UCI confirms positive test for CERA at elite men’s ITT world champs

The Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI), has provisionally suspended Juan Pablo Dotti, an experienced cyclist from Argentina, following a positive drug test result. The news emerged from his sample taken during the road world championships held in Glasgow.

Dotti has been a member of the Sindicato de Empleados Pùblicos of San Juan team since 2017. The doping test was conducted on August 11, after the individual time trial in Stirling, in which Dotti finished 46th in the 47.8km race, finishing 7 minutes and 6 seconds behind winner, Remco Evenepoel.

#Dopaje
La UCI ha suspendido provisionalmente al ciclista argentino 🇦🇷Juan Pablo Dotti (24-jun-1984) por un resultado analítico adverso (CERA) de una muestra tomada durante el Mundial de Glasgow🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿.
Así, en este momento, la mitad de los suspendidos provisionalmente son argentinos. pic.twitter.com/MPIUtGdi5C

— Sonja Neteu (@Sonja_Neteu) September 27, 2023

In 2023, he took two stages at the Tour Internacional Chilecito, as well as a win at the Vuelta de Mendoza and the Vuelta del Porvenir San Luis. He also finished 8th at the Pan-America ITT in April.

This isn’t Dotti’s first encounter with doping allegations. In 2011, he served a two-year suspension after testing positive for both an anabolic agent and amphetamines during the Tulsa Tough stage race. According to the guidelines of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), a subsequent positive result, if confirmed by his B-sample, could result in a four-year suspension.

This marks the initial instance of a CERA-positive result in cycling after a lapse of several years, subsequent to a surge in positive cases reported in South America between 2016 and 2018. CERA, recognized as a synthetic drug that enhances red blood cells, gained prominence in the late 2000s due to prominent cases associated with its use