Ullrich stripped of 3rd-place finish at 2005 Tour

GENEVA — Another day, another doping case, another Tour de France result amended.

Cycling revisited its scandal-scarred recent history again Thursday when the Court of Arbitration for Sport found a Tour winner guilty of doping for the second time this week.

Jan Ullrich, the 1997 champion, was stripped of his third-place finish in the 2005 race for "intensive involvement" in blood doping linked to the Operation Puerto case. The 38-year-old German also was banned from the sport for two years.

Because Ullrich retired in disgrace after the Spanish doping investigation emerged in 2006, his latest shame lacked the impact of Alberto Contador's defeat at sports' highest court Monday.

Contador was stripped of his third Tour victory after CAS rejected his explanation that eating contaminated meat caused his positive tests for clenbuterol in the final days of the 2010 race.

The 29-year-old Spaniard's backdated two-year ban will remove from this year's race the best Tour de France rider since Lance Armstrong at the peak of his career.

Both cases represented victories for the International Cycling Union, whose appeals forced the star riders to fight for their reputations in court.

Yet the two often-delayed cases, launched years apart, delivered back-to-back decisions that reinforced the perception cycling is riven with cheating.

In addition, French great Jeannie Longo became embroiled in scandal Wednesday when her husband was arrested on suspicion of buying the banned performance-enhancer EPO.

The UCI, which described Contador's sanction as a "sad day" for cycling, declined to comment on Ullrich's case before studying the ruling of the CAS panel.

The 24-page document spoke volumes about doping and cycling almost a decade ago.

Ullrich had been "fully engaged" in the doping program of Spanish doctor Eufemiano Fuentes that was exposed in Operation Puerto, the panel wrote.

"In particular, the UCI alleges that Ullrich engaged in blood doping (a prohibited method) and used several prohibited substances, including growth hormones, IGF-1, testosterone patches (PCH), EPO and a masking substance referred to as 'magic powder' that is said to destroy EPO in urine samples," it said. IGF-1 is a hormone similar to insulin.