Team Katusha has escaped a suspension after two of its riders fell foul of the sport’s doping regulations.
The team’s Italian domestique Luca Paolini tested positive for cocaine last July and was thrown out of the Tour de France, while in January the Russian rider Eduard Vorganov tested positive for Meldonium, a drug new to the Wada prohibited list that helps in endurance performance. Both cases are being investigated by the UCI, the world governing body.
Under UCI anti-doping rules, the team faced a possible 45-day suspension from competition for two positives in a year, but in a statement the governing body said that: “The conditions for a suspension of Team Katusha have not been met.”
It went on: “With regard to the [Paolini case, it has been] established that the rider’s taking of cocaine was not related to an intention to influence sporting performance but was rather taken on a ‘recreational’ basis.
“In this context … the imposition of negative consequences for the whole team would be inappropriate and disproportionate.
“It is understood that the intention of the [rules] is to impose negative consequences on teams that lack control of doping for sporting purposes by their athletes, or if even worse scenarios exist, and/or if teams are not doing enough to fight such doping.”
Katusha had told cyclingnews.com that it would conduction an investigation into how this “breach of the team’s strict medical and anti-doping internal rules” occurred.
