SAN FRANCISCO, March 24 (UPI) -- U.S. cyclist Tammy Thomas went on trial Monday on charges of perjury and obstruction of justice in the steroids scandal emanating from San Francisco.

Her case is of interest, the San Francisco Chronicle said, because it amounts to a dress rehearsal for the trial of former San Francisco Giants slugger Barry Bonds, accused of lying to the federal grand jury investigating Burlingame's Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative steroid ring in 2003.

Thomas, as Bonds, told the BALCO grand jury she had never used the banned substances, even when confronted by what prosecutors said were positive test results, court records said. Another similarity is the two refused to settle with a plea bargain.

Defense lawyer Ethan Balogh declined to discuss strategy in the Thomas case, but an outline of the strategy emerged during a recent pretrial hearing, the newspaper said. Balogh noted when Thomas testified in 2003, Bloc's designer steroids weren't as yet formally classified as banned drugs -- so she was technically telling the truth when she denied using steroids.