According to Wednesday's Het Laatste Nieuws, Sophie de Vuyst's B sample tested positive for exogenous anabolic steroids. The Belgian rider has retained attorney Johnny Maeschaluk to represent him in an attempt to clear him of any suspicion of wrongdoing.

Maeschalck represented Dutch cyclocross racer Denise Betsema in a recent doping case in which she was suspended for six months after testing positive twice for anabolic androgenic steroids last year.

Maeschalck successfully proved to the UCI that Betsema had no doping intent and that her positive tests were the result of tainted supplements and the negligence of a Belgian pharmacist.

De Buist returned a positive test after an out-of-competition anti-doping control on September 18, 2019, the week before the UCI Road World Championships.

According to Het Laatste Nieuws, the A sample was tested through the National Anti-Doping Organization (NADO) Flanders.

According to Het Laatste Nieuws, she admitted to testing positive in December 2019, but pleaded innocence and requested analysis of the B sample, which was tested at DoCoLab Ghent.

Her team, Parkhotel Valkenburg, immediately suspended her.

Last year, de Vuyst won the Brabantse Pijl and was awarded the Flandrienne of the year prize for the 2019 road season.

She had signed a contract to race with Mitchelton Scott in 2020, but the world team announced that her contract would be suspended pending the outcome of an ongoing investigation into her positive test.

Betsema's case drew the ire of her cyclocross peers and other outspoken riders, with Katie Compton calling the off-season ban "bullshit."

However, the defense strategy taken is similar to the one used by Darryl Impey, who claimed in 2014 that his probenecid positive was the result of cross-contamination of a capsule filled with sodium bicarbonate by a pharmacist for him.

Impey was allowed to race without a formal ban because probenecid, a diuretic, is a WADA code specific substance.

Androgen steroids are not a specified substance and any amount of the drug in an athlete's sample is considered an anti-doping rule violation, although UCI rules allow for a ban period lower than the minimum four years for "unintentional" anti-doping rule violations.