Nairo Quintana's lawyers are preparing an appeal, calling the Colombian's tramadol case "very strange" and questioning the UCI's rules and processes.

Quintana was stripped of his sixth-place finish at the Tour de France this week after the UCI said he tested positive twice for tramadol, an opioid painkiller banned in cycling starting in 2019.

This is not a doping case as the substance is banned on medical grounds and has not been banned by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA). Quintana has not been suspended, but will miss the Vuelta a España in order to recover his performance at the Tour.

Quintana and his representatives have retained Colombian sports lawyer Andres Charia. Charia famously overturned a case against track competitor Maria Luisa Carre at the 2004 Athens Games in which the International Olympic Committee stripped her of her bronze medal, which was later returned.

"It's actually a very strange process. What is happening to Nairo is something new, something made up by the UCI," Chaglia said this weekend on Blu Radio in Colombia. [It's not doping, but it looks like doping. 'It's important to ask what the UCI is looking for. If it is about health, that is a fundamental pillar of WADA, and if WADA does not consider it [tramadol] harmful for health reasons, then it is complicated."

Sharia questioned almost every aspect of the UCI's tramadol ban, right down to the "absurdity" of having to pay for testing.

"There are terribly unreasonable rules, bizarre sample collection, and unrecognized laboratories.

According to UCI regulations, tramadol testing is performed on certain athletes at the finish of certain races using the "Dried Blood Spots" method with a finger prick instrument. The analysis will be performed "independently" at the laboratory of the University of Geneva, where a peer-reviewed method will be used to detect the amounts of tramadol and its two main metabolites. Results will be submitted to the Anti-Doping Science Department of the University of Lausanne for review before being submitted to the UCI Medical Director.

"The samples were not analyzed by a WADA-accredited laboratory. I know it is not a doping case, but they have access to a WADA lab, so why not use it?"

"We don't know where the samples were stored and we don't have B samples. We are confident that the process itself is reliable, but we are not very clear on who is going to run it and how, all of that is not very clear.

"This is a protocol made up by the UCI, which may be good at organizing the sport of cycling, but I don't think they are very good at conducting difficult studies or creating protocols for certain substances.

Chalia also took issue with the fact that there is only a 10-day period to appeal an award before the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS).

"Normally you have 21 days to appeal to CAS, so it is very strange that we only have 10 days. We are going to speed up the process and a lot will depend on the panel that hears it"

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"They are ignoring someone's fundamental rights. They did not notify him, they did not seek his counsel."

[31 According to the rules, they must listen to him."

Indeed, the UCI rules state that they "may" ask the rider for an explanation.

Asked if he thought there was a conspiracy at work, Sharia replied: "I don't believe in conspiracies or witch hunts. But it is very strange." [33] It was claimed that the heptaminol found in the urine samples was not due to ingestion of the substance, but was the result of its appearance as a metabolic marker for isometheptene. The case turned on the legality of the latter substance and WADA's representation that it was "similar" to heptaminol, and CAS later ruled in favor of an athlete who was expelled for another doping violation.

This case may hint at Quintana's defense: although the UCI rules state that "the mere presence of tramadol or its metabolites is sufficient to establish a violation," Chiara argued that these metabolites could have been produced by other (legal) substances will be tested to the limit to account for this.

"Nairo has assured me that he has not ingested tramadol, and I believe him," Chiarra said.

"We have to analyze what happened. There was no tramadol in Nairo's system. We need to find a pharmacologist who can say what happened."