Italian rider's legal challenge to UCI bio-passport sanction

The first serious legal challenge to the UCI’s biological passport anti-doping programme is underway at the Court of Arbitration for Sport.

The CAS is sport’s highest court and it is the body to which Italian cyclist Pietro Caucchioli has given evidence as he launches an appeal against a two-year ban for doping offences which has been imposed by the Italian Olympic Committee.

Despite not failing a doping test, the Committee sanctioned Caucchioli in June after the UCI discovered irregular results in blood samples taken for his biological passport.

The result of Caucchioli’s appeal is expected to be delivered in the next few weeks.

The appeal represents a further challenge to the entire biological passport system after the Slovenian Olympic Committee refused to sanction its rider Tadej Valjavec, after the UCI had alerted the Committee as to irregular readings in Valjavec's blood profile.