We have her side from Agence-France Presse: 
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5iZk32lny_yJzux9ZkLvifjIxXEHA

Paging Robert L. Ripley - believe this, or not.

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German speedskate star Claudia Pechstein on Friday hotly proclaimed
her innocence after the International Skating Union handed her a
two-year ban for blood doping which would force her to miss next year's
Winter Games in Vancouver.
The blood profile of the multiple
Olympic and world champion showed abnormal variations in tests, the ISU
found following a two-day hearing.
The variations showed up in
particular following the World Allround Championships in February and
Pechstein, 37, will now be banned until February 9, 2011 - but through
her lawyer she said she will appeal against the suspension to the Court
of Arbitration for Sport."Pechstein rejects the accusation of
blood doping," her lawyer, Marius Breucker, said in a joint statement
with German Speedskating Federation chairman Gerd Heinze.
"She
has been tested intensively in competition and in training these past
years without any doping substance being found," the statement added. "During
the procedure before the ISU experts judged the data unreliable owing
to patent errors" and, during the tests, "only the reticulocyte
(immature red blood cells) levels were abnormally high. The other blood
parametres, such as haemoglobin and the hematocritic levels were
normal," the statement maintained.
"Illness or blood
abnormalities are possible explanations for an abnormally high
reticulocyte reading. Pechstein proposes to submit herself to tests for
these possible anomalies."Breucker and Heinze added she would
also agree to "several weeks of surveillance with blood and EPO testing
in order to prove her innocence."
And the statement concluded:
"This is as far as we are aware the first time there has been a
suspension founded on indirect proof, that of a sole blood value. No
banned substance has been found."
Paul





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