The Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI) has taken note of the statement made by UCI WorldTeam EF Education–EasyPost on 21 June 2024, announcing the team’s immediate termination of its contract with Italian rider Andrea Piccolo due to suspicion of transporting human growth hormone (hGH)*.
The search conducted on the rider is the result of an investigation led by the International Testing Agency (ITA) and its close collaboration with the National Anti-Doping Organisation of Italy (NADO Italia) and Italian law enforcement authorities (NAS Carabinieri). The UCI welcomes this collaboration and will assess any further action that may be necessary in this respect.
The UCI will not comment further on the matter.
*hGH is a Prohibited Substance under class S2 Peptide hormones, growth factors, related substances, and mimetics of the Prohibited List which is maintained by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and adopted by the UCI.
The UCI delegated the operational activities of its anti-doping programme to the ITA in January 2021. Since then, cycling’s clean sport efforts have been led by the ITA Cycling Unit, which is dedicated specifically to all disciplines of cycling. The UCI and the ITA are bound by a service agreement which guarantees that the ITA operates in an independent manner.