Miguel Ángel López has had his contract with Astana Qazaqstan Team terminated with immediate effect, and the reason may have been revealed as court documents suggest the Colombian may have been administered with menotropin days before the start of the Giro d'Italia, and a reaction forced him to abandon.
In a striking report from Spanish newspaper ABC, it is said that the court of Cáceres - the city where Dr. Marcos Maynar, the leader of a doping ring, worked as a doctor and university teacher - holds documents that suggest that it is possible that López may have received a dose of the substance menotropin before the Grande Partenza in Budapest, and that his sudden abandon may have happened due to a reaction to it.
At the time, on the fourth stage of the Giro, López' abandon came as a shock. One of the big favourites for the pink jersey, he abandoned the race with sudden hip pain. The report has it that Vicente Belda (a soigneur at Astana, and son of former KELME director Vicente Belda [senior]) administered the substance before the start of the race.
López would then spend the summer in Colombia before returning to Europe in late July, where he was interrogated by the police. Members of the doping ring had been interrogated as early as January of this year, and include also football players.
The Kazakh team informed that the reason for the contract termination was due to collecting new 'elements' connecting López to Maynar, and that "the team had no other solution than to end the contract between team and rider".
López in the meantime has responded, saying that he "will exercise all the legal actions that assist him in defense of his rights, given what he understands to be a clear case of abusive dismissal and without just cause."
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