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Insisting that she has “never taken any banned substance,” Canadian cyclist Geneviève Jeanson confirmed Monday that she was the elite cyclist mentioned in charges against Montreal orthopedic surgeon Dr. Maurice Duquette, but denied that he had given her EPO.
Jeanson had a called a news conference to ask that a publication ban against use of her name in connection with the case be lifted in order to allow her to publicly assert her innocence.
Duquette recently pleaded guilty to a number of charges brought against him by the Quebec College of Physicians, most of them dealing with the inappropriate use of Eprex, a common brand of Human Recombinant Erythropoietin (EPO). While most of the charges dealt with cases involving patients who were not professional athletes, Duquette also admitted that he “neglected to write into the medical file of Ms. Geneviève Jeanson …medications that were administered to her, notably Marcaine and Eprex that had been re-administered as a diagnostic test, in contravention of the regulation on keeping medical files.”
While Duquette pleaded guilty to those charges, a day later he sent a letter to Jeanson’s attorney denying that he had given the cyclist anything other than the local anesthetic Marcaine.
Because of doctor-patient confidentiality rules in Canada there had, however, been a ban on public release of Jeanson’s name in connection with the case. Publicly she was only referred to as an “a world class female cyclist from Québec," though suspicion quickly fell on Jeanson because of her exclusion from the world championships last month due to an elevated hematocrit level.
On Monday, Jeanson called a news conference to ask that the publication ban be lifted, saying that Duquette’s guilty plea had deprived her of any chance of stating her position before the tribunal of the College of Physicians. She added that she now wants to appear before a panel of the Canadian Cycling Association to clear up the situation.
“It’s been months since I’ve wanted to talk about this,” she said. “Because I was not able to with the Collège des médecins, I want to have the chance with the sports governing bodies.”
Jeanson has vigorously denied ever receiving or using EPO, even once, either from Dr. Duquette or any other source.
“I have never taken EPO or any other substance prohibited in sport,” she asserted. ”Never.”
Jeanson’s lawyer, Alain Barrette, complained that his client had tried in vain for nearly a year to tell her version of the facts to disciplinary committee of the Quebec College of Physicians, but her motion for intervention was rejected by the panel.
While the case had been going on for more than a year, Duquette’s guilty plea came just a month after Jeanson was tossed out of the world cycling championships in Hamilton, Ontario on October 11 when blood samples taken hours before the women's road race showed a red blood cell count above the limit allowed by the UCI.
But test results announced last month backed the Quebec cyclist and found no trace of any performance-enhancing substance in her body.
"I've never touched EPO (Erythropoietin) in my life," Jeanson said Monday. "I've never seen it, I've never been given any and I've never taken any."
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