Former Spanish champion Oier Lazkano has been suspended by the UCI over "unexplained abnormalities" in his biological passport, and will leave Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe as a result.
The 25-year-old, who joined the German team from Movistar at the beginning of 2025, did not race again after Paris-Roubaix in mid-April this season. The abnormalities were found during his time at his previous team, according to the UCI.
In a press release on Thursday afternoon, a spokesperson for cycling's governing body said: "Spanish rider Oier Lazkano Lopez has been provisionally suspended in accordance with the UCI Anti-Doping Rules, due to unexplained abnormalities in his Athlete Biological Passport in 2022, 2023 and 2024."
Following this, a Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe spokesperson announced that Lazkano would leave the squad.
They said: "We confirm that Oier Lazkano will no longer be part of our team. This follows the decision of the UCI to provisionally suspend him. The matter concerns the seasons 2022-2024 – a time before he joined our team."
The biological passport is a record of each rider's anti-doping tests, which are then monitored for discrepancies.
Lazkano's lengthy absence from racing had caused speculation over the Basque rider's situation; he was signed by Red Bull as a key man for the Classics, but in a disappointing campaign, his best result was 108th at Scheldeprijs. He failed to finish the Tour of Flanders, the E3 Saxo Classic, and Kuurne-Brussels-Kuurne.
In the previous two seasons, Lazkano had marked himself out as one to watch in one-day races and long breakaways. He won the Clásica Jaén Paraiso Interior in 2024, finished second at Dwars door Vlaanderen in 2023 having been in the breakaway for 166km, and then went on to finish third at Kuurne-Brussels-Kuurne in 2024. He also won the Spanish National Championships road race in 2023.
At Grand Tours, of which he has raced five, the man from Vitoria-Gasteiz had twice finished fifth on stages, including 2024 stage of the Tour de France won by Victor Campenaerts.
Lazkano has not posted publicly on social media since April. Then, he wrote on Instagram: "It hasn't been the classic season we wanted and planned, but I'm taking quite a few notes on the list. Thank you all for the support these months. Now, a little rest and back to the heights to prepare for the summer season."
The UCI defines the biological passport as "an individual electronic record for each rider, in which the results of all doping tests collected as part of the ABP programme over a given period are collated."
The UCI continues: "The International Testing Agency (ITA), the independent entity to which the UCI delegated its anti-doping programme while retaining responsibility for the management of results and the prosecution of anti-doping rule violations, manages the ABP programme in collaboration with the Athlete Passport Management Unit (APMU) of Lausanne, Switzerland (the APMU of Lausanne is associated with the World Anti-Doping Agency accredited Laboratory of Lausanne).
"Athlete Biological cases are prosecuted based on the opinion of an independent Expert Panel of the APMU."
