Giampaolo Caruso

Giampaolo Caruso
	Caruso at the 2015 Tour de France
Personal information
Full name	Giampaolo Caruso
Born	15 August 1980 (age 43); Avola, Italy
Height	1.81 m (5 ft 11 in)
Weight	70 kg (154 lb)
Team information
Current team	Retired
Discipline	Road
Role	Rider
Rider type	Climber
Professional teams
2002–2006	ONCE–Eroski
2007	Lampre–Fondital
2008–2010	Ceramica Flaminia–Bossini Docce
2010–2015	Team Katusha
Major wins
	One-day races and Classics Milano–Torino (2014)

Giampaolo Caruso (born 15 August 1980) is an Italian former professional road bicycle racer, who rode professionally between 2002 and 2015 for the Würth, Lampre–Fondital, LPR Brakes–Ballan, Ceramica Flaminia and Team Katusha squads.

During his professional career, Caruso took five victories – all coming in Italy – with three stage wins and the general classification at the 2009 Brixia Tour, and a one-day race success at the 2014 Milano–Torino. He was also twice suspended for doping violations – in 2003, he was given a six-month ban for the use of nandrolone at the 2003 Tour Down Under, and in 2015, he was banned for two years after a positive drugs test for erythropoietin (EPO) recorded three years earlier.

Career edit

Born in Avola, Caruso spent the first five years of his professional career with the ONCE–Eroski team. In 2003, Caruso initially won a stage of the Tour Down Under, but he tested positive for nandrolone at the race, and was stripped of this result – which was not publicly acknowledged by race organisers until 2012, in the wake of the Lance Armstrong doping case.^[2] He was accused in the Operación Puerto doping case, but his case was soon dropped by the Spanish federation.^[3] The Italian National Olympic Committee (CONI) wanted him suspended for two years, but he was acquitted of involvement by the Court for Arbitration for Sport (CAS).^[4]

Ceramica Flaminia–Bossini Docce (2008–2010) edit

After a season with Lampre–Fondital in 2007,^[5] Caruso joined Ceramica Flaminia–Bossini Docce in May 2008. He had a contract with the team through 2011,^[6] but on 6 April 2010, after the Giro d'Italia organizers had announced that Ceramica Flaminia was not invited to the race, he was allowed to break his contract and to sign with Team Katusha, who assumed the contract through its duration.^[7]

Team Katusha (2010–2015) edit

Team Katusha signed him mainly in order to be their general classification contender in the Giro d'Italia.^[7] In late 2011 he prolonged his contract for another season. During Stage 3 of the 2012 Tour de France many riders were involved in a crash,^[8] which led to Caruso having scrapes from another rider's chainring on his chest; he remained in the race, and finished his début Tour de France.

At the 2014 Liège–Bastogne–Liège, Caruso led out of the final corner in Ans, but was overtaken on the run to the finish line by winner Simon Gerrans, Alejandro Valverde and Michał Kwiatkowski, ultimately finishing fourth in the monument.^[9] On stage two of the Giro d'Italia Caruso crashed heavily in a feedzone which he went to hospital for in Northern Ireland,^[10] but did not pull out of the race until the race returned to Italy, following stage 6. In August 2014 Team Katusha announced they had extended Caruso's contract through to the end of 2016.^[11] Caruso's only one-day race win came at October's Milano–Torino where he beat Rinaldo Nocentini to the finish line by three seconds.^[12]

In August 2015, it was announced that Caruso had returned a positive test for EPO in March 2012.^[13] He was given a two-year ban,^[14] and he did not return to the professional peloton.