Even though Roman Kreuziger was found not guilty for the alleged abnormalities in his biological passport by the Czech Olympic Committee, the UCI President Brian Cookson revealed that they will appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) regarding his case.

Questionable values came from a period before Kreuziger has joined Tinkoff-Saxo, but the Russian team believed in their rider’s innocence and thus decided against suspending him. The 28-year old Czech was allowed to continue racing, however, the squad decided to pull him out of the Tour de France to avoid media attention. He was due to participate in the Tour de Pologne, but the UCI had made a rare decision to provisionally suspend him a day before the Polish event kicked off.

Eventually, the Tinkoff-Saxo rider was cleared of any anti-doping violations by the Czech Olympic Committee on September 22 and returned to action in Milan-Turin, but Cookson revealed during the 2015 Tour de France official presentation in Paris that they will appeal to CAS in Kreuziger’s case.

“the matter is in the hands of lawyers and we’ll take legal advice on that. I fully expect that we’ll be appealing the case and within the time limits,” Cookson told Cyclingnews.

What is worth noticing, the UCI always strongly supported the Biological Passport programme and has never lost an appeal to CAS concerning it.

“The biological passport is a wonderful tool. The only ones that seem to challenge it are the ones that fall foul of it,” he said.

“I’ve seen some very foolish statements recently about the biological passport but it’s been a great way for our sport to help clear up the problems of doping. It’s not solved every problem and I’m sure it never will but it’s been a wonderful tool. It’s lowered the radar, tightened the net, whatever analogy you want to use and it’s something that we’re very pleased about. A number of other sports want to introduce it as well, WADA are 100 per cent behind it and I’m confident that it will be a tool that’s extremely helpful.”