Last year’s Giro d’Italia winner, Michele Scarponi, has been handed a three-month retroactive ban for visiting banned sports doctor Michele Ferrari.

Lampre team media officer Andrea Appiani said that Scarponi’s ban started on October 1st, meaning the Italian will be allowed to resume competition at the start of the 2013 season.

Scarponi had been suspended by Lampre on November 6th for an issue that referred “to a period when (he) did not ride for Lampre”.

He admitted for the first time he had visited Ferrari on October 25th after the Italian sports daily La Gazzetta dello Sport published a report containing extracts from a Padua investigation into the doctor.