The Danish national champion announced Monday that Danish Olympic cyclist Peter Riis Andersen was kicked out of the Danish team after testing positive for EPO, according to reports reaching Stockholm from Copenhagen.

Riis Andersen was looking forward to representing Denmark at the Beijing Olympics next month. However, in the run-up to the Olympics, Anti-Doping Danmark conducted 163 tests on the Danish team and it was during one of these that Riis Andersen's A and B tests came back positive.

The Danish national champion said he obtained the drugs illegally as he felt his performance was not good enough during the spring and felt he could be dropped from the team, reported the local newspaper Copenhagen Posten, adding that he took six EPO pills between the European Championship in May and 22 June.

He was fired from the German Team ALB-Gold Mountainbike when they were informed about the test results, according to Copenhagen Posten.

Riis Andersen competed in the Athens Olympics in 2004, finishing 18th. He took silver medal at the European Championships 100 kilometers event this year and was crowned Danish national champion just last week.

(Xinhua News Agency July 29, 2008)