Cycling Australia president Klaus Mueller has expressed surprise that a positive drugs test during the 2003 Tour Down Under was not publicised more widely.

Tour director Mike Turtur has angrily defended Australia's biggest annual cycling event for how it handled the matter.

Italian Giampaolo Caruso received a six-month ban and was fined after he tested positive to the steroid nandrolone during the 2003 Tour.

Cycling's world governing body the UCI made the suspension public at the time, but it received virtually no media attention.

Turtur said it was the role of the UCI, not the Tour, to handle announcements about drug testing.

"I really don't know enough about that - I've seen the media reports," Mueller said.

"I'm surprised that in the normal process of drug testing and the like, that wouldn't have been the subject of some usual media release at the time.

"I don't know why that didn't happen."