Dario Frigo

Dario Frigo (born 18 September 1973) is an Italian former professional road bicycle racer.

Frigo's transition to professional cycling began at the 1995 Giro del Veneto, riding as a stagiaire for Mercatone Uno–Saeco. In 1996, he was officially signed to Saeco on a four-year contract. In 1999, he obtained his first victory at the Dekra Open, in Germany. In 2000, he joined the Fassa Bortolo team and achieved success, winning the Giro di Campania, as well as a stage of the Giro del Trentino. He also finished second overall in the Tour de Suisse. More success came for him in early 2001, when he won the time trial at the Col d'Èze and the overall classification of Paris–Nice, as well as the general classification of the Tour de Romandie.

He entered the 2001 Giro d'Italia and was one of the favorites to win. In the prologue, he finished second to Rik Verbrugghe and after the fourth stage, he took the race lead, which he held for nine days, until losing it to Gilberto Simoni on the 13th stage. The gap between the two was very small. On 3 June, Frigo won the 15th stage, a time trial. However, Simoni managed to maintain his lead. On 7 June, the stage was canceled following searches of the NAS in the hotels in Sanremo, where the teams participating in the Giro typically stayed.

During the searches of Frigo's vials, doping substances belonging to him were found, but he claimed to have never used them. The next morning, Dario did not leave Busto Arsizio because he was fired by his team. Later, it was discovered that Frigo had also been scammed because the vial labels did not match the contents of the products. However, Frigo had tried to procure an illicit product, and so he was sentenced to a 6-month ban until 8 March 2002.

In 2002, he was hired by Tacconi Sport and on his return to racing, in Paris–Nice, he won the hardest stage at the Col d'Èze. He then won a stage and the final classification of the Tour de Romandie. He returned to the Giro d'Italia, but while still managing to stay with the leaders, he finished with a modest 10th place in the standings, 11'50" off the winner Paolo Savoldelli. After the Giro, he won the national time trial championship and started the Tour de France, where he won the 17th stage in Megève. After finishing the Tour, he won Subida a Urkiola and the World Cup Classic Zurich Metzgete, in August, placing 5th in the UCI World Ranking.

In 2003 he started strong and in the first half of the season he won 6 races: a stage at Paris–Nice, a stage and the final classification both at the Volta a la Comunitat Valenciana and at the Setmana Catalana and a stage in the Giro that placed him in 7th overall. Towards the end of the season, he competed in the Vuelta a España, finishing in twenty-first place. He also took part in the World Championships in both the individual time trial and road race in Hamilton. He ended the season with a third place in the Giro di Lombardia and finished 14th in the UCI ranking.

2004 was a poor year for Frigo: he was unable to race for three months due to physical problems, and facing a slow and difficult recovery, won no races. In spite of everything, for the second consecutive year he was selected for the World Championships in Verona.

In 2005, Frigo had another bad season: as he only won one stage in the Tour de Luxembourg and in July during the Tour de France, he and his wife were stopped by the French police after ten doses of EPO were found. After being excluded from the Tour de France, he announced his decision to end his career.