PARIS (AP) — It's time to cut Lance Armstrong some slack for failing to make good on his promises about drug-testing.

Certainly, the seven-time Tour de France champion didn't look good backtracking on his commitment to be regularly tested by American anti-doping expert Don Catlin, especially given the fuss he made of the planned partnership when he announced his surprise return to cycling last September.

"This will be the most advanced anti-doping program in the world," Armstrong declared then. "Don Catlin can tell you if I'm clean or not."

That pledge proved as solid as a flat tire. Armstrong's people announced last week that the plan was off. Too complex and costly.

But the stillbirth of the ballyhooed program doesn't mean Armstrong now has license to cheat. Like all top cyclists, he is scrutinized by dope testers for the UCI, the sport's governing body.

But unlike most of his fellow competitors, Armstrong is posting results from his UCI tests on the Internet — a commendable effort at transparency.

Six sets of blood test results are up on www.livestrong.com, the Web site of Armstrong's cancer-fighting foundation. The first is dated Oct. 16, the most recent Feb. 4. Armstrong spokesman Mark Higgins says they also have asked for test results from the U.S. anti-doping agency, and that all results will be posted as they get them. Armstrong — currently riding in the Tour of California — says he has been tested at least 19 times during his comeback.

The results offer a window into Armstrong's blood. Among the readings are those for hemoglobin, a protein in red blood cells that transports oxygen around the body, and for immature red blood cells called reticulocytes. UCI experts watch for unusual changes in such readings for signs of whether cyclists may be cheating.

So far, Armstrong's results seem normal.

The UCI runs test results through computer software to calculate what a normal range of readings should be for each individual rider. Subsequent test results that veer too far from those calculated norms could signal possible doping. Based on the readings Armstrong made public, the software suggests that in future tests his hemoglobin levels should not fall lower than 13.4 grams per deciliter or rise above 16.3 grams.

And Armstrong's so-called OFF-score, an equation that looks at hemoglobin and reticulocytes, should stay between 60 and 108.

The results he posted are well within those limits.

But the testing regime isn't infallible, and dopers find ways to slip through the cracks.

That is where Catlin was meant to come in.

The scientist who ran the United States' first anti-doping lab at UCLA for 25 years drew up what might be considered a Ferrari of anti-doping programs for Armstrong, with plans for urine tests every three days and frequent blood tests, too.

For Catlin, the promised opportunity to closely scrutinize one of the best-known athletes on the planet was exciting.

For his part, Armstrong hoped that a clean bill of health from someone as respected as Catlin would silence the doping questions that have persistently dogged him — even though he has never failed a drug test — so public and media attention could focus instead on his campaign against cancer — the main reason the cancer-survivor climbed back on his bike after three years in retirement.

It was out of character for Armstrong to get ahead of the music and announce the partnership with Catlin before details were finalized. He is usually far more meticulous than that in his preparations. The eventual failure to produce a workable program with Catlin — especially after Armstrong had insisted that progress was being made — looked like an embarrassing climb-down that left him open to criticism of lost credibility.

But there were sizable obstacles, not least cost — estimated by Catlin's camp in the hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Hoped-for urine samples every three days seemed problematic, too. It would have been hard for testers to keep to the schedule with an athlete as busy as Armstrong. An alternative might have been to space tests over a larger time gap, say every five days. But for Catlin, that could have left too large a window for possible cheating, undermining the validity of the exercise. Rather than scale back his ambitions, Catlin preferred not to go ahead.

"We faced a myriad of problems relating to administration, coordination and cost," said Bill Stapleton, Armstrong's agent and lawyer.

But while the Catlin partnership fizzled, Armstrong's Astana team is paying a respected Danish anti-doping expert, Rasmus Damsgaard, to keep watch over its riders. Damsgaard studies the squad's UCI test results and can raise the alarm and suggest sanctions if he spots abnormal readings, even those that might not be clear-cut enough for the UCI to take disciplinary action of its own, he says.

That gives Armstrong an additional layer of scrutiny that many other riders don't face.

____

John Leicester is an international sports columnist for The Associated Press. Write to him at jleicester@ap.org