Italian sports doctor Carlo Santuccione, nicknamed “Ali the Chemist,” became one of the most notorious medical figures in European cycling’s doping history. During the 1990s he worked alongside Francesco Conconi at the University of Ferrara’s sports-biomedical institute; Conconi was widely associated with the early development and spread of EPO-based endurance doping. Santuccione had already been suspended by the Italian National Olympic Committee from 1995 through 2000, and his name surfaced during investigations connected to Conconi’s activities. The scandal deepened in 2004, when Italian authorities launched Operation Oil for Drugs across 29 provinces. Investigators suspected Santuccione of heading a broad doping network and uncovered testosterone-based anabolic steroids, EPO, darbepoetin alfa (Aranesp), and equipment used for blood transfusions. The inquiry opened cases involving 138 athletes, including 15 professional cyclists, exposing how physicians and suppliers could operate as the hidden infrastructure behind elite endurance sport. On 18 December 2007, the Italian Olympic Committee imposed a lifetime ban on Santuccione, citing his role in Oil for Drugs and his earlier doping-related suspension. The episode later acquired an especially direct cycling connection when Riccardo Riccò, runner-up in the 2008 Giro d’Italia, named Santuccione as the supplier of the third-generation EPO linked to Riccò’s positive test during that year’s Tour de France. Santuccione died in Pescara in 2017, but his career remains emblematic of the era when doping doctors, rather than athletes alone, became central figures in the organization of performance-enhancing drug networks.
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