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CAS bans former AG2R rider Tadej Valjavec for two years for bio passport irregularities

Tribunal overturns previous decision of Slovenian national Olympic committee

The Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) has overturned a decision of the Senate of the Olympic Committee of Slovenia (OCS) to exonerate former AG2R-La Mondiale rider Tadej Valjavec from charges brought against him relating to irregularities in his biological passport and has banned him for two years.

The 34-year-old, now riding for UCI continental team Zheroquadro Radenska, was suspended by AG2R prior to last year’s Giro d’Italia, in which he had been due to ride.

In a statement issued today, CAS said that it had “set aside the decision of the OCS to exonerate the athlete from any doping offence and has imposed a two-year ban on him starting on 20 January 2011, as well as the disqualification of all his results obtained between 19 April and 30 September 2009 and a fine of EUR 52,500.”

It added that it had “found that anti-doping tests performed in April and August 2009 revealed abnormalities in the context of the athlete’s biological passport to a degree which was entirely consistent with blood manipulation. The CAS has therefore confirmed the reliability of the indirect method of detection based on the blood profile of athletes and already established in previous CAS decisions concerning the Italian cyclists Pietro Caucchioli and Franco Pellizotti.”
 

Simon joined road.cc as news editor in 2009 and is now the site’s community editor, acting as a link between the team producing the content and our readers. A law and languages graduate, published translator and former retail analyst, he has reported on issues as diverse as cycling-related court cases, anti-doping investigations, the latest developments in the bike industry and the sport’s biggest races. Now back in London full-time after 15 years living in Oxford and Cambridge, he loves cycling along the Thames but misses having his former riding buddy, Elodie the miniature schnauzer, in the basket in front of him.

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