GW Erco Shimano () is a Colombian-registered

UCI Continental The UCI Continental Circuits are a series of road bicycle racing competitions which were introduced in 2005 by the Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI) to expand cycling around the world. The five circuits (representing the continents of Africa, the ...

cycling team A cycling team is a group of cycle sport, cyclists who join a team or are acquired and train together to compete in bicycle racing, bicycle races whether amateur or professional – and the supporting personnel. Cycling teams are most important i ...

that participates in

road bicycle racing Road bicycle racing is the cycle sport discipline of road cycling, held primarily on Road surface, paved roads. Road racing is the most popular professional form of bicycle racing, in terms of numbers of competitors, events and spectators. The ...

events on the

UCI Continental Circuits The UCI Continental Circuits are a series of road bicycle racing competitions which were introduced in 2005 by the Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI) to expand cycling around the world. The five circuits (representing the continents of Africa, the ...

. Prior to 2023, the team was based in Italy and held

UCI ProTeam UCI most commonly refers to: * University of California, Irvine, a public university in Irvine, California, United States * Union Cycliste Internationale, the world governing body for the sport of cycling UCI may also refer to: * Uganda Cancer In ...

status. Gianni Savio manages the team, with assistance from directeurs sportifs Giovanni Ellena, Antonio Castano, Didier Paindaveine and Marco Bellini. In 2022, with the arrival of a new sponsor — Drone Hopper (an aeronautical engineering company based in Spain) — the team has received a new name Drone Hopper–Androni Giocattoli.

Doping

On 5 June 2014 Patrick Facchini gave an adverse analytical finding for

Tuaminoheptane Tuaminoheptane (, ; brand names Heptin, Heptadrine, Tuamine; also known as tuamine and 2-aminoheptane) is a sympathomimetic agent and vasoconstrictor which was formerly used as a nasal decongestant. It is still used in France as a nasal decong ...

and was consequently banned for 10 months. On 30 June 2015 Davide Appollonio gave an adverse analytical finding for EPO and was provisionally suspended. On 27 July 2015 Fabio Taborre gave a positive test result for the banned blood-booster FG-4592 in an out-of-competition control on 16 June. The team were automatically suspended by the UCI under new rules. FG-4592 ( Roxadustat) is in phase 3 clinical trials and has not yet been commercialised. The drug was developed jointly by FibroGen and

AstraZeneca AstraZeneca plc () (AZ) is a British-Swedish multinational pharmaceutical and biotechnology company with its headquarters at the Cambridge Biomedical Campus in Cambridge, UK. It has a portfolio of products for major diseases in areas includi ...

. Unlike EPO, which directly stimulates the production of red blood cells, FG-4592 is taken orally, and stimulates natural production of EPO in a manner similar to altitude training. This class of compounds has been outlawed by WADA. The UCI subsequently suspended the team for 30 days. Androni_Route_du_Sud_2012_Etape3