Leonardo Piepoli

Leonardo Piepoli 2007

Leonardo Piepoli (born September 29, 1971 in La Chaux-de-Fonds , Switzerland ) is a former Italian racing cyclist who ended his career in 2009 after a two-year doping ban.

Career

After Piepoli won the Baby Giro as an amateur in 1994 , he turned professional in 1995.

In his first year as a professional, he won the Spanish one-day race Subida a Urkiola and the mountain classification of the Tour de Suisse , which he finished seventh overall. The following year he won a stage of the Giro del Trentino and he finished seventeenth in his first Tour de France participation. In 1999 he moved to Banesto and won several small tours in the following years . So he won the Burgos Tour , the Aragon Tour , the Vuelta a Asturias and the Vuelta a Castilla y León . Eighth place at the Vuelta a España in 1999 was his best overall placement in a major tour.

In 2004 Piepoli moved to the Saunier Duval-Prodir team . In the same year he won a stage of the Vuelta a España and a year later one of the Tour of Catalonia . For this team he won two stages of the Giro d'Italia in 2006 and the Maglia Verde and one stage in 2007 . After that, however, in July 2007, he was temporarily suspended by Saunier Duval because at the Giro d'Italia 2007 the value of salbutamol was significantly above the maximum permitted on the basis of a medical certificate.

In 2008 he won a stage in the Tour de France, but left the tour with the entire team shortly afterwards after team captain Riccardo Riccò tested positive for the EPO derivative CERA . Just one day later, his Saunier-Duval team also dismissed him without notice for violating the ethics agreement. On October 6, 2008, the French Anti-Doping Agency (AFLD) announced that Piepoli had tested positive for CERA twice in doping samples. Accordingly, doping with the Epo preparation CERA was detected on July 4th and 15th . The anti-doping experts had withheld samples from drivers with abnormal blood values and checked them in the Châtenay-Malabry laboratory.

In January 2009, Piepoli publicly commented on his doping abuse prior to the Tour de France 2008 and showed remorse: “I feel disgusted with myself for doping. That day before the tour, I killed the best part of myself. I killed cycling that was my whole life. I trampled on my dignity, my conscience and disappointed myself, ”said Piepoli. On January 26, 2009 Piepoli was banned from the Anti-Doping Commission of the Italian Olympic Committee CONI for using the EPO drug Cera for two years.