Michele Scarponi

Michele Scarponi

Scarponi at the 2014 Tour de San Luis
Personal information
Full name	Michele Scarponi
Born	(1979-09-25) 25 September 1979 Filottrano, Italy
Height	1.74 m (5 ft 9 in)
Weight	62 kg (137 lb)
Team information
Current team	Astana
Discipline	Road
Role	Climber
Professional team(s)
2002	Acqua & Sapone-Cantina Tollo
2003–2004	Domina Vacanze
2005–2006	Liberty Seguros-Würth
2007	Acqua & Sapone-Caffè Mokambo
2008–2010	Diquigiovanni-Androni
2011–2013	Lampre-ISD
2014–	Astana
Major wins
Grand Tours Giro d'Italia General classification (2011) Points classification (2011) 3 individual stages Stage races Tirreno–Adriatico (2009) Volta a Catalunya (2011) Giro del Trentino (2011)
Infobox last updated on 6 January 2015

Michele Scarponi (born 25 September 1979) is an Italian professional road bicycle racer, currently riding for UCI ProTeam Astana.^[1]

Career

Born in Filottrano, Scarponi started his career in good form, but in 2006, Scarponi was implicated in the Operación Puerto doping case. Despite this, and Scarponi's Liberty Seguros-Würth cycling team folding, Scarponi was able to secure a contract with Acqua & Sapone.

Despite a promising start to the 2007 season, Scarponi was once again implicated in the Operación Puerto case. On 8 May 2007, Scarponi confessed his role in the case.^[2] On 15 May, Scarponi was provisionally suspended.^[3]

With the rider completing his ban, Diquigiovanni-Androni announced on 13 June 2008 that they had signed Scarponi for the coming two seasons. In 2009, Scarponi won the Tirreno-Adriatico and also won 2 stages in the Giro d'Italia.

In 2010, he awarded himself a second place finish in the Tirreno-Adriatico. He also finished fourth overall in the Giro d'Italia. In that race, he took a prestigious victory in the epic stage 19, where he went clear of the field on the Mortirolo Pass with two Liquigas-Doimo teammates, Vincenzo Nibali and Ivan Basso. Basso was attempting to take the overall lead, so Nibali and him made most of the work during the dangerous descent and subsequent uphill ride to Aprica, leaving Scarponi fresh enough to out sprint the pair.^[4] Scarponi also achieved a victory in the Settimana Ciclistica Lombarda.

In 2011, Scarponi moved to Lampre-ISD where he won the Giro del Trentino and the Volta a Catalunya. Then in the Giro d'Italia he finished second overall behind Alberto Contador. Contador was later stripped from the title,^[5] which was therefore assigned to Scarponi. He then tried to defend his Giro title in 2012, but later finished 4th overall with Canadian Ryder Hesjedal taking the overall win. After the Giro, Scarponi then decided to focus on the Tour. However Scarponi could only end up finishing 24th overall.

In 2013,^[6] Scarponi started his season finishing 3rd in the Volta a Catalunya. He aimed for the Giro d'Italia where he ended up finishing 4th overall the same place as he finished in 2010 and 2012.

For the 2014 season, Scarponi moved to the Astana squad.^[1]

Doping

Scarponi was temporarily suspended by his team in November 2012 after he admitted performing tests with Michele Ferrari, a doctor whose name has been linked to numerous cases of doping in cycling.^[7] His salary at the time was disclosed, which was 700,000 Euros a year.^[8]

Palmares

Grand Tours overall classification results timeline

Grand Tour	2002	2003	2004	2005	2006	2007	2008	2009	2010	2011	2012	2013	2014
Giro	18	16	—	47	WD	—	—	31	4	1	4	4	WD
Tour	—	—	32	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	24	—	49
Vuelta	—	13	—	11	—	—	—	—	—	WD	—	15	—

WD = Withdrew; IP = In Progress

See also

• List of doping cases in cycling
• List of sportspeople sanctioned for doping offences

References

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Michele Scarponi.

• Michele Scarponi at Trap-Friis.dk. Archive copy at the Wayback Machine (archived 24 May 2011)