Three weeks after the announcement of his positive doping test, Mathias Flückiger spoke up for the first time and protested his innocence. Cycling expert Henri Gammenthaler believes the man from Bern – and raises serious allegations against Swiss Cycling.
Mathias Flückiger explained on Wednesday that he had never knowingly taken the banned drug. In addition, it is clear to the 33-year-old and his support team that the A-sample should have been evaluated as an atypical and not as a positive result because the amount of zeranol detected was well below the limit value.
Swiss Sport Integrity would not have followed the instructions issued by the World Anti-Doping Agency WADA for such cases, explained the Flückiger team and also referred to two negative doping samples shortly before and shortly after the test on June 5th.
Henri Gammenthaler believes in mountain bikers. “He doesn’t need it, he’s a serious athlete, he always tells the truth and trains hard,” says the cycling expert in an interview with blue Sport. Gammenthaler even senses a conspiracy: “Flückiger’s goal was to become world champion this year. And before that in Munich to get the European title. He would have had a huge shot at those titles, but they stole them from him. This story stinks to high heaven!”
What Gammenthaler cannot understand is that Flückiger received the message on the day he arrived in Munich in mid-August that he was being temporarily banned. The positive A sample was more than two months old. “It’s unbelievable that it takes so long for him to find out. Something couldn’t be right there.”
“Someone who wants to dope takes something else”
Henri Gammenthaler
Image: zVg
Henri Gammenthaler analyzes cycling events for “blue Sport”. The Zurich native was once a driver himself, later a TV and radio expert and commentator on the Tour de Suisse.
In its statement, the Flückiger team stated that the level of the banned substance zeranol measured in his urine was only 0.3 nanograms per milliliter – well below the limit of 5 nanograms per milliliter. The case should therefore – from Flückiger’s point of view – never have been brought to the public by Swiss Cycling.
“The amount apparently found in Mathias Flückiger’s A sample is so small that his A sample should only have been evaluated as an atypical result, but not as a positive result,” says the Flückiger communiqué.
“The amount found … that’s no use at all, it’s not doping either, because it doesn’t increase performance,” says Gammenthaler. “A professional who really wants to dope takes something else.” The cycling expert believes that the association put Flückiger “a bad egg in the nest” with the publication of the case. Because the Bernese often did not pull in the same direction as Swiss Cycling.
What’s next?
«Flückiger is clean. And he will fight until he is totally rehabilitated and until the newspapers write that Flückiger cannot help it,” Gammenthaler is sure. “It’s a matter for the association, a wickedness beyond compare.”
The cycling association rejects these allegations. “Swiss Cycling received the order from Swiss Sport Integrity on the afternoon of August 18 to enforce the provisional ban against Mathias Flückiger,” is in the «Blick» to read. And why was the case made public? «Swiss Cycling should have answered the question why Mathias Flückiger was not at the start with untruths. No way.”