Former Giro winner Danilo Di Luca provisionally banned after positive tests for CERA

Di Luca suspended after positive doping test

AIGLE, Switzerland — Cycling’s governing body suspended former Giro d’Italia winner Danilo Di Luca on Wednesday after he tested positive for the banned blood-booster CERA.

The International Cycling Union told the Italian rider he was provisionally banned until his national federation can have a disciplinary hearing.

The UCI said Di Luca tested positive in blood samples taken May 20 and May 28 during this year’s Giro, where he won two stages and finished second.

The 33-year-old rider, who won the 2007 race, was targeted for testing because of suspicious results from previous blood and urine samples.

“These adverse findings were a direct result of a targeted test program conducted on Di Luca using information from his biological passport’s blood profile, previous test results and his race schedule,” the UCI said.

Di Luca is the latest Italian cyclist to test positive for CERA, the newest version of the endurance-boosting hormone EPO. It stimulates the production of red blood cells to provide more oxygen to muscles.

Since coming on to the market last year, CERA has been traced in blood samples taken from Riccardo Ricco, Leonard Piepoli and Davide Rebellin.

Ricco and Piepoli were caught after winning stages at the 2008 Tour de France. Ricco is serving a 20-month ban and Piepoli is suspended for two years.

Rebellin was caught after finishing runner-up in the Beijing Olympics road race and could be stripped of his silver medal after an IOC disciplinary hearing next week.

Di Luca, whose LPR Brakes team is not competing in the current Tour, won the 2007 Giro when he returned abnormal hormone levels in tests.

He later served a three-month ban imposed by Italy’s Olympic committee for visiting a doctor suspected of supplying athletes with banned drugs.

Di Luca lost an appeal against that ban at the Court of Arbitration of Sport last year.

Earlier in his career, Di Luca won several one-day classics, including the Amstel Gold and Fleche Wallonne races in 2005 and Liege-Bastogne-Liege two years later.