Katusha lifts Vicioso's suspension after Puerto testimony

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Angel Vicioso will return to racing this week, as Team Katusha has lifted its internal suspension of the Spanish rider. Vicioso, who finally testified last week in the Operacion Puerto trial, will be part of the Russian team's line-up in Thursday's GP di Camaiore.

Earlier last week the team suspended Vicioso after he did not make himself available to testify in the Fuentes trial. General manager Viatcheslav Ekimov said that he was suspended for “lying about the fact that he had been summoned.”

"I asked if he had to go to court to testify, but he assured me that he had already arranged, he had spoken to the court and that they had provided all the documentation, but it is not true,” Ekimov said.

At the trial, Vicioso said that he consulted Fuentes, who trained as a gynaecologist, about a knee injury. He said Fuentes was “a good doctor" and he thought he would get "a solution." He denied having blood extracted or even paying Fuentes for consultations in 2004-2005, saying he “did it for free.”

Now that he has testified, he will be allowed to race again. Katusha confirmed to Cyclingnews on Tuesday that the ban has been lifted.

The team announced Tuesday morning that he would ride in the GP Città di Camaiore on Thursday, February 28. The Katusha line-up for the one-day Italian race is Maxim Belkov, Pavel Brutt, Giampaolo Caruso, Sergey Chernetckii, Dmitry Kozontchuk, Denis Menchov, Yuriy Trofimov, and  Angel Vicioso.