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Dr. Ayotte is Doping Control director at Canada's Institut National de la Recherché Scientifique. This Canadian institute is the World Anti-doping Agency (WADA) certified lab closest to the agency's headquarters in Montreal.

L'Equipe reported that the EPO detection method used was experimental. Ayotte thinks that a new statistical model was used to reanalyze numerical data resulting from the chemical testing. "My interpretation is that retesting itself must have been conducted in 2000 or in 2001, but the results were reviewed using the new mathematical model that is now being developed in Paris."

Ayotte does not question whether the new type of analysis is correct, rather she questions the ethics of long-delayed test results.

The first ethical problem is that an adverse finding cannot be confirmed with second samples, as required by WADA regulations. There are normally two samples, "A" and "B". The Châtenay-Malabry EPO findings were based on Armstrong's "B" samples. Armstrong's "A" samples were depleted in 1999 for tests that did not include EPO, because no EPO test was available that year.

French Sports Minister Jean-Francois Lamour said that without the "A" samples, no disciplinary action could be taken against Armstrong.

The second ethical problem is that an athlete charged with doping long after the athletic event, has no way to submit to additional testing to disprove an adverse finding. Similar reasoning led to enactment of the statutes of limitations in legal cases, where justice long delayed was too frequently justice denied.

The third ethical problem is that L'Equipe disclosed Armstrong's medical identity, and Dr. Ayotte called this "leaked". "It seems to me," Ayotte continued, "that this whole thing is breach of the WADA code. We are supposed to work confidentially until such time that we can confirm a result. By no means does this mean that we sweep a result under the carpet, but it has to meet a certain set of requirements."

Châtenay-Malabry was the source of the data finding EPO in anonymously numbered urine samples, but was not necessarily the source of the medical identity connecting Armstrong to those samples. Ayotte explained, "It isn't the lab that has the critical bit of information - the link between the code on the sample and the name of the athlete," she noted. "We only get a code at these WADA labs. Someone else must have supplied the paper with the names and their respective codes. So, to me, this whole thing raises a number of questions.

Ayotte continued, "I'm worried, because I have a great deal of respect for my colleagues in Paris. I am concerned that they did not cover their backs before being dragged into a very public issue of this kind."

Lance Armstrong has responded on his website, branding L'Equipe's reporting as being "nothing short of tabloid journalism." Armstrong says: "I will simply restate what I have said many times: I have never taken performance[-]enhancing drugs."

Further confusing public understanding of the EPO doping claim is Armstrong's statement in his autobiography, "It's Not About the Bike": he said he received EPO during his cancer chemotherapy treatment. "It was the only thing that kept me alive," he wrote. That opens a logical question. If lab Châtenay-Malabry has developed extremely sensitive detection for the presence of EPO, they must also deny the possibility that they detected residual traces of EPO, which Armstrong was given during chemotherapy prior to 1999.

Sources

• Charles Pelkey "Top lab official wonders if delayed testing is possible: We are not that lucky here, says Canada's Christiane Ayotte." VeloNews, August 23, 2005
  
• The Associated Press "Leblanc: Armstrong owes fans an explanation." VeloNews, August 24, 2005
  
• "Lance Armstrong Denies EPO Doping Claim." The World Forum, August 23, 2005
  
• "ARMSTRONG DANS LA TOURMENTE." L'Equipe, August 23, 2005