Vegni adamant Chris Froome's 2018 Giro d'Italia result will stand regardless of salbutamol verdict

Giro d’Italia director Mauro Vegni has said he has received assurances from UCI president David Lappartient that Chris Froome’s result on this year’s race will stand, even if he is later sanctioned for his positive test for salbutamol at the 2017 Vuelta a España.

Speaking in Jerusalem on Thursday, Vegni said that RCS Sport would not countenance a repeat of the situation that saw Alberto Contador stripped of his 2011 Giro victory after he was belatedly sanctioned for his 2010 positive test for clenbuterol following a similarly protracted case.

"The position of the Giro has been clear for several months. We've always said that we would not be willing to accept a situation like Contador in 2011. We've received assurances that this won't happen, so we're confident that the result at the end of the Giro in Rome is the result that will stand for this Giro d’Italia," said Vegni, who explained that he had met with Lappartient on the eve of Milan-San Remo in March.

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"Given the length of time the case is taking, I proposed to President Lappartient that any suspension would start from the moment that a sanction was handed down. If it happened after the Giro, the suspension would start after the Giro. If it happened after the Tour, the suspension would start after the Tour.

"The uncertainty is not correct for the public, for us organisers, or for the athlete himself. So if Froome is sanctioned, he would lose the Vuelta title, but any ban would only start from the moment the sanction was confirmed. Lappartient seemed open to this, and he in some way reassured me that there wouldn't be great problems with the Giro.”

Any formal assurance does not seem to be in the UCI president's gift, however, given that Froome's case is to be judged by the governing body's ostensibly independent Anti-Doping Tribunal.

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