The Cycling Anti-Doping Foundation (CADF) have confirmed they were looking into allegations that Team Astana's Jakob Fuglsang and Alexey Lutsenko had been working with Michele Ferrari.
The Italian doctor was banned for life by USADA in 2012 having been implicated in Lance Armstrong's doping regime at US Postal.
Danish publication Politiken revealed that last year's Criterium du Dauphiné winner Fuglsang, along with Lutsenko, was under investigation for secretly working with Ferrari.
Astana and Ferrari separately denied working together.
However, the CADF admit they did have an intelligence agency look into the matter, but no disciplinary proceedings will be forthcoming.
The Sportsradar firm were employed by CADF to investigate the allegations in line with a WADA code they say means they must investigate "any intelligence it receives regarding possible anti-doping rule violations."
The CADF released the following findings:
- The CADF received information in relation to alleged potential anti-doping rule violations and requested intelligence service provider Sportradar to conduct additional research on the allegations to complete CADF files.
- International cooperation being key to effective anti-doping investigations, Sportradar’s subsequent report was shared in strict confidentiality and in a secured manner with a selection of relevant anti-doping bodies and law enforcement agencies.
- The CADF treated the information contained in the report with extreme care. At no point did it share the findings with any other third party, including media representatives.
The anti-doping foundation say they "deeply regret" the leaking of the report, adding that they've launched an inquiry to "understand how the file was made public and prevent this from happening again."
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