{"id":346581,"date":"2025-12-15T11:04:08","date_gmt":"2025-12-15T11:04:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/346581\/"},"modified":"2025-12-15T11:04:08","modified_gmt":"2025-12-15T11:04:08","slug":"cycling-team-cuts-rider-after-biological-passport-doping-case","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/346581\/","title":{"rendered":"Cycling team cuts rider after biological passport doping case"},"content":{"rendered":"

Unibet Rose Rockets drops Italian racer in the latest case of a pro being flagged for irregularities in their biological passport. <\/p>\n

\"Giovanni<\/p>\n

Carboni, shown here in the 2021 Giro d’Italia, was released by his team. (Photo: Chris Auld\/Velo)<\/p>\n

Published December 15, 2025 03:44AM<\/p>\n

The Unibet Rose Rockets<\/a> team terminated the contract of Italian rider Giovanni Carboni following his provisional doping suspension by the UCI for abnormalities detected in his athlete\u2019s biological passport<\/a>, the team confirmed this weekend.<\/p>\n

Carboni was provisionally suspended in September after the UCI flagged unexplained irregularities in passport data dating to 2024, before he arrived at the second-tier Rockets in 2025.<\/p>\n

The team said it opened an internal review upon notification and decided to terminate the 29-year-old Italian as it prepares for a high-profile 2026 season with the arrival of WorldTour-level pros.<\/p>\n

\u201cAfter careful consideration, we have decided to terminate our collaboration with Giovanni Carboni early,\u201d a team statement read<\/a>. \u201cThe decision follows notification received on September 11, 2025, regarding a provisional suspension issued by the UCI for facts pending investigation prior to his arrival on our team on January 1, 2025. Upon receiving this information, we initiated a dialogue with the rider.\u201d<\/p>\n

The team\u2019s move comes as management is building for 2026 and an outside shot at a Tour de France wild card invitation. The team\u2019s signed several WorldTour-level riders, including Dylan Groenewegen, Wout Poels, and Victor Lafay.<\/p>\n

Carboni joined the Rockets for 2025 after stints with Bardiani-CSF-Faizan\u00e8, where he briefly wore the white jersey and sat second overall at the 2019 Giro d\u2019Italia.<\/p>\n

His final race for the Rockets was GP Industria & Artigianato in September just before the UCI cited him with a provisional ban.<\/p>\n

There was no immediate response from Carboni.<\/p>\n

Carboni case is latest high-profile APB suspension<\/p>\n

Carboni\u2019s exit is the latest involving an athlete\u2019s biological passport data, which remains somewhat of a grey zone in anti-doping efforts.<\/p>\n

As Velo reported last month, sources say many teams are no longer reviewing passport data<\/a> and medical records as rigorously as they once did during recruitment, apparently leaning more on oversight by the UCI and ITA.<\/p>\n

The Carboni decision comes on the heels of the big-name provisional suspension of Oier Lazkano<\/a>, the Spanish WorldTour pro with Red Bull\u2013Bora\u2013Hansgrohe, which he joined in 2025.<\/p>\n

The UCI flagged abnormalities in his athlete\u2019s biological passport covering the 2022\u20132024 period when he was racing with Team Movistar.<\/p>\n

Both Movistar and Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe have since moved to distance themselves from the rider, who has publicly denied any wrongdoing<\/a> as the proceedings continue.<\/p>\n

Red Bull boss Ralph Denk spoke briefly about the Lazkano case at the team\u2019s recent camp.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is a pending case. It was not in our time, but in the time of Movistar,\u201d Denk said. \u201cWe acted accordingly, but as long as the case is not closed, I cannot say anything more.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Unibet Rose Rockets drops Italian racer in the latest case of a pro being flagged for irregularities in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":346582,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[445],"tags":[49,48,635,62140,82,118056,118057,118059,114222,116313,54267],"class_list":["post-346581","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cycling","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-cycling","tag-parent_category-news","tag-sports","tag-tag-anti-doping","tag-tag-biological-passport","tag-tag-oier-lazkano","tag-tag-uci","tag-tag-unibet-tietema-rockets","tag-type-article"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/346581","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=346581"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/346581\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/346582"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=346581"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=346581"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=346581"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}