PARIS, Aug 23 (Reuters) - A French specialist doping laboratory said on Tuesday it could not confirm that tests it had conducted for the blood-boosting drug EPO belonged to Lance Armstrong.
L'Equipe newspaper, saying it had access to laboratory documents, reported on Tuesday that six of Armstrong's urine samples collected on the 1999 Tour de France showed "indisputable" traces of EPO (erythropoietin).
In response seven-times Tour de France winner Armstrong has denied ever taking performance-enhancing drugs.
"The lab cannot link the results to a sportsman and can therefore not confirm the link made by L'Equipe between the test results and the (French federation) documents they publish," the Chatenay-Malabry laboratory said in a statement.
The lab said all tests were anonymous and had been transmitted to the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) providing they would not take disciplinary action.
There were no tests to detect EPO, a drug that increases the level of red blood cells and endurance, in 1999. However, samples from the 1999 Tour de France were kept and have been recently retested by the lab based outside Paris.
"The lab can confirm that it has conducted EPO tests on samples from the 1998 and 1999 Tour de France races," it added.
L'Equipe published what it claimed to be a results sheet from the lab which appeared to show six figures from Armstrong's samples revealing traces of EPO.
The newspaper also published documents from the French cycling federation showing exactly the same figures under Lance Armstrong's name.