The Astana drama continues
Yeah, I know we're probably all sick of it by now, but I thought it was interesting that Kloden, Popovych, Rast and Zubeldia are apparently still under contract with Astana too, although we haven't heard about that as much as the Contador situation.
Might be a problem for The Shack.
over 2 years ago
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aha
I never could work out why Contador was the only rider apparently still in contract & now it seems that’s because he wasn’t.
JB is still under contract too, so the mess continues..
Tour victories is still in negotiations with Kazakh officials about his leave
"the rest was over 30. And that doesn't mean old and useless, but experienced and with the stamina"
Jens! Voigt, Crit Intl Interview, 2009
That makes sense
Working for the Kazakhs would not be much fun..
"How strange it was to see men doing something beautiful. Something pointless and elegant." Tim Winton, 'Breath'
My understanding was...
that there was a clause Bruyneel’s contract about Vino. And when Astana took him back, JB contract was void. I read in a JB’s blog post that he wanted to remain until the end of 2009 to make sure the riders got paid.
Diane
This is unsurprisingly messy
but I frankly hope both Astana and Radio Shack float. Race dramas are more interesting than the Armstrong/ Bruyneel/Vino show. Well, sometimes they’re not, but they should be ;)
"How strange it was to see men doing something beautiful. Something pointless and elegant." Tim Winton, 'Breath'
Deary me
Listen up boys….
Don’t fuck with the Kazakhs
Was that 'dreary me'?
Kazakhs and Lance…pretty evenly matched I’d say. Hope Klodi and ‘the boys’ are okay.
"How strange it was to see men doing something beautiful. Something pointless and elegant." Tim Winton, 'Breath'
'dreary'? Hell no!
I’m loving it!
And I don’t think it’s an ‘even’ match, either ;-)
I’d spent the past couple of years seething over what had happened to Astana… “How the *&$# could you people let that happen?!”. And now I’m looking at the Kazakhs in open-mouthed awe…
I love me some Kazakhs. When I become Dictator, they will all have jobs for life ;-)
it's the snow leopards I worry about...
"How strange it was to see men doing something beautiful. Something pointless and elegant." Tim Winton, 'Breath'
There’s also this little story from L’Equipe, which says that the French public health authority has opened an enquiry into “suspect syringes” from the Astana team found in one of the medical waste containers that were given to all the teams at the tour. The syringes are being analysed at a forensic lab in Paris.
If a syringe was suspect
would anyone really be so stupid as to dispose of it in a perfectly accessible medical waste container?!
"If I were World Road Race Champion, I would wear black shorts. That probably has more to do with me being on the wiser side of 30 and understanding better that the decisions I make now never really go away. White shorts would not be something I'd be proud of...." - David Millar, in Rouleur.
You wouldn't have thought so, would you?
Unless it’s one of those illegal-in-France-but-not-illegal-in-most-other-places cases, which the fact that it’s the public health authorities (& not anti-doping) involved suggests might be the issue here.
I'm so convinced that this is now officially a witch hunt...
…something about the AFLD this year just smells wrong to me. Maybe it’s that it seems they’re no longer cooperating with any of the relevant international authorities. When crusaders become a law unto themselves, we’ve got a problem.
Also, at what point do teams in general say that the BS of having to endure a year or more of witch hunt after every TdF simply isn’t worth it?
Well said... all of it.
"How strange it was to see men doing something beautiful. Something pointless and elegant." Tim Winton, 'Breath'
You may be right to some degree
and a rogue organization swinging wildly isn’t helping anyone.
Problem is they are probably shut out as a result of ASO and UCI reverting to the “sweeping under the rug” policy that got us into this bottomless pit of dung in the first place. You have to assume that it is frustrating for them having started to make progress only to have the door slammed in their face once again.
As for the poor teams, when they can make a justifiable claim that they are doing all they can to salvage the sport , then i’ll listen to their complaints. And “worth it”? The TdF will always be worth it for them. $$$$$ (€€€€€€ ?)
Most of this I have, of course, thought of before...
…not to take away from the value of your statement of these points. I even share lots of your paranoia about the UCI / ASO, and your lack of sympathy for the teams. But somehow, I’m still convinced that the French authorities are just out of control here (and I’m semi-sure that whatever agency is handling the enforcement end is doing this at the behest of AFLD, since that’s where all the noise leading up to this has been coming from).
Sometimes institutional inertia gets to a point where they need to keep finding problems to justify their own position, and so they do… and this just smells like that to me.
but AFLD don't seem to be anything to do with this particular bit (officially anyway)
It’s the French public health authorities, which is different.
It is l'OCLAESP (Office central de lutte contre les atteintes à l'environnement et à la santé publique)
who are taking action here.
this now seems to be a rehash and/or confirmation
of one of the stories from the other week & involves several teams, not just Astana
ah
how I wish it just go away….this story is getting more and more ridiculous.
UCI please pull the astana licence and let’s be done with it.
trouble is, if they do that (which I think they will)
are they going to be able to (fairly) give a licence to The Shack, who may or may not have been contracting riders/staff already under contract elsewhere?
Is it a big deal if the shack miss out on a licence?? Not really.. IMHO..
They will still get invites to the big races..
"the rest was over 30. And that doesn't mean old and useless, but experienced and with the stamina"
Jens! Voigt, Crit Intl Interview, 2009
Retirement Shack
only cares about that one race in July anyway.
they don’t need to be ProTour, just an invitation is enough.
No.
I would be devastated. And outraged.
(Yes, it is a pity for the Accountant that his choices have led him to this situation, but…)
just so we are clear
Vino wants back, fine.
he wants his team back, fine.
he wants to race the big races, well, many will enjoy booing him then.
however this is not the team Bert signed up for.
and I want him out of it.
Ooh and it's Bert own fault..
I mean c’mon.. Astana is coming from some east-European country.. You can’t tell me they are as reliable as other sponsors. He just went for the big money so I don’t feel sorru
i imagine he also thought it would be good
to work with bruyneel. And perhaps other riders that were there? Looked like a strong team i think.
Maybe it was but Astana had 5 busted riders the year before Contador signed
Now I remember that I had my question marks than already. Why would you go there if there image is so fucked up?
And Bruyneel? Could be it. Sentimentel.. First GT win? Dunno.. Not the first option I would have taken
I'm sure you're open minded, but check your geography ;)
"How strange it was to see men doing something beautiful. Something pointless and elegant." Tim Winton, 'Breath'
According to Wiki..
While located primarily in Asia, a small portion of Kazakhstan is also located west of the Urals in Eastern Europe
I’m with the Frinkster on this one… I think of the joint as ‘Eastern European’, too (and not necessarily in a strictly geographical sense…)
I am too, but I'm trying to build a bridge Lou
You are the high priestess however, so in hopes of future snow leopards, I’ll accede ;)
Hoping not to incur wrath from someone, but isn’t Eastern Europe as much a state of mind?
"How strange it was to see men doing something beautiful. Something pointless and elegant." Tim Winton, 'Breath'
there are eastern europeans around PdC
I’m sure we can find the biggest fan of frinking in that part of the world.
oh, and since I’m asian, maybe he can claim all I said is false anyway.
whatever works for him.
Maybe(?) you have to stop trying and stop implicating things I would have said..
You are totally failing at that point..
I hope that’s clear enough
you are trying to be logical with frinkster
he claimed the great nation of Kazakhstan doggy/unreliable….in which case he should support my wish for UCI to pull their licence, no?
I choose to stop right there, really…
There's a Kazakh dog? :0
"How strange it was to see men doing something beautiful. Something pointless and elegant." Tim Winton, 'Breath'
So.. You do business with an Eastern Europe company as easy as a Western Europe?
Call me stupid or worse but I would be a little more cautious..
what’s the diference between Vino and Millar, Basso..
agreed.
some dopers get more / less of a pass than others by some do to things like place of origin, jersey style, etc
Moo
just from reading other people's views on it
i got the impression that vino’s doping was really over the top – aka tyler hamilton. I don’t know if there is much truth to that, but it is what i’ve been led to believe by people who know way more about it than i do. To me that’s the only difference. But i do understand the vino fandom – he was quite a rider. And a colorful personality.
I take the point ... BUT
one could debate forever about what is “over-the-top” versus ummmm “good doping?” ;)
Moo
but i don't dislike vino now and i used to like him
and still admire much about him as a cyclist. I guess if i believe he really doped to the gills though, then that takes him down a notch and i have a hard time being a fan – but not a hater. I reserve that for the guys who are either self-righteously playing up how clean they are (when they really probably aren’t) or those who go crazy attacking their accusers or the testers and everyone else in their crazy attempts to deny after being caught.
But I do believe that degree makes a difference. Not all riders who have doped have doped equally. It would seem to go without question that some have doped very extensively and some have done very little but have nevertheless doped at least some at some point in their careers. Now deciding which riders fall into which group, well there you probably have a point.
With Vino i was just following the opinion of someone who seems to be very informed and follows all this way more than i do and seems to make a serious effort to sort all this out. I really don’t follow this stuff enough to have an informed opinion of my own.
For me it's a case of how they handle their situations.
Millar confessed did his time that’s good, but maybe he’s too preachy now, some hate him for that alone. I like Millar now but did not really care about him before.
Basso sort of, kind of, well certainly was half assed about his “admission” . I’ll only be a half assed fan at best.
Vino, if you believe him, was done a grave injustice. He will always deny he did anything but he did test positive on multiple days. If you don’t take personal qualities into consideration maybe you can like him, he did do his time and all. Some how it doesn’t seem like Vino should be trusted to not screw up again.
nit-picking ;)
but Millar didn’t confess … he was caught red-handed …. it was impossible to deny
Millar is finger-nails on chalkboard to me
Moo
Yup, you're right.
I hope I made the point it’s not necessarily just who you like going into a drug scandal but also how they handle themselves.
yes, I pretty much agree with you
but it’s a gray area.
What I mean is that it is how each of us “perceives” how each rider handled themselves.
For example, personally, I absolutely hated how Millar got caught and then became outspoken.
I admittedly never followed it closely, but Vino never bothered me more than that. I even understand his Monaco outburst. Astana is after all a Kazakh team, formed pretty much for him.
Moo
and he wants it back
which is fair enough.
my problem is, they are holding Bert hostage.
because everyone knows, without Bert, they are not getting into any (important) races, money or not.
so, if no one wants him in their races……
Hostage?
Or holding him to his contract?
We could find a few million sports forum threads where people complain about athletes never wanting to live up to their end of the contract.
I do see your point, but I see Astana’s as well. They signed someone who is the best in the business and he is under contract.
Moo
Yeah, the 'hostage' bit has been troubling me
I get it, I really do… but there’s an emotive/moral untertone there, which I do not think is necessarily valid (oh, it’s valid on a personal level, by all means…).
I really can’t see how Astana are the ‘bad guys’ here. If he were with another team, would they release him from his contract? Assuming that they didn’t have a serious need for cash, and an otherwise decent roster, of course (heh, I was thinking for a moment: “The Great Bjarne wouldn’t”… but no – right now, I’m betting that he would. And by heaven it would be at a price…)
As for Astana not getting into races without him… I wouldn’t be so sure about that. It is foolish to underestimate the minds at work here. Surely we have learnt that much :-)
(I would love to know who the mastermind is… much as I love Vino, I don’t think that it is him…)
I still don't know what the fuck happened with the contract
that does not have a exit clause in it.
but back in 2007 he was not who he is now. He joined Disco for minimum wage, something around 30-50K PA I believe. Even after the tour, not too many people running around with offers, certainly not like now.
Joining JB seemed to be the logical choice.
How wrong we were.
Not having a professional manager
but instead relying on your brother is nice but looks like a mistake at this point.
He signed the extension which seemed to be all about trusting JB to be the right person to work with for professional success. He couldn’t anticipate LA’s return which upset the balance but honestly he had to see that Vino was on the horizon and was going to cause trouble at some point?
Fran was not his agent when he first signed with Astana
not sure about the extension tho….but yes, this contract boggles my mind.
although i think that
LA’s return is contador’s problem – much more so than Vino. If LA had stayed in retirement then Astana would probably still be a good team even with vino coming back. They’d just be a little more fun, is all.
I know, mate
I know. And believe it or not, I am sincere when I say that I think it’s a pity for him. But I’m afraid that life’s a bitch, and the world doesn’t revolve around the Accountant.
It isn’t all about him. Neither, incidentally, is it all about Vino. Well, not for me, anyway. Not entirely. (That said, I suspect that he may figure highly in the Kazakhs’ calculations, LOL…).
As for it being the team that he signed up with or not… he signed up for a team essentially bankrolled by the Kazakh state – and he is now in a team bankrolled by the Kazakh state :-).
JB and co may have thought that they had the perfect solution there, when Disco pulled the plug and no-one stepped in…
bah, why can't you just be like frinkster
so I can say all vino fans are illogical and be done with it?
well, since you are not. see comments above regarding the contract.
in terms of contract law(the one that I know of), the team situation is so different now, I totally don’t know why they can’t get out of it.
and, how many riders are left with astana now? even if you count Klodi and the other 3 in, that can’t be enough to warrant a ProTour licence??
Right..
They have 17 riders now..
Stay:
BAZAYEV Assan
DMITRIYEV Valeriy
DYACHENKO Alexsandr
IGLINSKIY Maxim
KIREYEV Roman
MURAVYEV Dmitriy
RAIMBEKOV Bolat
RENEV Sergey
VINOKOUROV Alexandre
ZEITS Andrey
CONTADOR VELASCO Alberto
HERNANDEZ BLAZQUEZ Jesus
NAVARRO GARCIA Daniel
NOVAL GONZALEZ Benjamin
New:
FOFONOV Dmitriy
GOUROV Maxim
IGLINSKIY Valentin
Popo and Zubeldia not included
Hmmm...
You mean like: “But I thought that JB was gonna turn it into Postal Mk.III, and that the Kazakhs were perfectly happy to go along with that!”. Good grounds for breaking a contract, certainly. I cannot fathom why there would be any question…
;-)
I don't get it..
Lance and JB are playing it very smart by let whole the media know they signed people. Now it turned out to be legal and everyone is on Shacks hand.. Seems a little weird to me
Maybe this is Astana’s solution to problem of the UCI requiring that they have competent, presentable management.
Hold JB and company to their contract, rather than let him slink away.
by ManBicycleThing on Oct 13, 2009 8:44 PM EDT via mobile reply actions
And whatever we may think of Astana
that’s not unreasonable. Can’t imagine any other team behaving differently.
"How strange it was to see men doing something beautiful. Something pointless and elegant." Tim Winton, 'Breath'
I think Astana really did want to be rid of Bruyneel and friends. Maybe they just had second thoughts.
by ManBicycleThing on Oct 13, 2009 9:56 PM EDT via mobile up reply actions
They need to be competitive... it's all about the bucks I suspect
But yes, I’d think that Astana would prefer a team where its members wanted to be there.
"How strange it was to see men doing something beautiful. Something pointless and elegant." Tim Winton, 'Breath'
It makes perefct sense though ....
If your teetering on no-license extinction how do you improve your odds. Keep Bruyneel, Kloden, Zubeldia, Popo and Rast. That makes you an experienced team with a proven management and harder for the UCI to take the license you already have.
( On the other topic – Witch Hunt is the exact right choice of words. The AFLD are at the point where they are starting to make fools of themselves. I wonder if someone was guarding the medical waste disposal 24 hours a day and if not, how could they tie anything to anyone or any team or prove who put what in what container. I don’t think the AFLD is very bright ! )
I waited a half an hour to give my two toddlers breakfast until I had my Eneco tour coverage sorted, then made sure I got them fed before the sprint. --- Bought With Blood. ..... Hmmm, my kinda people. If only they could explain to my wife why my bike belongs in the house and not the garage. --- Thevaro
dwilson had the best info
JB had the legal leverage to escape his final contract year: a no-Vino clause.
Conta is looking increasingly solid for Astana, barring a UCI ProTour License denial.
Zubeldia now stays @ Astana and AC’s side. All other lieutenants got away.
I think the UCI renewal decision will hinge on two things: ethical management and proper money matters,(payments to riders and staff). I’m not sure hiring an ex-Festina DS is the answer to their prayers.!
And FWIW, Vino never admitted doping, Millar did and Basso almost did.
And if they pull the licence...
…they will be lucky that their offices are so far away from me. (And I guess I would be lucky, too… a stint in gaol hasn’t been factored into my plans for the near future…)
And again, it it not all about Vino.
Seriously rbjhan – if you take the Accountant out of the equation (because I know that he has a significant effect on your reasoning, LOL)… if he weren’t currently under contract with Astana, would you still be chanting loudly for the licence to be pulled?
CQ ranking pure and simple
"How strange it was to see men doing something beautiful. Something pointless and elegant." Tim Winton, 'Breath'
and
Millar admitted to doping after EPO was found in a police raid at his home in Biarritz in 2004. From the profile in the comic:
Millar never tested positive for doping, but illicit doping products were found during the raid and his 2003 World Time Trial Championship title (as well as his stage 19 win in the 2003 Tour de France – at his request) was subsequently stripped from him.Like him or not, but from what I’ve seen he is one rider who has been down that dark road (and beat himself up a fair bit for it) and come out the other side with something postive. At least he can speak from experience. No point asking me about prison life, an ex-con will tell you a lot more, even if you don’t like his accent or what he says.
If your teenage son was a rookie on a pro team which would you want him to ride with (and be influenced by) – Millar and Slipstream or Vino and Astana?
Millar never tested positive for doping, but illicit doping products were found during the raid
exactly, he was caught red-handed with the goods. He never – never – confessed.
And – in my mind – it killed him that he would have to NOW and subsequently compete clean so he started whining about all the cheaters. He had no ➔ authority to become a spokesman. He forfeited that right. (in my opinion)
Moo
I was curious about how if Millar never tested positive and never confessed how was he banned for two years.
So I went to a semi authoritative source, Wiki, and read about Millar. Turns out he confessed to the police that he took EPO on two separate occasions.
“…He admitted using EPO in 2001 and 2003. He blamed it on stress, in particular losing the prologue, the opening time-trial, in the 2003 Tour, and being beaten by Jan Ullrich in the 2001 world time trial championship. Under cycling rules a confession equates to a positive test2122. British Cycling suspended him for two years in August 2004.”
From Wikipedia
Not suggesting you should change your opinion of Millar but it is probably better if we agree to use the same facts.
but You are correct and I am wrong on saying that he never confessed.
but it’s different than failing a drug test and then admitting things. He was found with syringes and product before any confession epiphany.
Moo
In fairness, no one confesses out of the blue
(except maybe 20 years after your career ended like Fignon)
I’m pretty neutral on Millar. On the plus side he did fess up fairly quickly when faced with evidence (evil tongues say it was due to being wet-your-pants scared in a jailcell, who knows) and he did admit to stuff no one could nail him for. He could still be calling himself WC but he fessed up and handed over medals.
On the negative side, righteousness is almost always intolerable, though when I see it in recovering addicts I try to think of it as a coping strategy needed to stay on the narrow path. That’s how I look at Millars attitude. Also he’s not always going out of his way to preach these things. Because of his past he gets asked these questions all the time and saying nothing would probably just make everyone suspicious so I can see why he answers the way he does.
yeah
I guess it’s partly that a very small part of me isn’t always 100% convinced that all positive tests are positive. So I see being caught with the goods (ie Millar) as more convincing.
Admittedly – probably – a weak argument on my part in defense of Vino or other deniers
Moo
Yes, some do confess out of the blue!
Count ’m on one hand, though. I know of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jerome_Chiotti
In that Wiki article Millar says he kept the syringes he was caught with on pupose.
He kept the syringes and empty bottles he used to win in the WC in Hamilton, Ontario as a reminder that he “used trickery” to win his medal. It may be that he wanted to get caught, hard to imagine a hard core cheater being that stupid. I think he was struggling with the issue and wasn’t very comfortable with what he’d done.
Cyclovia: Bogota www.streetfilms.org/archives/ciclovia/
yes, that was an interesting snippet
although I find it hard to believe to be true. seems more like him spinning things …. but then I am biased ;)
Moo
My opinion of Millar has been mitigated by the fact that
he’s really put his money where his mouth is these past three years. He started out with S-D, won a TT clean, and then really suffered for a long, long time before he won anything again. Clean. Then he bought into Garmin (then Slipstream) as a part owner, buying into a new kind of team. He’s volunteered to be on (help me here) a global anti-drug council of some sort (fudging it here,) as an athelete rep. Yes, he’s on a soapbox of his own making. But he’s really trying to improve the situation. I believe he is sincerely trying to save his sport, in his own way.
I was glad to see him win the TT at the Vuelta, even against a weakened field. Except for TTTs, he’s not won a lot of races these past three years. But when he writes, you can see that he is still madly in love with this sport. And being on a “clean team,” he’s tested. A lot. And he wants to be, he wants it to be something to be discussed by fans and by the media. How many of the cyclists we all root for can say that?
I would hope
That I had brought up my son to think independantly, and adhere to his own moral code.
He’s a rookie? – send him to Astana. He toes the line = it’s all good. And it would be a valuable learning experience. (Kinda like military service, y’know?). And if he keeps his eyes and ears open, and his head about him, he’ll learn a great deal…
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