Former Katusha rider Giampaolo Caruso has been banned for two years for taking EPO following a retest two years ago of a sample taken from him in 2012.
The 36-year-old Italian was revealed to have tested positive for the banned blood booster in August 2015, shortly after completing what proved to be his final race, the Tour de France.
World cycling’s governing body, the UCI, communicated the decision of its UCI Anti-Doping Tribunal in a press release this afternoon.
It said: “The matter resulted from the reanalysis of a sample provided by Giampaolo Caruso in the scope of an out-of-competition control on 27 March 2012, which revealed the presence of Erythropoietin.
“The Anti-Doping Tribunal found the rider guilty of an anti-doping rule violation and imposed a two-year period of ineligibility on the rider.
“In accordance with the Procedural Rules of the Anti-Doping Tribunal, the decision will shortly be published on the UCI website,” it added.
While a first offence now results in a ban from competition of four years, the shorter suspension in this case reflects the rules in force at the time of Caruso’s positive test.
Since he was provisionally suspended on 18 August 2015, Caruso's ban is mostly backdated and will therefore expire in three months’ time on 17 August.
In 2006, when he rode for Liberty Seguros, Caruso was among the riders implicated in the Operacion Puerto doping scandal.
CONI, the Italian national Olympic committee, sought a two-year ban but the Court of Arbitration for Sport acquitted the rider.
Caruso’s biggest career win was in the Milano-Torino one-day race in 2014, while in 2009 he took the overall win at the Italian stage race, the Brixia Tour.
He twice finished just off the podium in Monuments, finishing fourth at both the Giro di Lombardia in 2005 and at Liège-Bastogne-Liège in 2014.
Perhaps they need to reduce prices dramatically and try to rely on turnover to make a profit. Bikes are more expensive than some motor vehicles...
Italian tourist and pussycat in Portugal.
Ha... I think for us at Tern Bicycles it is normal protocol for the UK!
Am I the only one who thinks the brake levers look awful too?
Yep, it's official - reds under the, er, bonnet...
Stephen Aylen, a non-aligned councillor for Southend-on-Sea Borough Council who questioned why the "ugly and out of place" structures had been...
Indeed, I was drawing from personal experience – I don't use it that often but it's such a nice bit of infrastructure that I sometimes go out of my...
Except socialism doesn't work like that in real life. It's the capitals countries that try to look after those in need, and the average person's...
It's the mass that's the issue. Two people on a petrol powered scooter can really mess up a cyclist. Also the fact so many of the petrol scooters...
The new RH tubes claim to solve that issue, but price and availability is a problem. I tried to get some to try out, but they went out of stock on...