The Russian Cycling Federation has announced plans to challenge the results of this year's Olympic time trial after American cyclist Tyler Hamilton was cleared last week of doping violations by the International Olympic Committee.

Hamilton twice tested positive for a blood transfusion, first in Athens on August 18 after winning the Olympic time trial gold medal and then following his win in the stage 8 individual time trial at the Vuelta a España.

But Hamilton’s Olympic test was not confirmed after laboratory technicians froze the B sample instead of refrigerating the vial of whole blood as international lab protocols require. Freezing whole blood results in the destruction of red blood cells, making testing impossible.

Had Hamilton’s B sample confirmed the findings of the A sample, he would have lost his gold medal to Russian Vyacheslav Ekimov, who won the event at the Sydney Olympics in 2000 but was second in Athens.

Alexander Gusyatnikov, president of the Russian Cycling Federation, told Reuters news service that Russia would appeal to the Lausanne-based Court of Arbitration for Sport and criticized the IOC for letting the American off the hook.

"It was simply outrageous," he was quoted as saying in Russia's Sport-Express newspaper.

"Any person with commonsense would laugh at the comments by Arnie Ljungqvist, head of the IOC's medical commission, that Hamilton's B sample was destroyed." (see "Olympiccase dropped against Hamilton; Still facing Vuelta sanctions")

At the time, Ljungqvist noted that "Hamilton's A sample was deemed clearly positive by a panel of outside experts and was also agreed upon by the chief of the laboratory in Athens."

"Well, it's good that they didn't manage to destroy his B sample from the Vuelta,” Gusyatnikov told the newspaper. "In any case, if a man tests positive for a blood transfusion twice in a month, you can say with all certainty that person used blood doping on a regular basis. It's that simple."