Vino's B-Sample positive

Alexander Vinokourov's B-sample from the Tour de France's Stage 13 has tested positive, according to L'Equipe. The Kazakh rider continued to deny doping charges and said that he would take action against the lab that tested the samples.

Vinokourov tested positive for blood doping after winning the Tour's first Time Trial. His Astana team left the Tour entirely after the announcement of the positive A-sample. He asked that the B-sample also be tested, which was done Friday, with the results being announced Saturday.

"I have always raced clean," he said in a statement distributed by his lawyers on Saturday. "Never before this year's Tour de France have I ever been accused of violating any doping law. I have been tested at least 100 times during my career. These test results simply make no sense. Given all the attention paid to doping offences, you would have to be crazy to do what I have been accused of, and I am not crazy."

He also said that he questioned the "flow cytometry instrument" used by the French anti-doping lab in Chatenay-Malabry and will take legal action against the lab. "As of now, the public has only heard one side in these test results. We encourage everyone to keep an open mind about the test results and not to assume that the LNDD has done everything correctly or has achieved accurate results," said Vinokourov's lawyer Maurice Suh, who also represents last year's Tour de France winner Floyd Landis.