Oier Lazkano was one among Crimson Bull’s large signings for 2025. His spring classics marketing campaign flopped however then so did the remainder of the workforce. Then he vanished. He stopped racing, deleted social media accounts and the workforce had been silent on what was occurring.
Now we all know higher as he’s been provisionally suspended over his bio passport. It’s a degree that will get confused once more under that he’s nonetheless harmless so right here’s a take a look at the procedural parts of this case.
Oier Lazkano Lopez has been provisionally suspended in accordance with the UCI Anti-Doping Guidelines, as a consequence of unexplained abnormalities in his Athlete Organic Passport (*) in 2022, 2023 and 2024.UCI press launch, 30 October
First a reminder on how the system works. For those who’ve learn a model of this earlier than then scroll down past the picture under.
The athlete organic passport was a scheme launched in 2008 and screens each blood and steroid ranges. These values are logged right into a database and over time a “longitudinal profile” of every athlete is established. This passport is run by the Worldwide Testing Company (ITA), an impartial company in Lausanne, Switzerland that the UCI contracts to run its anti-doping programme.
Not like the binary toxicology testing, the place a lab appears for banned substances and both it’s optimistic or damaging, the passport appears at adjustments in ranges. Software program makes use of logic and likelihood algorithms to identify anomalies. Right here’s a screenshot of the passport software program – from a laboratory presentation that’s now not on-line – displaying haemoglobin, the off-score, the Irregular Blood Profile Rating and the reticulocyte ratio
The software program alerts if an athlete’s numbers deviate from a longtime sample. When this occurs an professional opinions the information from the system and has 4 choices:
do nothing as a result of the information look regular to the human eye/mind
advocate the athlete is positioned on an inventory for goal testing
alert the athlete that they could possibly be affected by a critical sickness
state unbelievable pure causes, ie a possible doping case
Within the occasion of the fourth choice, the information is given to 2 extra consultants to take a look at independently. All three should evaluate the identical knowledge set and provided that every concludes that, within the phrases of WADA’s procedural manuals, “it’s extremely doubtless {that a} prohibited substance or prohibited technique had been used and unlikely that it’s the results of another trigger” will the case proceed.
If the three concur then a file is created with the athlete’s age, gender, sport and a spread of different info such because the chain of custody for the samples taken, whether or not the athlete was at altitude and so forth. That is reviewed and the three consultants should agree for an “hostile passport discovering” and in that case then an anti-doping organisation is notified, right here for professional biking it’s the UCI.
The UCI contacts the rider to advise them that it’s mulling an anti-doping case and contains the file with the information in addition to different info just like the pattern timing and chain of custody, and invitations them to provide a proof. There’s nonetheless a case for a rider to clarify they had been at altitude camp or level to some sickness that may have affected their blood values.
This may take many months, if a rider has a questionable blood worth from one check on sooner or later there’s rather a lot for them to return and recall, maybe to ask a former employer to share medical information, then to assemble this, appoint medical consultants to evaluate it for them, maybe translate paperwork and extra.
Solely when there’s no passable reply – or no reply in any respect – will the UCI go public and make the provisional suspension which is the place we bought to yesterday.
For the Lazkano case we are able to most likely infer that he was contacted within the spring by the UCI and given the ITU’s passport file and stopped racing. In a method he provisionally suspended himself. The lengthy wait till yesterday’s information is as a result of the UCI is eager to provide time to those procedures, in order that if Lazkano is knowledgeable he has time to seek out consultants, to fulfill with them, to current his arguments and extra. At no level can the UCI attempt to rush this in any other case an athlete can say their defence was rushed and attempt to enchantment the entire course of within the civil courts. It’s additionally truthful to provide him an opportunity a resolve this in personal.
We all know from a Movistar workforce press launch at the moment (electronic mail, no URL to workforce web site) that quoted a UCI electronic mail that Lazkano replied with an “clarification and supporting documentation” which suggests additional work on either side.
The UCI refers to “abnormalities in 2022, 2023 and 2024” and also you is likely to be questioning why 2022 will get raised now reasonably than then. But it surely’s not like a optimistic check, as an alternative the passport can choose up a change within the baseline or solely detect manipulation after it has stopped or one thing has modified.
If this works as an analogy, think about you secretly bought a e-bike and on group rides you typically drop everybody and when importing the trip to Strava folks observe your coronary heart fee isn’t as excessive as your friends, even while you beat them to the highest of climbs. Mates quiz you and also you simply say you’ve bought a naturally low coronary heart fee. However sooner or later you return to a traditional bike and all of a sudden all of your rides appear to have larger coronary heart charges in comparison with the identical efforts earlier than. It’s this kind of shift within the baseline that may be detected later reasonably than on the time.
Possibly it’s a nasty instance as somebody may choose up your bike or hear a noise, no matter however the concept is it’s not the wild numbers within the second however a change within the pattern or the baseline, for the passport it’s typically the OFF-score to make use of the haematology jargon. Additionally if the numbers do look curious they may invite extra testing together with throughout the low season and this fills out the pattern extra.
The truth is to be extra particular it may that the passport detects a shift which raises an alarm after which this results in extra testing. Removed from alerting the rider in query, they’re examined extra in order to gather extra knowledge to measure the rating such that the bizarre numbers from the previous proceed to stay out. This has occurred earlier than.
The Movistar press launch says the workforce didn’t know something about this till yesterday. It additionally says Lazkano was examined many occasions throughout his years with the time and at all times bought a resultado negativo however by now hopefully you’ve bought the purpose of the passport: it doesn’t essentially catch athletes within the second however via the buildup of information factors.
The following steps could possibly be sluggish and up to now Lazkano has not stated something, he’s not been seen in public for the reason that spring. It’s value stressing that proper now he’s harmless, there’s a listening to and due course of to undergo. However we are able to add the UCI has but to lose a passport case in hearings or appeals to the Courtroom of Arbitration for Sport and gained’t proceed until it’s assured, it’s not within the behavior of suspending riders to discover borderline circumstances.
It may take a very long time. The final case was Franck Bonnamour, the information questioned by the UCI got here from 2022 and it was in February 2024 that he was provisionally suspended after which in August 2025 we bought the decision and the 4 yr ban was introduced. Bonnamour insisted he was harmless all through.
This case issues because it includes a World Tour rider, the final time this occurred was in 2022 with Miguel Angel Lopez on the Giro though that was not a passport case. Maybe it’s simply symbolic at for degree however that’s half the purpose too, a possible case at this degree will get extra headlines.
As soon as once more Lazkano remains to be harmless however the provisional suspension has been sufficient for Crimson Bull to eject him based on Biking Weekly, one thing subsequently confirmed by press launch. This leaves an apparent gap within the classics workforce.
If convicted there’s probability outcomes could possibly be overturned, for instance Juan Ayuso stands to achieve the Spanish highway race title for 2023; Arnaud Démare would possibly get win quantity 98 from the GC on the Boucles de la Mayenne.
ConclusionIt’s a sluggish course of however hopefully this weblog publish explains why it takes a lot time, whether or not the lag detecting anomalies or the sluggish tempo the place the UCI avoids dashing issues so it’s not uncovered to an enchantment over process.
Lazkano remains to be harmless for now however he’s been dropped by his workforce and the UCI has by no means misplaced one among these circumstances. But it surely’s additionally going to take time to get to a verdict, and longer nonetheless for the reasoned choice setting out the element.
Trying wider, the passport is a longtime device and has now caught many riders… however simply them. No teaching workers, medics or others get caught regardless of the complexities of manipulating blood values.
