CYCLING - CASE PETACCHI

Alessandro Petacchi suspended until 31 August 2008

Lausanne, 6 May 2008 – The Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) has partially upheld the appeals of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and of the Ufficio Procura Antidoping (UPA) of the Italian Olympic Committee (CONI) which have both challenged the decision made on 24 July 2007 by the Disciplinary Commission of the Italian Cycling Federation (FCI) exonerating Alessandro Petacchi from any doping infraction, despite a positive test with salbutamol. As a consequence, the CAS has ruled that Alessandro Petacchi is ineligible to compete for a period of one year, less two months already served.

The following decisions have been pronounced by the CAS:

- the period of ineligibility of Alessandro Petacchi shall start on 1 November 2007 and shall come to end on 31 August 2008;

- all competitive results obtained by Alessandro Petacchi during the 2007 Giro d'Italia shall be disqualified with all of the resulting consequences including forfeiture of any medals, points and prizes.

- Alessandro Petacchi can retain all other competitive results between 23 May 2007 and 31 October 2007, but all competitive results obtained after 31 October 2007 and during the period of ineligibility will be disqualified.

To read the press release in full, please go to Media / Press Releases

The full award with the grounds is published on the CAS website (www.tas-cas.org, section jurisprudence).