Astana: "We have nothing to hide"

* The Kazakh team defends itself after the announcement that is being investigated
* Ensure that its brokers "have not used banned substances"

EFE 13.10.2009El Astana team, which includes the Spanish Alberto Contador and Lance Armstrong, winner and third place respectively in the last Tour de France, has said he has "nothing to hide" and that their brokers "not have used banned substances.

Thus, the Kazakh team to step out of the information in French newspaper L'Equipe, in which Paris prosecutors opened an investigation into alleged doping by Astana team in the last Tour after it was discovered a "suspicious syringes .

"The Astana team has been surprised to read that the team is being investigated by French prosecutors for a doping issue. This information release is the first thing we heard about this research, as this information affects some teams that participated in the Tour, "it said.

"Team Astana has nothing to hide, the runners have not used banned substances, and the team has full confidence in the results of tests performed or to be practicing in a Paris laboratory and is ready to cooperate ', adds the note signed by the head of press, the former cyclist Philippe Maertens.

The research, which is run by the Central Bureau of Counter Attacks on Environment and Public Health, responding to the discovery of "several suspicious syringes in one of the containers assigned to each team by the organizers of the event to collect home medical waste, "said L'Equipe.

The Parisian laboratory Toxlab judicial experts, led by Professor Gilbert Pépin, currently examining the syringes to determine its content.