UCI CLEARS MAYO AFTER TESTOSTERONE TESTS

The UCI have cleared Iban Mayo (Saunier Duval) of taking testosterone during the Giro d?Italia after extra tests in Barcelona ruled out the presence of synthetic testosterone in the Spanish rider?s urine.

The press release issued on Thursday afternoon reads:

?No breach of the UCI anti-doping rules was committed by the Spanish rider Iban Mayo of the Saunier Duval team.?

?A further examination conducted by IRMS has enabled any possibility of testosterone administration to be ruled out. This further analysis was requested by the UCI following the notification by the Rome laboratory of a T/E value in excess of the norm laid down in the rules; that finding made further examinations necessary.?

?The history of this particular case shows the vital need to await the closure of the relevant investigations before reaching conclusions. In the other cases, the analyses requested by the UCI are still in progress.?

According to Italian newspaper Gazzetta dello Sport, who have close links to the Rome anti-doping lab that carried out the initial tests, the two other riders at the Giro d?Italia with non-negative tests are Alessandro Petacchi (Milram) and Leonardo Piepoli (Saunier Duval). Both resulted ?non-negative? for Salbutamol, a drug that is present in medicines used to treat asthma and allergies but that is also a banned steroid.

Petacchi and Piepoli have special TUE (therapeutic use exemption) certificates that means they can use medicines containing Salbutamol but this only allows levels of up to 1000ng/ml in anti-doping tests. According to Gazzetta dello Sport, both riders had levels higher than the limit. As a result their samples have also been sent to Barcelona for extra tests that can discover if they took the drug with an inhaler or with an illegal injection.

Both are still racing but will have to justify their high Salbutamol levels after further tests are completed.