Maurizio Biondo (Ceramica Flaminia) suspended for doping after an out of competition test.

http://www.lequipe.fr/Cyclisme/breves2009/...-suspicion.html

Another one "stupid" enough to use EPO.

Is it excessive to open a new topic for each new doping case?

I don´t think it is superfluous at all. This is actually a pretty interesting case in that Biondo "stole" glory from some minor Danish teams. He rode a extremely impressive TT in Tour of Denmark, beating everyone by such large margins that made no sense comparatively speaking.

1 Maurizio Biondo (Ita) Ceramica Flaminia - Bossini Docce 0:18:28
2 Aleksejs Saramotins (Lat) Team Designa Køkken 0:00:28
3 Alex Rasmussen (Den) Team Saxo Bank 0:00:29
4 Michael Færk Christensen (Den) Glud & Marstrand Horsens 0:00:30
5 Jakob Fuglsang (Den) Team Saxo Bank
6 Jens Mouris (Ned) Vacansoleil Pro Cycling
7 Kristof Vandewalle (Bel) Topsport Vlaanderen - Mercator 0:00:31
8 Fredrick Ericsson (Swe) Team Capinordic 0:00:33
9 Ignatas Konovalovas (Ltu) Cervelo Test Team 0:00:34
10 Jens-Erik Madsen (Den) Team Capinordic 0:00:35
11 Michiel Elijzen (Ned) Silence - Lotto
12 Rasmus Guldhammer Poulsen (Den) Team Capinordic 0:00:36

So essentially Biondo ripper a stage victory Saramotins (from the minor Danish team Team Designa Køkken) and a GC podium place from young talent Rasmus Guldhammer (of minor Danish team Capinordic).

Biondo was nipped by UCI immediately following the Tour of Denmark, and one gets the impression that UCI had been trying to catch him following his "strong" TT.

Historically, Biondo had quite a way of doing this; he had a reputation for destroying the field on "his days" - typically once a year.

Volta ao Distrito de Santarém (2008).

1 Maurizio Biondo FLM 00u26'22''
2 Laszlo Bodrogi C.A op 0'13''
3 Andreas Klöden AST op 0'18''
4 Tomas Vaitkus AST op 0'20''

Interesting analysis, Mantus.

That another rider got caught doping is, of course, a no ground shattering news…The interesting things, at least for me, were/are the following:

1. He was NOT caught with the latest variant (DynEPO, CERA, Hematide) but a relatively "old" variant NESP. By some measure, it's the "stupidest" EPO variant to use because its molecule hangs out in circulation for long time - 3x longer than Epoetin alfa, for example, but not as long as CERA.
2. The AAF was based on blood sample, not the classic EPO urine test. It's noteworthy because so far we only heard about CERA blood test (derived from the classic EPO urine test). A sign that more and more WADA labs learned to distinguish EPO isomers by molecular weight.
3. Clearly, Biondo was targeted for a while and, despite using the "stupid" EPO variant, he skated. I'm speculating he probably used a novel micro dosing scheme to be that lucky with NESP for so long.

All we need now is a test for autologous blood transfusion...because I'm getting sick of this endless speculation wrt LA's blood passport.

it was an armstrongesque time trial performance

That is a very interesting performance, to say the very least.

I think Hombre predicted this a while back.