Lampre-Merida manager Brent Copeland expressed support for his rider Diego Ulissi in a wake of adverse analytical findings, about which we have informed yesterday. Despite provisionally suspending the Giro d’Italia double stage winner, the Italian squad’s manager claims that an amount of a banned substance found in the test was effectively impossible to reach and thus they would wait for the B sample to be examined before taking any further steps.

Ulissi tested positive for salbutamol following the 11th stage of the Giro d’Italia, during which he went down in a crash. The 24-year old Italian rider suffered from chest infection and was using Ventolin inhaler in the same time, but declared amount of two puffs a day, one being an equivalent to 100ng of salbutamol, could never come close to the amount revealed in Ulissi’s sample, 1900ng/ml.

Thus, Lampre-Merida manager expressed support in Ulissi’s case and insisted that the squad expects the results from the B sample to exonerate the rider from doping allegations.

“The way the doctors have explained it to me, the amount they’ve found is an amount that’s almost impossible to have in your urine so we’re definitely behind the rider and we believe the rider 100 percent,” Copeland told Cyclingnews when reached by telephone on Wednesday afternoon.

“He had declared that he took two puffs or whatever it was so there was no problem with his declaration,” Copeland said. “The way I understand it is that it’s an amount that’s really difficult to reach. The rider has asked for the B sample to be tested and we’ll see what happens, but obviously our reaction is one of surprise.”

“No, with the victories that he got and the way he was riding it was normal that they would be testing him,” Copeland said. “They had many tests before that stage as well and that was on the 11th stage to Savona when he crashed but obviously he had many tests before that and obviously nothing came up from that so we can’t really understand how it’s possible.”

“He had been having a chest problem for a while and then he got the flu on the second rest day and just never recovered from the flu,” Copeland said. “He got a fever and we just decided it was better for him to abandon, take some time off and then start getting ready for the national championships, which he was meant to do this weekend.”

In such circumstances, Ulissi was forced to withdraw from Italian national championships, which were his first big objective in the second part of 2014 season. As the Lampre-Merida rider learned devastating news on his way to pre-championships gathering of the Italian representation on Wednesday morning, he has also immediately resigned from participating in the training camp.

“He’s obviously devastated. It’s news that any rider who believes in himself like he does never expects to receive so he’s very surprised and disappointed,” Copeland said. “It’s just one of those situations. It’s always hard for a rider to defend himself until the B sample is tested.”

“It’s never nice to get this kind of news but we look forward and keep at it, and we’re not going to let this get us down,” said Copeland.