The Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI) announces that the Portuguese rider António Carvalho Ferreira has been sanctioned with a four-year period of ineligibility following an Anti-Doping Rule Violation for use of a prohibited substance and/or a prohibited method due to unexplained abnormalities in his Athlete Biological Passport (*) in 2018, 2023 and 2024.
In accordance with the World Anti-Doping Code (Code) and the UCI Anti-Doping Rules (UCI ADR), the period of ineligibility started on 4 November 2025 and is effective until 3 November 2029.
The case has been resolved by way of an acceptance of consequences as provided for by the Code and the UCI ADR.
The UCI will not comment any further.
(*) The Athlete Biological Passport (ABP) is an individual electronic record for each rider, in which the results of all doping tests collected as part of the ABP programme over a given period are collated. The International Testing Agency (ITA), the independent entity to which the UCI delegated its anti-doping programme while retaining responsibility for the management of results and the prosecution of anti-doping rule violations, manages the ABP programme in collaboration with the Athlete Passport Management Unit (APMU) of Lausanne, Switzerland (the APMU of Lausanne is associated with the World Anti-Doping Agency accredited Laboratory of Lausanne). Athlete Biological cases are prosecuted based on the opinion of an independent Expert Panel of the APMU.