Italian rider Franco Pellizotti has been found guilty of dope use and has been banned from the race in the next two years.

The decision Tuesday said Graham Dunbar of the Associated Press is a ‘landmark victory’ of the Union Cycliste Internationale in its effort to strengthen its blood profiling program.

According to AP, the Court of Arbitration for Sport confirmed the evidence of Pelizzotti’s alleged blood doping.

With the court’s ruling, the Italian rider now is stripped of all his race results since May 2009. AP said that Pelizzotti lost his third-place finish at the Giro d’Italia in 2009 as well as his “King of the Mountains” title which he earned at the Tour de France also in 2009.

The court has also ordered the Italian rider to pay a fine to the International Cycling Union in the amount of $160,000.

Following the decision, the cycling’s governing body has welcomed the court’s decision against the Italian rider.

"We always were convinced of the quality of our anti-doping program and the work of our scientific people," UCI spokesman Enrico Carpani was quoted in a telephone interview by the Associated Press.