Santambrogio suspended by UCI for EPO positive

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The UCI has announced that Italian rider Mauro Santambrogio (Vini Fantini-Selle Italia) has returned an adverse analytical finding for EPO in an anti-doping test carried on the opening day of the Giro d'Italia.

He is the second rider from Vini Fantini-Selle Italia to fail a test for the blood booster after the UCI announced during the Giro d'Italia that Danilo Di Luca had failed an out of competition test taken before the start of the race.

Santambrogio won stage 14 of the Giro to Bardonecchia in the snow and finished ninth overall despite fading in the final week of the race.

According to the UCI the EPO test was done at the Rome anti-doping laboratory.

The Vini Fantini-Selle Italia team has yet to comment on the news of the positive test, while Santambrogio was happily tweeting about recovering from the Giro d'Italia and the party his supporters organised on Saturday until just before his EPO positive was announced.  

Directeur sportif Luca Scinto spoke briefly to Tuttobiciweb before being formally questioned in Rome by Italian anti-doping officials about Di Luca's EPO positive.

"It's the end of our project," Scinto said.

"What can I say, I'm stunned. I defended him more than any other rider because right from the start in Naples there were really bad rumours going around about him. I didn’t want to believe him and more than once I talked to him face to face. He said: 'It's only jealously, don’t worry but you can't keep asking me questions because they're offensive."

Soon after Scinto tweeted: "You're right. Massacre me. I trusted them. They're mad and I'm an idiot to believe them. They're crazy and sick."