Official says all doping tests before and during European Championship were negative

By ERIC WILLEMSEN,

VIENNA, Austria (AP) All doping tests conducted before and during last month's European Championship were negative, an Austrian anti-doping official said Tuesday.

UEFA had a total of 284 players tested by taking urine and blood samples but no irregularities were found, said Guenter Gmeiner, the director of a doping research lab in Seibersdorf, Austria, that analyzed some of the tests.

"We still await the results from the tests of last Sunday's final, but all tests so far have been negative," Gmeiner said.

UEFA had between eight and 10 players from each of the 16 teams tested before the competition. Two players from each team were also picked at random and tested after each match during the June 7-29 tournament, where Spain beat Germany 1-0 in the final.

It was the first time at a UEFA event that players had blood samples taken along with urine samples. Pre-match doping tests are also conducted before Champions League games.

Blood tests enable authorities to detect banned substances like EPO and growth hormones, plus manipulations like blood transfusions.

All 16 national associations signed a UEFA anti-doping charter before the start of the tournament, allowing European football's governing body to conduct the tests.

The samples from the out-of-competition tests, taken by a UEFA doping control officer, were analyzed in the Seibersdorf lab, which works under the supervision of the World Anti-Doping Agency.

The samples from the tournament games were sent to a lab in Lausanne, Switzerland, which provided UEFA with the results within 48 hours.

Positive tests at UEFA events are rare. At Euro 2004 in Portugal, Croatia striker Ivica Olic tested positive for methylprednisol, but he faced no charges because he took it as a painkiller for a rib injury.

Updated September 2, 2008