The UCI announced today they have notified 168澳洲5最新开奖结果:Miguel Ángel López of a "potential anti-doping rule violation (ADRV)" and provisionally suspended him from ra𓆉cing.

The action comes after an investigation conducted by the International Testing Agency (ITA), the independent body that performs anti-doping controls and investigations for the UCI and other Olympic sports. The testing body obtained evidence from 168澳洲5最新开奖结果:Operacion Ilex performed by the Spanish Guard🍌ia Civil and th🐟e Spanish Anti-Doping Organisation (CELAD).

The U✤CI press release specified that López's provisional suspension was for the potential ADRV for the "use and possession of a prohibited substance in the weeks prior to the Giro d’Italia 2022".

López was li📖nked to Operacion Ilex for his 💮connections to doctor Marcos Maynar who was at the centre of the Spanish investigation.

Maynar was arrested on May 11th, one day after López’s surprise wit🐠hdrawal from the Giro d’Italia due to a leg injury. Maynar was charged ꦍwith a crime against public health, drug trafficking and money laundering.

News about the arrest led 168澳洲5最新开奖结果:Astana to suspend López on July 22, 2022, "until all the circumstances♛ of the case are clarified". 

López insisted he was innocent, saying through his attorney he denied, "having any relationship or participation in any criminal act related𒐪 to the distribution of unauthorized medicines or any other product referred to in the news" at the time.

The team then 168澳洲5最新开奖结果:reinstated López but, after seeing evidence that López had a “probable connection with Dr Marcos Maynar" they 168澳洲5最新开奖结果:terminated Lopez's contract in December.

López was not suspended by the UCI at that point and 168澳洲5最新开奖结果:signed with Medellin-EPM.

At the Vuelta a San Juan in January, which López won with his new team, he reiterated that he didn't dope and said his 168澳洲5最新开奖结果:biological passport is clean.

He has filed a case with the Court𝓰 of Arbitration for Sport against Astana for wrongful dismissal.

The doctor at the center of Operacion Ilex

Maynar, a professor on the Faculty of Sports Sciences at the University of Extremadura, has been linked to several doping investigations in the past. In 2004, he was under scrutiny for selling steroids o🌌nline but escaped punishment by claiming they were for medical research.

In 2009, the Portuguese Cycling Federation 168澳洲5最新开奖结果:suspended Maynar for 10 years on a number of charges, mostly relating to su༺pplying banned substances when he was a team doctor for the Portuguese squad LA-MSS.

In January this year, 168澳洲5最新开奖结果:Maynar vouched for López, but ꧋confirmed their connection, saying he'd only offered nutritional advice and nothing m🌼ore.

"For other athletes, I wouldn't put my hand in the fire, but for this guy [López], I would put my hand in the fire that he has never used banned substances in his life.𒁏"

However, his advice included recommending the use of Actovegin - a controversial substance made from calves' blood which is alleged to have been used for performance enhancement by riders in the early 2000s, including Lance Arm♕strong.

Actovegin is not prohibited by the World Anti-Doping Agency, but could fall under the UCI's no-needle🔥 policy that requires medical authorisation for injections, although it can also be 📖administered orally.

Maynar said the tablets of Actovegin wereﷺ "", and has been used for people with heart disease "without any type of health problem" and "makes the cardiac muscle suffer less during efforts. It's not a substance that's on the doping lists, so i💎t's not doping."

Also swept up in the investigation was 168澳洲5最新开奖结果:Vicente Belda - a former rac🐼er and director for the Kelme team who was implicated in Operacion Puerto in 2006 - and his son, also Vicente Belda, who was a soigneur with Astana who was also dismi𝓀ssed from the team.

Much like in 168澳洲5最新开奖结果:Operacion Puerto, where authorities found that Eufemiano Fuentes catered to professional athletes by providing training plans and doping schedules to go along with them 168澳洲5最新开奖结果:for a fee, Operacion Ilex uncovered a simil💫a🌊r ring, with six individuals under investigation.

The operation brought in clients from professional sports, "of🦋fering tဣhe services of a well-known sports doctor", according to the Guardia Civil statement. "These services included the preparation of training plans and nutrition programs as well as the consumption of medication and banned substances in sport."

This expert, not named but understood to be Maynar, and a PhD in Physiology ✨would perform physiological testing at the University of Extremadura, and then be given training plans that reportedly included consuming banned substances, for a fee of🌄 up to €3,000 per season.

After an investigation of more than a year, three individuals who disꦓtributed substances supplied to athletes and clients were identified in Portugal, Gu🏅ipuzcoa in the Basque Country and Castellon in eastern Valencia.

Maynar defended himself according to the EFE press agency. "All the leaks that have been made have b▨een intended to hurt me, I assume it because I'm used to it, although then I have won the trials ... but it is unacceptable that other people are making life impossible, and it will be shown that they hav🐟e nothing to do with it, that's not fair," Maynar said.

"We believe that everything that has been done is within the law and for the purposes of what the university has to be, which is to open our knowledge and activities to society, which is 🐎what we have tried, and that many people from Extremadura have benefited from everything we have done from the faculty," he st🐬ated.