Garmin-Sharp chief denies doping bans

Dan Martin’s Garmin-Sharp team have endured more than most in the opening week of the Tour de France but matters worsened yesterday when their team manager Jonathan Vaughters was taken to task before the stage start in Rouen about reports in a Dutch newspaper that some of his riders had received six-month bans after confessing to doping.

Vaughters stringently denied the allegations, saying he, alongside American riders Christian Vande Velde and David Zabriskie — both of whom make up his squad at the Tour — Levi Leipheimer and George Hincapie were not witnesses in USADA’s ongoing Lance Armstrong doping investigation.

The article claims that the four riders have all confessed to doping and have testified against seven-time Tour de France winner Armstrong. The paper says that they have all been given six-month bans from cycling by USADA, which will kick in at the end of the season, in exchange for their compliance. The paper also named Vaughters as a witness but stopped short of categorically stating that he had been suspended too.