Tour de France: Italian rider Riccardo Ricco has tested positive for the banned blood-boosting drug EPO on this year's Tour de France and his Saunier Duval team have now pulled out of the race.
The French anti-doping agency (AFLD) confirmed this morning that the 24-year-old from the Saunier Duval team, who has won two stages in this year's race, becomes the third rider to test positive for EPO (erythropoietin) this year after Spaniards Manuel Beltran and Moises Duenas Nevado.
"It's for the same product as the other two," AFLD president Pierre Bordry told Reuters. "He hasn't been notified yet but will be in the next few minutes."
Ricco tested positive after the fourth stage, an individual time trial in Cholet last week, Bordry added.
Saunier Duval withdrew from the race following the announcement. "This is a decision of the team and is not dictated by (Tour organisers) ASO," Saunier Duval sports director Matxin Fernandez told reporters.
"We suspend the activities of the team until we understand what has happened."
The news will come as a big blow to race organisers considering Ricco's rise to prominence as an exceptional climber and after his second place in this year's Giro d'Italia.
Police came to the Saunier Duval team's bus in southwestern Lavelanet before the start of today's 12th stage to Narbonne, witnesses said. Ricco then left in a team car escorted by police.
He was arrested three km from the team bus by the police and taken for questioning to the gendarmerie in Foix, a source within organisers ASO said.
"It shows that the controls are really efficient and that it is harder to get away with it," Tour de France director Christian Prudhomme said.
"It's completely shocking," International Cycling Union (UCI) president Pat McQuaid said. "It would strike me now that someone would have advised those guys to take some form of EPO thought to be undetectable because we haven't caught guys in this fashion for a long time.
"He's not Spanish but he's connected to Spain," added McQuaid, referring to the fact that Saunier Duval are a Spanish team.
On Sunday, Ricco launched a devastating offensive on the slopes Col d'Aspin that left he peloton in his wake and claim his second stage win after victory in the uphill finish at Super-Besse on Thursday.
The 'Cobra' crossed the line more than a minute ahead of the chasing pack was at Col d'Aspin. He declared afterwards: "I'm not here to win the Tour. There are other riders who've prepared better and based their whole season around the Tour. I'm here for experience and to win stages."
His cockiness and sensational endurance on those two stages, however, only fuelled the suspicions of the authorities and it now appears they have caught up with him, though his case may be a little more complex than that of the Spanish pair.
The Italian claims to have acknowledgment from the International Cycling Union that his haematocrit level is naturally in excess of 50 per cent, but the ALFD may not have access to such documentation.