Classics specialist Oier Lazkano suspended, loses Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe contract over Biological Passport values

Oier Lazkano, who showed promise as a Classics rider with podiums in Dwars door Vlaanderen in 2023 and Kuurne-Brussel-Kuurne in 2024, has been provisionally suspended and has lost his position with Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe over abnormalities in his Athlete Biological Passport (ABP).

Lazkano's ABP case is the second to be announced in the last two months after Giovanni Carboni (Unibet Tietema Rockets) was provisionally suspended in September.

The UCI announced on Thursday that Lazkano was provisionally suspended for "unexplained abnormalities" in 2022, 2023, and 2024 – the years he spent racing for the Movistar Team. During that time, Lazkano won the Clásica Jaén (2024), a stage and the overall classification of the Boucles de la Mayenne (2023), and a stage of the Tour de Wallonie (2022).

Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe distanced themselves from Lazkano in an announcement, stating, "We confirm that Oier Lazkano will no longer be part of our team. This follows the decision of the UCI to provisionally suspend him. The matter concerns the seasons 2022-2024 – a time before he joined our team."

Lazkano signed with the team on the back of his one-day race performances, but has not raced since finishing an anonymous 117th in Paris-Roubaix in April, closing out a disastrous Spring Classics campaign where his best results was 108th in the Scheldeprijs.

He hasn't posted to his social media channels since commenting on his spring, stating, "It hasn't been the classic season we wanted and planned, but I'm taking quite a few notes on the list. Thank you all for the support these months. Now, a little rest and back to the heights to prepare for the summer season."

The ABP, which began in the early 2000s, measures athletes' blood values over time as a way to indirectly detect signs of blood doping. In the years since its successful rollout, the anti-doping authorities have added other modules to detect the use of anabolic steroids, measuring testosterone ratios, and an endocrine module that can detect signs of the use of Human Growth Hormone.

The UCI did not specify which module contained the anomalous values.