GRENOBLE, France -- Italian cyclist Dario Frigo and his wife, who were implicated in a doping case during the 2005 Tour de France, had their suspended jail sentences cut in half to three months Friday.
An appeals court in Grenoble also ordered Frigo to pay an $11,430 fine, and a symbolic payment of one euro to the French cycling federation, which had filed a claim for civil damages.
Frigo and his wife, Susana, were arrested after about 10 doses of the banned endurance-boosting hormone EPO were found in her car during the 2005 Tour.
A court last September gave them suspended sentences of six months after the couple were convicted on drug charges.
In the appeal, prosecutors had asked for a one-year suspended sentence against the former Paris-Nice winner. But the court said the rider was under heavy pressure to go along with the "systematic doping which was institutionalized in his team [Fassa Bortolo]" at the time.