Cycling Doping InvestigationIndependent investigators have cleared Lance Armstrong of doping during the 1999 Tour de France and found the World Anti-Doping Agency (Wada) behaved in ways "completely inconsistent" with testing regulations.

Dutch lawyer Emile Vrijman, assigned by the International Cycling Union (UCI) to investigate newspaper allegations, has said testing procedures were insufficiently strong to label Armstrong's sample as positive, and he pointed to "misconduct" by Wada and the French national doping laboratory, LNDD.

Armstrong, who first won the Tour in 1999 and retired after his record seventh consecutive victory last July, has always denied taking banned substances.

French sports daily L'Equipe reported last August that it had access to laboratory documents, and that six of Armstrong's urine samples collected on the 1999 Tour had shown "indisputable" traces of the blood-boosting drug erythropoietin (EPO).

Vrijman, a former director of the Netherlands national anti-doping agency, said the laboratory had analysed the samples only as part of a research programme for the detection of EPO, hence there were no confirmation tests.

The report said Wada told the lab to generate results with bottle code numbers, allowing links to be made between the samples and individuals.

There was no need for it to do this if it did not intend to take disciplinary action, Vrijman said.

"If you look at how the result was obtained it was so different from the analysis procedure required by Wada . . . it doesn't even qualify as a finding," he said.

"It may suffice for research purposes, but for as a valid doping result - no way."

Samples may be used in research programmes only on the condition that all information tracing them to an individual is removed, he said, but this was not the case. He outlined a list of errors in how the sample was handled: "Sometimes with doping cases you can say it was a technicality. These are not technicalities, these are fundamental issues which should have been done completely differently."

Wada, the French laboratory and the ministry in charge of it had all failed to provide documents and fully co-operate in his investigation, he said.

In February, the UCI revealed its chief medical officer, Mario Zorzoli, had unwittingly provided the newspaper with a number of documents, rather than just one copy of a doping control form.

Zorzoli said he had provided documentation only so the journalist could write an article proving Armstrong never asked to use drugs after overcoming testicular cancer.

Zorzoli was suspended for a month but reinstated in March.

The UCI said it deplored the release of Vrijman's findings before it had had a chance to study them.

"The UCI strongly deplores the behaviour of Mr Vrijman, who expressed himself in a premature manner, contravening the agreements that all parties implicated would be informed before any public comment was made on contents of the report," they said in a statement.

The UCI was still waiting to receive the final report and "underlines its deep displeasure with regards to the regrettable development of this case".