6th January 2012: French rider Gregory Bauge and the French Team Sprint have been stripped of gold medals from the world track cycling championships for a doping violation.
Governing body the UCI says it has annulled Bauge’s victory in the individual sprint event and the French gold in the team sprint race at the worlds in Appeldoorn, Netherlands, last March.
In November, the French Cycling Federation imposed a one-year backdated suspension from 23 December 2010 to 22 December 2011 on Bauge, meaning the UCI was obliged to nullify all results obtained by the rider as well as those of any team he was a member of during that period.
“As a consequence, the rider and the French team lose their individual sprint and team sprint titles won at the UCI Track Cycling World Championships in March 2011,” the UCI said in a statement.
Baugé was guilty of “two breaches of applicable requirements regarding rider availability and one missed test in 18 months”, the UCI explained.
As the results have been annulled it is likely that Britain’s silver medallist Jason Kenny will become 2011 World Champion and Germany will be awarded the 2011 Team Sprint title.
As the suspension is back dated it does not look like Bauge will miss any of the 2012 season, including the forthcoming World Championships and Olympic Games.
Track Cycling is thankfully a side of Cycling that is not normally associated with Drug related headlines, however neither the UCI or the FFC mentioned a failed drug test, simply a failure to comply with rider availability rules with regards to Drug testing and missing a test eighteen months ago.
The issue does raise questions over why the matter has only come to light now with a backdated suspension annulling the 2011 World Championship results.