Yesterday it was announced that Belgian Rutger Beke's positive result for EPO at the 2004 Ironman World Championships was revised to a false positive, and Beke has been reinstated as the fifth place finisher. Beke's suspension was also removed, and he is eligible to compete. For more on the issue see Cyclingnews.com: http://www.cyclingnews.com/news.php?id=news/2005/aug05/aug10news

The World Triathlon Corporation, the owner of Ironman, released this statement today:

Based on the official announcement made by the Belgian Triathlon and Duathlon Federation on August 9 stating that professional triathlete Rutger Beke has been declared not guilty concerning the use of EPO, Ironman has lifted his provisional suspension. Beke will now be permitted to compete in future Ironman-licensed events.

With Beke no longer under the provisional suspension, standings at the 2004 Ironman Triathlon World Championship will now be considered final.

The standings are as follows:

1^st Normann Stadler
2^nd Peter Reid
3^rd Faris Al-Sultan
4^th Alex Taubert
5^th Rutger Beke
6^th Torbjorn Sindballe
7^th Cameron Widoff
8^th Timo Bracht
9^th Rene Rovera
10^th Raynard Tissink