Samuel Sanchez (BMC Racing), the 2008 Olympic road race champion, has been provisionally suspended after failing an out-of-competition doping test.
Veteran Spaniard Sanchez, 39, was due to ride at the Vuelta a Espana, which starts in Nimes on Saturday (August 19), but his career now looks to be over instead after testing positive for the banned growth hormone GHRP-2.
He is the third rider to be chucked out of a Grand Tour on the eve of the race after failing a test for GHRP-2, after Bardiani-CSF duo Stefano Pirazzi and Nicola Ruffoni ahead of the Giro d’Italia.
![](https://storage.googleapis.com/fm-coresites-assets/rcuk/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/Samuel-Sanchez-BMC-Racing-2017-pic-Sirotti.jpg)