Geneva ? Tyler Hamilton will keep his Olympic cycling gold medal because a backup drug test was inconclusive, the International Olympic Committee said Thursday.

Hamilton tested positive for signs of blood doping in the initial sample Aug. 19 after his time-trial victory in Athens. But analysis of the backup sample failed to confirm the original finding because of “lack of enough intact red blood cells,” the IOC said in a statement from its Lausanne headquarters.

Hamilton

As a result, the IOC said it had dropped its investigation into the case and “would not be pursuing sanctions regarding this matter.”

IOC medical commission chairman Arne Ljungqvist said the Athens lab made a mistake by deep-freezing Hamilton’s blood sample rather than simply refrigerating it. As a result, the specimen deteriorated and the backup sample could not be analyzed, he said.

“It was a case of human error … an unfortunate accident,” Ljungqvist said in a conference call.

Asked whether Hamilton had been lucky to slip through the net, he said, “It’s up to everyone to draw his own conclusions on that.”