Alessandro Petacchi (Team LPR Brakes) winning at the Tour of Britain (Image credit: Gerry McManus)
Last year's winner Alessandro Petacchi will not race Paris-Tours on October 12 after all. His LPR Brakes team was ousted on Saturday by organizer Amaury Sport Organization (ASO) because it is not part of the blood passport program. According to the AFP, LPR Brakes and two other teams, Mitsubishi and Collstrop, were denied entry for the same reason.
"The UCI [International Cycling Union] has officially confirmed Friday that these teams are not included in the passport blood program. We immediately decided to pull them out of the race," a representative of ASO to AFP.
The ProTour teams had threatened to boycott the race if the continental teams not participating in the UCI's anti-doping program were allowed to compete according to sportwereld.be. A similar boycott threat is expected for the upcoming Tour of Lombardy.
