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PARIS -- France's anti-doping agency received paperwork from Tour de France runner-up Oscar Pereiro on Friday explaining why he took an asthma drug during the 2006 race.
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The Spanish cyclist said Thursday - after Le Monde reported he twice tested positive for salbutamol - that he would quickly send the French agency documents to show he had a justified medical reason and waiver to take the medication, which is banned.
"We received Pereiro's file this afternoon and have given them to doctors to examine," the doping agency's president, Pierre Bordry, told the Associated Press.
Pereiro said he had been cleared by the sport's governing body, the International Cycling Union to use Ventolin, an inhaler prescribed medically to ease asthma.
But the French agency wants to ensure the waiver was justified.
The agency's doctors will present their findings Thursday, Bordry said.
The case will be pursued "if the doctors have doubts," but will be dropped if they are satisfied, he added.
Pereiro could be declared the winner of the 2006 Tour if Floyd Landis is stripped of his title. A doping test showed the American had elevated ratios of testosterone to epitestosterone and, if Landis' appeal fails, he could be banned from cycling for two years.
Andreas Kloden of Germany finished third.
Speaking at a news conference Thursday in Vigo, Spain, Pereiro denied doping allegations.
"Once this is cleared up I'll wait for whoever needs to, to apologize to me," he said.
His personal allergy adviser, Dr. Luis Arenas, said Pereiro suffered from "light to moderate" asthma, a "very common illness."
"With the dose recommended in his case, and in the manner it has been prescribed to him, it's impossible that it could have given a positive reading," Arenas said.
"The cyclist's own record and a study made in March last year demonstrate Oscar has a sensitivity in his bronchioles which is greater than that of the average of the population, and that causes him to have to take medication if he presents symptoms that might justify it."
