British cyclist Dan Stevens to serve 21 month doping ban

British cyclist Dan Stevens is now the third Brit serving a racing suspension under anti-doping rules, having failed to supply a sample for an out-of-competition anti-doping test on January 29, 2014.

Originally set at two years, the ban has been reduced to 21 months after Stevens gave some information to the Cycling Independent Reform Commission.

UK Anti-Doping said that Stevens gave “valuable anti-doping information” that justified a three-month shortening of the ban.

Stevens appealed against the decision this week, but later agreed to refrain from racing until November 1 2015.

All race results over the past 9 months have been annulled.

Stevens now joins Jason White and Jonathan Tiernan-Locke who are both serving two-year bans.

We reported earlier this year that banned Sky rider Tiernan-Locke says he plans to return to racing next season – and insists he can return to the form he showed in 2012 which brought him the overall win at the Tour of Britain and a high-profile transfer to Team Sky.

The 30-year-old from Devon said: "I've no doubt that I can get back to the level I was riding at in 2012.

"I also believe I can make myself a more complete rider than before. If I can do the top UK Premier Calendar races and, say, UCI 2.2-level events, and pick up wins, that would be great.

"And I'd like to have a proper crack at the National Road Race Championships, where I've never done as well as I've wanted in the past."

Tiernan-Locke received a partly backdated two-year ban last July for irregularities in his athlete biological passport (ABP) which were found to be consistent with his having used a prohibited method or substance.

He insisted that the abnormal values, dating from September 2012, resulted from his being dehydrated after a night out celebrating his move to Sky with his girlfriend in Bristol in which he said he consumed 33 units of alcohol.