UCI President Pat McQuaid (l) and UCI ProTour Manager Alain Rumpf. (Image credit: AFP)
The UCI has won a key legal battle in defence of the Whereabouts Information System it uses to carry out surprise out of competition anti-doping tests.
In a press release issued on Monday, the UCI announced that a provincial court in Almería, Spain, had rejected the appeal by Carlos Roman Golbano, who had challenged the legitimacy of the Whereabouts Information System.
The decision confirmed a sentence issued in 2007 when a judge ruled that the implementation of the whereabouts programme does not breach individual rights guaranteed by the Spanish Constitution, in particular in respect of the protection of privacy.
UCI President Pat McQuaid claimed the ruling helped the fight against doping.
"Cycling has been at the forefront of the fight against doping for many years. We are once again proud that our commitment offers benefits to the sports movement as a whole," he said.
"We are ever more convinced that our joint efforts against the scourge of doping will become increasingly effective, in particular as a result of rulings such as this, which recognise the basic principles upon which our strategies and actions are based."
The UCI thanked the Spanish Cycling Federation (RFEC) and the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) for playing an important part in the case.
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The Whereabouts Information System is used with the UCI's biological passport programme to facilitate out of competition anti-doping testing of 850 professional riders.
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.
