Coldeportes sacks Parra after positive dope test

Edwin Parra will not be riding for Coldeportes next season, following his positive doping test this fall. The team, which recently received Professional Continental status for 2012, said that that Parra wold be “excluded from the payroll.”

Parra tested positive for an unnamed substance at the Vuelta a Boyaca.  He rides for the amateur team Boyacá Orgullo de América.

Coldeportes said in a statement that it “has received from the Colombian Cycling Federation a report which records the anti-doping rule violation by the rider Edwin Arnulfo Parra Bustamante Boyacá (...) after his participation in the Tour of Boyaca at the sampling for doping review on  September 16, 2011.”

The team is committed to “meeting the international standards and following the guidelines of the World Anti-Doping Agency, to respect fair play and propriety as to the sport,” and therefore, ”according to its philosophy of ethical, moral and transparent processes in sport, Coldeportes does not tolerate these attitudes and is uncompromising in its decisions.”

The Colombian Cycling Federation's disciplinary committee has opened an investigation into the postiive doping sample.