Ex-Armstrong teammate George fails doping test

CAPE TOWN, South Africa (AP) - South African cyclist David George, a former teammate of Lance Armstrong, has tested positive for blood-boosting EPO.

South Africa's Institute for Drug-Free Sport said Tuesday that George, who cycled with Armstrong on the U.S. Postal Service team in 1999 and 2000, failed a doping test on Aug. 29. George has been provisionally suspended and faces a doping tribunal.

"His biological passport indicated suspicious activity and that triggered a targeted test for EPO,'' SAIDS chief executive Khalid Galant said. "A subsequent urine test came back positive for the banned EPO drug.''

EPO, or Erythropoietin, increases the red blood cell count and increases an athlete's oxygen carrying capacity.

Last month, Armstrong was banned for life by the International Cycling Union and stripped of his seven Tour de France titles because of his role in a doping scandal, which was outlined in a report by the U.S. Anti-doping Agency.

George won silver in the road race at the 2006 Commonwealth Games in Melbourne and bronze in the time trial in the Kuala Lumpur Games in 1998. He also represented South Africa at two Olympics, in 1996 and 2000.

William Newman, the president of Cycling South Africa, said doping was "not endemic'' in South African cycling despite the sport's battered international image.