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Greek prosecutors have opened investigations into how an Athens laboratory blunder allowed Olympic time-trial champion Tyler Hamilton to escape a charge of alleged blood doping.

The American tested positive for a blood transfusion in Athens in August after winning the Olympic time-trial gold medal.
However, he was able to keep his gold medal because the International Olympic Committee (IOC) said the result of a follow-up sample was “non-conclusive” because the sample had been destroyed by being deep-frozen.

Prosecutors said they wanted to determine if the deep freezing was deliberate, negligent or the result of a poorly crafted set of laboratory procedures.

World Anti-doping Agency president Dick Pound recently told VeloNews that the newly developed test had an inherently contradictory set of handling requirements.

“The problem was that you have two vials - the serum and the whole blood,” Pound said. “Both are in the same package and the two call for distinctly different handling. The serum can be frozen, while the whole blood needs to be refrigerated. We have to fix that system.”

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