The UCI have issued the following Pres release concerning the Roberto Heras affair.

The International Cycling Union noted with regret the abnormal result of Roberto Heras's analysis. The presence of EPO in the urines of the Spanish runner during the last but one stage of the Vuelta 2005 was confirmed by the counter-analysis made in Madrid.

Expecting the disciplinary procedure towards Heras, according to the anti-doping regulations to be done by the Spanish Federation (RFEC), the UCI would like to express its full satisfaction as to the progress of the procedures related to this case, and reaffirms its unconditional confidence in the method used for the search of EPO.

The regrettable context of suspicion and distrust created around this affair, which will once again have provoked very negative consequences for the image of the cycling, is only the will of a number to discredit, in a totally unacceptable way, the reliability of the most important tool with which the UCI, as first International Federation in the world, had known how to be equipped within the framework of its commitment against doping and this already in 2001.

The value of this method, moreover recognized by the IOC and WADA, constitutes a fundamental element of the UCI’s anti-doping strategy.

The positive results which ensued from it since its introduction, until this last case of Roberto Heras, prove unmistakably that the battle against the plague of EPO must be pursued, but demonstrate especially the efficiency of these controls.

The charges pressing in a recurring way on other riders subjected to the same test are thus pure speculation.