According to a UCI press release Monday, Luis Ricardo Villalobos Hernandez had an Adverse Analytical Finding (AAF) for growth hormone GHRP-6 in a sample taken by the Mexican National Anti-Doping Agency during out-of-competition controls on April 25, 2019. returned.

Villalobos was provisionally suspended pending the completion of a procedural ruling.

Villalobos, 21, is currently under contract with EF Pro Cycling and has a contract to compete with an American World Tour team in August 2019. However, the out-of-competition test that resulted in a GHRP-6 AAF was taken during his last season with Continental team Aevolo.

The UCI stated that the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) reanalyzed a sample taken on April 25, 2019, which resulted in an AAF. The sample contained GHRP-6, also known as growth hormone-releasing hexapeptide.

Villalobos has the right to request and be present at the opening and analysis of the B sample.

Villalobos joined the Evolo team in 2017 and remained with them until August 2019. He signed a unique three-year contract with Jonathan Vaughters' EF Education First team through 2021.

He is a two-time Mexican national champion in time trials (2018, 2019). At the Tour of Utah, he finished fourth in a stage and eighth overall, and also won the best young rider award. He was third at the Winston-Salem Cycling Classic.

While racing for EF Pro Cycling, he will compete in the Tour of Poland, Tour of Britain, Euro Eyes Cyclassics Hamburg, and Bretagne Classic in 2019. This February, he competed in the Tour de la Provence and the Tour des Alpes Maritimes et du Var.

EF Pro Cycling released a statement saying that they had just been informed on Monday that Villalobos' GHRP-6 AAF had tested positive and had suspended him indefinitely.

"This team was established to protect the health and rights of riders across the sport, especially young riders entering the professional level," Jonathan Vaughters, CEO of EF Education First, said in a statement Monday, "We are committed to ensuring that these young riders are able to ride with amateur doctors and trainers and ultimately ruin their careers, which is very upsetting to us."

The team is also upset that they learned of AAF more than a year after they were tested and said they would not have hired Villalobos if they had known.

The team's press release stated that EF Pro Cycling was exploring its legal rights regarding the extremely late notice.

The team also noted that only WADA-accredited labs can test for GHRP-6 and the team is not permitted to use those labs in its internal screening process for athletes due to potential conflicts of interest.

"If we had known, we would not have signed Lewis," Vaughters said. The burden is on UCI because "there is no internal testing program that has access to the level of equipment needed to screen for GHRP-6.

"Everyone deserves better. Lewis deserved better guidance from past trainers and doctors. And the team deserved better from the UCI than to find out about this situation more than a year later.

"It is encouraging that the system is catching riders, but there needs to be more transparency and accountability than this. We are going to encourage Lewis not to fight this and to tell the truth, whatever that may be."[31