Toon Aert's confirmed guilty of anti-doping rule violation

Toon Aerts was today confirmed and suspended from racing because of breaking anti-doping rules. The Belgian cyclocross rider has spent the past year and a half trying to prove his innocence but his efforts were to no avail.

The UCI Anti-Doping Tribunal has rendered its decision in the case concerning Toon Aerts," the statement said."The Tribunal found Toon Aerts guilty of an anti-doping rule violation (presence of letrozole metabolite in a sample collected out-of-competition on 19 January 2022) and imposed a two-year period of ineligibility, starting from 16 February 2022 (the date on which he accepted a provisional suspension)."

Whilst he was not immediately suspended, Aerts stopped racing after having been revealed that he had tested positive for Letrozole, a substance which inhibits production of estrogen, hence raising testosterone levels. He was later dismissed by Baloise - Trek Lions and did not race in the 2022-2023 winter. He has found work elsewhere but continued to train and battled to prove his innocence in the case, but failed to prove how the substance may have entered his body.

The UCI has now officially suspended him from racing. Although it is only a two-year ban, which started already in January of 2022, this does mean that he will inevitably miss out on most of the upcoming cyclocross season (with virtual certainty, unless he is signed by a team to race the final events of the season).