Jakob Fuglsang (Astana) issued a brief statement on Monday denying reports that he met with banned doctor Michele Ferrari.

The Danish rider, a stage winner of the 2019 Criterium du Dauphiné, Liège-Bastogne-Liège, and Vuelta a España, is presumed to be "under Michele Ferrari's doping program," the Cycling Anti He was reportedly named in a 24-page information report commissioned by the Anti-Doping Foundation, which speculated that he was "under Michele Ferrari's doping program.

The Danish and Norwegian news organizations (Politiken, DR, and VG) that broke the news obtained testimony from 12 officials who claimed that Fuglsang was working with Ferrari. However, according to statements from Astana (which prohibits working with outside doctors within the team) and Fuglsang, no proceedings have been initiated regarding the allegations.

"I dispute that I met with Dr. Ferrari," Fuglsang wrote on Instagram (open in new tab). 'I am not aware of any report and can confirm that no proceedings have been initiated against me by the competent anti-doping authorities. Therefore, I have no case to answer. I am very concerned about the spread of such rumors in the press."

Teammate Alexey Lutsenko, who was reportedly present at the Ferrari meeting with Fuglsang, posted a message on Instagram denying the reports in the same language as Fuglsang.

According to the report, the information provided by CADF was that "Michele Ferrari will join Volta a Catalunya in March 2019 with the Astana Pro team, based in Lugano, Switzerland, and recently met with Fuglsang and (teammate Alexey) in Nice and/or Monaco. He indicates that he met with Lutsenko."

Ferrari denies any contact with the Astana riders, writing on his website 53x12.com that he has had no contact with Astana or its riders for over a decade, has not been to Monaco, where contact is alleged to have occurred, has not been to a bicycle race since 1994, has not been to Lugano He writes that he has never been to Lugano.

After a lengthy investigation by the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency into doping by the US Postal Service team, Ferrari was permanently banned from the sport, along with team doctor Luis Garcia del Moral and trainer Jose "Pepe" Marti. Team director Johan Bruyneel was also banned for life, and Lance Armstrong was stripped of all seven Tour de France titles and banned for life. Armstrong settled a fraud case with the U.S. government in 2018 for $5 million.