Oier Lazkano was signed by Red Bull – BORA – hansgrohe and Danish pundit Michael Rasmussen argues that the German team knew about Lazkano’s suspicious biological passport values. This is because when he was signed, certainly there was the sharing of medical files, which have either not been analyzed properly or believed that no action would be taken on the Spanish rider.
A tricky situation, in which not all details are known. According to El País, Lazkano will not have tested positive for any substance between the 2022 and 2024 seasons but on four separate occasions showed abnormal values in his biological passport. He did not manage to explain why they existed, and hence is provisionally suspended – however it was the team’s decision back in either April or May to not have Lazkano race for the time being.
“There are, to the best of my conviction, only two possible scenarios,” Rasmussen argued in a post on X. “I am assuming that Red Bull–BORA–hansgrohe, as a matter of course, requested Lazkano’s medical file before signing the contract. So in the first scenario the team doctors were not competent enough to recognize suspicious signals, which would be a problem in itself.”
Or worst than not having spotted Lazkano’s irregular values, which would’ve been shown there, is the recognition that the Spaniard was in a grey area and there was the decision to sign him nonetheless, believing that action wouldn’t be taken against him. A realistic possibility, since this only happened three years after the first abnormal value was shown back in 2022.
“The second scenario? Those same doctors were able to spot suspicious signals, but trusted that the ITA/UCI would not act. That would be an even bigger problem, because it opens up an entirely new risk: that multiple riders, with the team’s knowledge, could be racing with abnormal blood values”.