ROME - ITALY'S Olympic Committee (Coni) anti-doping prosecutor Ettore Torri on Thursday asked for disgraced cyclist Leonardo Piepoli to be banned for two years.

Piepoli failed a dope test during July's Tour de France for a variant of blood-booster EPO that was undetectable at the time but was later found in re-tested samples.

The 37-year-old, who had failed to show for a previous hearing in October, denied knowingly doping during his 20-minute hearing to which he arrived without his lawyer.

Piepoli did not actually fail a dope test during the Tour, during which he won the 10th stage, but he was fired by his Saunier Duval team for breaking their code of ethics after they had pulled out of the Tour following team-mate Ricardo Ricco's positive test for EPO.

However on October 6 the French Anti-Doping Agency announced that Piepoli had tested positive for CERA (Continuous Erythropoiesis Receptor Activator) - the new generation of EPO - in two re-tested samples from the Tour.

The two samples were taken from July 4, one day before the Tour began, and July 15, the day after Piepoli's stage win.

Former team-mate Ricco, who admitted doping, was also hit with a two-year ban although he has taken an appeal to Lausanne's Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) in the hope of having it reduced.

A Coni tribunal will rule on whether or not to ban Piepoli and for how long. -- AFP