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CAS: No Paris-Nice for Fuji-Servetto

By VeloNews.com
Published: Mar. 6, 2009

Fuji-Servetto will be heading to Tirreno-Adriatico and Milan-San Remo, but not Paris-Nice.

That’s what the Court of Arbitration in Sport ruled Friday in an interim decision that the Spain-based team will be allowed to start the two upcoming Italian races, but stopped short of allowing the team to race at Paris-Nice, slated to start Sunday.

Fuji-Servetto is the new name for the troubled Saunier Duval team that last year saw two of its star riders – Riccardo Riccò and Leonardo Piepoli – to test positive for the banned blood booster CERA.

Owners of both events didn’t want the team at their respective races. Team officials filed an appeal to CAS in late February.

Here’s what CAS released Friday:

Lausanne, 6 March 2009 - In the dispute between G.M. Bikes SA, owner of a UCI Pro Tour licence for the team Fuji-Servetto, and Amaury Sport Organisation (ASO), on one hand, and to RCS Sport, on the other hand, the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) issued today two interim decisions, considering that the parties did not agree during the hearing of 5 March 2009 that the CAS settle the dispute definitively.

In its decisions on requests for provisional measures filed by G.M. Bikes, the CAS decided to allow the participation of the team Fuji-Servetto in the events Tirreno-Adriatico and Milan-San Remo 2009. However, it did not allow the team to take part in the event Paris-Nice 2009.

ASO and RCS Sport had both decided not to accept the participation of the team Fuji-Servetto in those events. However, the reasons put forward by each of the organisers were different : the refusal of ASO was based on the fact that the possible participation of that team could affect the image of its competitions, while RCS Sport had considered that it had a discretionary choice to select the participants.

The arbitration procedure will continue shortly so that the CAS can proceed on the merits and render a final decision.