According to Gazzetta dello Sport, Di Luca has carried out a carefully calculated strategy since testing positive for EPO during the 2013 Giro d'Italia.
On Wednesday, he gave an interview to the satirical Italian current affairs show, Le Iene, making wide-sweeping accusations about doping, suggesting that 90 per cent of the riders in the Giro d'Italia dope, and that if 10 per cent are not, they are the "10 percent [who] don't care about the Giro d'Italia, they are preparing for other races and therefore not doping."
Gazzetta reports that the UCI asked Di Luca to give details of what he knew about doping last June, but he refused to talk. Di Luca was handed a lifetime ban in December, and according to the full verdict - a copy of which was obtained by Gazzetta - Di Luca offered to reveal what he knows about his own and other cases of doping to the Italian Olympic Committee's investigators. However, he then back-tracked on the idea and gave his interview on Italian television. Gazzetta also suggests that Di Luca is involved in the Padua investigation into Dr Michele Ferrari and Lance Armstrong, another investigation in Turin and possibly another again in his home town of Pescara after his positive for EPO because doping is illegal in Italy.
The Italian newspaper asks if Di Luca gave his interview as a kind of vendetta or to help take advantage of his case, and claimed that he is working on the idea of writing a book, perhaps revealing what he did during his long career with the Cantina Tollo, Saeco, Liquigas, LPR Brakes, Katusha, Acqua & Sapone and Vini Fantini teams.
"Does he want a high-profile trial with shocking revelations? And if he speaks and names people?" Gazzetta asks. "Di Luca like Tyler Hamilton? Attention, because this could become the Armstrong affair of Italy, considering the level of the person (Di Luca)."
Di Luca refused to comment about the reports in Gazzetta dello Sport when contacted by Cyclingnews on Friday.
Get The Leadout Newsletter
The latest race content, interviews, features, reviews and expert buying guides, direct to your inbox!
Stephen is the most experienced member of the Cyclingnews team, having reported on professional cycling since 1994. He has been Head of News at Cyclingnews since 2022, before which he held the position of European editor since 2012 and previously worked for Reuters, Shift Active Media, and CyclingWeekly, among other publications.
