Xacobeo-Galicia's Garcia tests positive for EPO

World cycling’s governing body, the UCI, has provisionally suspended the Xacobeo-Galicia rider David Garcia Da Peña after announcing that the Spaniard tested positive for EPO during last month’s Vuelta, in which he finished 11th overall, the second drugs test the 32-year-old has failed during the race.

Last Thursday, the same day that the UCI announced that Tour de France winner Alberto Contador had tested positive for traces of clenbuterol, the UCI revealed that Garcia and  team mate Ezequiel Mosquera, who finished the Vuelta second overall behind Vincenzo Nibali, had both tested positive for Hydroxyethyl Starch in urine samples taken on 16th September.

The Spaniard’s positive test for EPO results from a separate sample collected three days earlier on 13th September, the day the peloton rode from Gijón to Alto de Cotobello in Stage 16, which was won by Euskaltel-Euskadi’s Mikel Nieve, with Garcia’s seventh place finish putting him tenth overall in the race.

The UCI said that Garcia would remain suspended “until a hearing panel convened by the Spanish Cycling Federation determines whether he has committed an anti-doping rule violation under Article 21 of the UCI Anti-Doping Rules.”