Chris Froome has been cleared of any wrongdoing by the Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI) after a sample taken at last year's Vuelta a Espana showed twice the legal level of Salbutamol.
Just yesterday on Sunday, Tour de France organisers had threatened to exclude the Team Sky rider from this year's race while the case of the four-time Tour de France champion remained open.
Both the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the UCI say Froome's sample did not constitute an adverse analytical finding.
Joe Molloy was joined by Ross Tucker from The Science of Sport to get an insight into the decision-making process and the ultimate implications.
Why was Chris Froome cleared by the UCI?@Scienceofsport breaks it down for us
Watch the full interview here where he also discusses the potential implications of today's decision: https://t.co/QgrwTVimHi pic.twitter.com/3Cls1OF4Kr
— Off The Ball (@offtheball) July 2, 2018
"What's happened here is that they've obviously set this limit for Salbutamol. So most listeners would be aware that you're allowed to have some Salbutamol in your system but not too much," Tucker explained.
"There's a line that they've drawn and it was 1000 nanograms per mole. And what that line betrays is that WADA was basically asked to defend that line and they couldn't do it."
Tucker added the "burden was effectively put back on them to defend that the line was a legitimate and fair and robust way to exclude people or not based on anti-doping policy".
Tucker also spoke about the implications Monday's events will have as a whole in the anti-doping process.
I think this Froome decision today is a giant leap in the direction that anti-doping was already going which is the direction basically of no credibility"@ScienceofSport on the broader implications of today's decision: https://t.co/t6T8Ly1EcL pic.twitter.com/2S8etVKCGW
— Off The Ball (@offtheball) July 2, 2018
"I don't want to be over-dramatic but I think that there are other broader implications to this," he said.
"What this particular instance does is it highlights that even at the back end, there are problems with enforcing the sanctions from testing and that's not unique to Salbutamol.
After referencing other examples, Tucker continued, "I think this Froome decision today is a giant leap in the direction that anti-doping was already going which is the direction of no credibility."
And he concluded that, "It's a very damaging day for the concept of anti-doping."
