in the Rockies.
An enormous media throng swarmed RadioShack-Nissan’s bus before Wednesday’s stage. That’s one reason the team removed him.
“We wanted to prevent problems like this,” Maertens said, pointing to the media. “It makes no sense. You have to do it in respect for the Tour de France. Also for himself, he needs to make his defense.”
Maertens said Schleck’s teammates were glad he was removed to avoid a distraction but still supported him.
“It’s questionable on where that particular drug could come from,” teammate Chris Horner said. “I don’t believe that Frank took it on purpose, that’s for certain. Let me say something different: I don’t believe he knowingly took it so I think he will be back with the team as soon as he can clear this up.”
Maertens said the Tour didn’t pressure the team into removing Schleck. However, Tour director Christian Prudhomme applauded the team’s move.
“It is a wise decision and for that matter, the only one imaginable,” he told The Associated Press.
John Henderson: 303-954-1299, jhenderson@denverpost.com or
