Damiano Caruso

Born in Ragusa, Sicily, Caruso has competed as a professional since the second half of the 2009 season, competing for the LPR Brakes–Farnese Vini,[7] and De Rosa–Stac Plastic teams,[8] before joining Liquigas–Cannondale for the 2011 season.[9] In October 2011, the Italian National Olympic Committee requested for Caruso to be suspended from competition for two years, although backdated from December 2010, in relation to a doping offence in 2007.[10] He was given a backdated one-year ban in February 2012, allowing for him to return to competition without being banned, but all his 2011 results were voided.[11] Caruso held the lead of the young rider classification at the 2012 Giro d'Italia, after Garmin–Barracuda's Peter Stetina lost time on the eighth stage.[12]

In August 2014, Caruso signed a multi-year deal with the BMC Racing Team.[13] At the end of 2014, Caruso scored a top-10 placing in the Vuelta a España, finishing ninth in the general classification. In 2015, Caruso finished eighth in the Giro d'Italia.[14] He was named in the start list for the 2015 Tour de France,[15] riding the race every year since.

In August 2018, Bahrain–Merida announced that Caruso would join them from 2019 on a two-year contract, with a continued focus on riding as a domestique in Grand Tours and to take opportunities as a team leader in some shorter stage races.[16] During the 2019 Giro d'Italia both he and teammate Domenico Pozzovivo rode strongly placing near the top 20 en route to assisting GC favourite Vincenzo Nibali in finishing on the podium in 2nd. During the 2020 Tour de France he rode well with Mikel Landa, who finished in 4th place, as Caruso finished in the top 10 of the Tour for the first time in his career.

Going into the 2021 Giro d'Italia he would once again ride for Landa, who was in very good form and considered one of the favorites for overall victory, however Landa was involved in a serious crash on stage 5 and left the race. By the second week of the race he found himself in 3rd place overall with the major high mountain stages still to come. As the race progressed Caruso managed to stay in contention with the elite GC riders and in many cases finished ahead of them. Only Egan Bernal was able to distance himself from Caruso and by the third week he was a surprise story of the race rising to the 2nd podium position. On the final high mountain stage he would lead the race up the final climb with Romain Bardet as the other favorites pursued. Caruso would eventually distance Bardet and continue on in the race to win stage 20.[17] This victory brought him to within two minutes of Bernal and all but solidified his first Grand Tour podium finish prior to the final time trial in Milan.

During the 2021 Vuelta a España Caruso went on a 70 kilometer solo attack and won the mountainous stage nine in Andalusia.[18] He finished in 17th overall, and in conjunction with the performances of teammates Gino Mäder and Jack Haig both of whom finished in the top 5, Team Bahrain Victorious won the team competition.

• List of doping cases in cycling
• List of sportspeople sanctioned for doping offences

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Damiano Caruso.

• Damiano Caruso at ProCyclingStats
• Damiano Caruso at Cycling Archives
• Cycling Quotient profile