Igor Astarloa

Igor Astarloa
	Astarloa at the 2006 Rund um den Henninger Turm
Personal information
Full name	Igor Astarloa Askasibar
Born	March 29, 1976 (age 45); Ermua, Spain
Team information
Discipline	Road
Role	Rider (retired)
Rider type	Classics specialist
Professional teams
2000–2001	Mercatone Uno–Albacom
2002–2003	Saeco Macchine per Caffè–Longoni Sport
2004	Cofidis (until April)
2004	Lampre (from May)
2005–2006	Barloworld
2007–2008	Team Milram
2009	Amica Chips-Knauf
Major wins
	One-day races and Classics World Road Race Championships (2003) La Flèche Wallonne (2003) Milano–Torino (2006)
Medal record
Representing Spain
Men's road bicycle racing
World Championships

Igor Astarloa Askasibar (born March 29, 1976 in Ermua, Basque Country) is a retired cyclist from Spain.

Career[]

Astarloa turned professional with the Italian cycling team Mercatone Uno and enjoyed his best season in 2003 with team Saeco Macchine per Caffè when he won the Flèche Wallonne and the road race title at the World Cycling Championships at Hamilton, Canada. The following year, he joined Cofidis, but when the team temporarily stopped racing due to a doping scandal, he was released to join Lampre.^[1] During the 2006 transfer season it was announced that he was to leave Team Barloworld, the Continental Circuit team for which Astarloa had ridden for the last several years, and join Team Milram, a member of the UCI ProTour.

Team Milram terminated its contract with Astarloa in May 2008 following disclosures that he had shown "irregular blood values", as reported by Focus magazine.^[2] He joined the Amica Chips-Knauf team, which folded in May 2009. Soon after, in June 2009, Astarloa was one of the first five riders to fall foul of the Union Cycliste International's new biological passport system, introduced to combat doping by competitive cyclists. Astarloa was unable to secure another contract that season, and retired in January 2010.^[3]

Doping conviction[]

On 1 December 2010, the Union Cycliste International announced that the Spanish Cycling Federation’s Disciplinary Commission had handed down a two-year suspension and a €35,000 fine to Igor Astarloa. According to Cyclingnews.com, Astarloa's blood samples had come under considerable scrutiny prior to the events of 2008-09 and in the wake of his 2003 world championships victory, although he was never punished for any infraction.^[4]