The Roar
The Roar

Advertisement

World War Cycling: Doping learnings of America for make benefit glorious nation of Kazakhstan

26th May, 2015
Advertisement
Astana racing has fallen from grace. (Image: La Gazzetta dello Sport).
Editor
26th May, 2015
7
1498 Reads

Reigning Tour champion Vincenzo Nibali got a shock in February this year, with the UCI announcing they were stripping his Astana team of their licence.

The UCI’s decision came after brothers Maxim and Valentin Iglinskiy tested positive for EPO, while Astana Continental (the ‘reserve’ team if you will) had three riders test positive for steroids in 2014 – Ilya Davidenok, Victor Okishev and Artur Fedoseyev.

All five riders are from Kazakhstan.

Backed by a group of Kazakh-owned companies, the Astana Pro Team wear the colours of the Kazakh flag and are named after the nation’s capital city.

In many ways, Astana were – and are – the successors to US Postal, having a lot of crossover in backroom staff, being bankrolled by respective government concerns, and fronted by a rider regarded as something of a national treasure.

Check out the rest of World War Cycling
PART 1: The Prologue
PART 2: The United States of America
PART 3: Italy
PART 5: Spain
PART 6: Germany and Denmark

With a third place in the 2003 Tour de France, and fifth in the 2005 edition, Alexander Vinokourov was considered one of the men most likely to claim Lance Armstrong’s newly vacant throne. So when sponsors withdrew from his Liberty Seguros-Wurth team due to the team’s general manager, Manolo Saiz, being arrested for blood doping as part of Operacion Puerto, Kazak companies stepped up to support their man.

In June 2006 Astana was born, as Astana-Wurth.

Advertisement

The team got off to a rocky start, being excluded from the 2006 Tour due to Puerto implications. However the 2006 Vuelta a Espana was an unqualified success, with ‘Vino’ winning the general classification, and his teammate and compatriot Andrey Kashechkin coming third.

The reigning Vuelta champion was regarded as the favourite for the 2007 Tour, but put something of a target on his back when, just days before the race, his relationship with Dr Michele Ferrari was made public, and Vino gave the Italian his blessing:

“I search for the best. A lot have talked well of him. Look at the facts. The seven victories of Lance Armstrong at the Tour are a result of his collaboration. Armstrong was super, also Ferrari.”

Vino’s GC hopes seemed all but ended with a crash on Stage 5, but he stayed in the race and claimed a comprehensive victory in the Stage 13 individual time trial. The following day he tested positive for a blood transfusion.

The team were asked to withdraw from the Tour, and Astana sacked Vinokourov. Days later, Kashechkin also tested positive for blood doping during a random out-of-competition test. He too was given the boot.

They were the third and fourth Astana riders to leave the team that season under a doping cloud; the team needed to refresh their image.

The end of the 2007 season also saw the Discovery Chanel Pro Cycling team call it a day, with management team Tailwind Sports unable to find a new major sponsor for 2008 and beyond.

Advertisement

It was an abrupt end to the team whose leader had won eight of the last nine Tours de France – Alberto Contador in 2007, and Lance Armstrong from 1999 to 2005, during which time the major sponsor had been the US Postal Service (Discovery became naming rights sponsor in 2004).

Thus, aiming to improve their look and with a proven winner after a job, Astana replaced their team manager with Discovery’s directeur sportif, Johan Bruyneel.

Given a mandate to overhaul the team, Bruyneel brought with him star rider Contador, as well as Levi Leipheimer, who had come third in the closest Tour podium in history, 31 seconds behind his younger teammate.

(Leipheimer’s 2007 third place was later expunged for doping, as part of his deal with USADA, Carlos Sastre inheriting the bottom step of the podium.)

Bruyneel also brought his backroom staff, including trainer Jose ‘Pepe’ Marti, Dr Luis Garcia del Moral and Dr Pedro Celaya. All were eventually implicated in the USADA investigation into the US Postal Service, and given bans ranging from eight years to a lifetime.

However this new, ‘clean’ team wasn’t enough for the organisers of the Tour de France, the Amaury Sports Organisation. Having asked Astana to leave mid-way through the year before, in 2008 the Kazakhs were not invited at all.

Bruyneel was furious at the snub and wrote a stinging rebuke on his personal website, accusing the ASO of cheating the public, and defending his own sterling reputation as a soldier in the war on doping:

Advertisement

“No cyclist has ever tested positive for illegal drugs while riding for my team.

“I thought that by changing Astana, I might help to change the sport. I accepted the job, then repopulated the team with trusted staff and riders, including Contador and Leipheimer, and instituted an independent drug-testing program, at a cost of 700,000 USD per year, that lets us conduct our own, internal controls on our athletes.”

Contador was unable to defend his title at the 2008 Tour, but still managed to win that year’s Giro d’Italia and Vuelta a Espana, becoming the youngest rider in history to have completed the Grand Tour treble.

It wasn’t Vino, but an Astana rider appeared to have ascended Armstrong’s throne. Then Lance announced his comeback.

Armstrong wanted to work with his old pal Johan, so Astana signed him to a deal which saw Lance only ride professional races in Astana kit, otherwise wearing Livestrong gear. Lance also donated his annual salary to his foundation.

The 2009 Tour saw two Astana riders on the podium, Contador first, Armstrong third. Lance’s result has since been stripped – he was found to have been working with Dr Ferrari and used blood transfusions during his comeback. Interestingly, in this case there was a shuffle of placings, with Bradley Wiggins now recognised as third, indicating the UCI considered it to have largely been a clean race.

But this was years away. At the time, Lance and Contador had butted heads spectacularly throughout the Tour and in less than a season the Texan’s forceful personality was causing rifts within the team to widen.

Advertisement

Of course a number of these rifts had surfaced on the eve of the Tour, when Vinokourov announced that he would return to Astana when his doping ban expired, just after the Tour’s completion.

“This team was created for me and thanks to my efforts,” he said in announcing his return. “If Bruyneel does not want me, it will be Bruyneel who is leaving the team.”

So who would receive the team’s backing – the disgraced 35-year-old who admitted he was no longer a contender for the Tour de France, or the manager under whose leadership the team had just won all three Grand Tours in a record-breaking 15-month stretch?

At the end of the 2009 season Bruyneel and Lance left Astana to form Team Radioshak, the Texan determined to take Contador on as the undisputed leader of his own team at the Tour.

Their battle royale never eventuated, as Lance rode a disappointing 23rd in the 2010 edition, suffering a number of unfortunate accidents early in the race. Vinokourov meanwhile was happy to play second fiddle to Contador, and assist the Spaniard to his third Tour victory in four years.

However in the days after the race’s completion, Contador was found to have tested positive for clenbuterol, and eventually his first place was stripped, handed to Andy Schleck.

(We will deal with Contador’s eventual suspension in detail next week, in Spain.)

Advertisement

Contador left Astana at the end of the 2010 season, and the squad had what would have been a quiet 2011, were it not for a story that broke at year’s end, accusing Vinokourov of bribing his way to victory in the 2010 Liège–Bastogne–Liège Classic.

On December 6, Swiss magazine Illustre published a story showing a series of emails between Vinokourov and Alexandr Kolobnev, who had come second, in which they appeared to be discussing the fix.

A 150,000 Euro bank transfer between the Kazakh and his Russian rival was also discovered, which Vino dismissed as “my private life…

“I often make payments to the left and right, I sometimes lends money, but I never offered to buy Kolobnev to win.”

Both riders have since been officially charged by Belgian authorities (the nation in which Liège–Bastogne–Liège takes place) for fraud. The case is on-going.

Vino’s final turn as a professional cyclist was the 2012 Olympic Road Race, where he brought glory to Kazakhstan one more time, winning gold. He retired immediately after, to take up the role of Astana manager from season 2013, and under his leadership, Astana have continued on their established path – victory mixed with serious doping controversy.

Vincenzo Nibali signed with Astana in 2013, won that year’s Giro and came second in the Vuelta, before tearing the field apart to win the 2014 Tour de France.

Advertisement

Meanwhile, Nibali’s young compatriot and teammate Fabio Aru has emerged as a Grand Tour contender (even if Contador’s efforts last night all but put paid to the 24-year-old’s dream of winning the 2015 Giro).

But peppered among the success are the five positive tests mentioned at the top, issues raised with Roman Kreuziger’s biological passport while he was riding for Astana in 2011 and 2012, Kiwi cyclist Greg Henderson’s tweet that Aru was under a doping cloud heading into this year’s Giro, as well as allegations the team met with Michele Ferrari, Vino’s banned former advisor, in 2013.

Ultimately the UCI have allowed Astana to keep their license, albeit “subject to strict monitoring of the conditions laid down”.

Next week: Spain, Operacion Puerto, and Alberto Contador – the greatest cyclist of his generation, with the most significant asterisk.

close