It was introduced by the UCI this week that Colombian bicycle owner Miguel Ángel López has acquired a four-year suspension for an anti-doping violation.
López’s title had been linked for months to Operación Ilex, an anti-doping investigation in Spain, which has now resulted within the prolonged suspension for the previous Astana Qazaqstan rider.
A press launch from the world governing physique for biking confirmed the suspension, and mentioned that López had been discovered responsible of the use and possession of Menotropin, one thing he has since vehemently denied on social media, however what’s Menotropin and why would knowledgeable bicycle owner have gone close to such a drug?
What’s Menotropin?
Dr Nicky Keay, a sports activities endocrinologist at College Faculty London and creator of Hormones, Well being and Human Potential instructed Biking Weekly that when trying on the results of using Menotropin, it is quickly clear as to why it’s thought-about a prohibited substance by the World Anti Doping Company and different authorities.
Menotropin is commonly used to deal with fertility disturbances, as Keay defined.
“Menotrophin, as I perceive it, is a combination of FSH (follicle-stimulating hormone) and LH (luteinizing hormone), and possibly a little bit of hCG (human chorionic gonadotropin), used to stimulate the manufacturing of intercourse steroid hormones out of your ovaries or testes,” she mentioned.
“Within the case of ladies this might be primarily oestradiol [oestrogen] and in males testosterone. Because of this this treatment is commonly utilized in fertility therapy.”
The newest race content material, interviews, options, critiques and skilled shopping for guides, direct to your inbox!
She added: “In a sporting context you’ll be able to see why that is on the banned listing as it might trigger synthetic or exterior enhance in testosterone which may confer a efficiency benefit and well being danger.”
López and Operación Ilex
López, a winner of levels in all three Grand Excursions, has constantly denied any hyperlinks to Dr Marcos Maynar, a Spanish college professor who was arrested for his hyperlinks to drug trafficking and cash laundering in 2022 and who was the centre of the Operación Ilex investigation.
Reacting to the information of his suspension on Wednesday, López mentioned he would combat the choice.
“In my understanding, the offence doesn’t exist and the sanction is unjustified,” he wrote on X/Twitter. “I’ll attraction instantly earlier than the UCI and defend my innocence as I’ve at all times achieved. I’ve religion that I’ll return to the world {of professional} biking.”
Up till just lately the Colombian was using for the Medellin-EPM Continental group. On the time of the preliminary hyperlinks to Maynar surfacing, López was contracted to the Astana squad.
Astana quickly dropped López as a consequence of his “possible connection” to Maynar, however he then took the group to the Court docket of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) and accused them of an “illegal” breach of his contract.
López has one month to attraction his four-year ban at CAS.
