Looks like Vino’s chickens have come home to roost.

UCI Wants to Remove Astana’s Licence

Wow, be interesting to see if they have the political will to see it through. Pivotal moment for UCI if they can manage it.

Cheers for the info and i cannot say I am surprised given their recent history and the leadership history.

Nothing more than they deserve!

About time too. I hope they make it very clear why they are doing this.

I really hope this sticks, having Vino at the helm is suspicious enough but the repeated failed drugs tests really do suggest some significant failings within the team.

I too hope they can make this stick. Fingers crossed CAS does not overturn this in the appeal stage.

I really hope this sticks, having Vino at the helm is suspicious enough but the repeated failed drugs tests really do suggest some significant failings within the team.

Look at their DS list, rider list, helper list. It’s like a who’s who of 1990s former Soviet Republic dopers. That on top of their blatant manipulation of the MPCC rules last season prove they’re not really that serious about clean cycling.

Blimey, quite surprised UCI have done this given the legal wrangling that will ensue. Good on them though and it’s clearly what followers of cycling want to see happen. Bit of a nuclear option though given that there isn’t an obvious way out for the team and riders.

UCI in growing a pair shocker!
To quote Grand Moff Tarkin – “This had better work”…

Well I don’t think it’s a nuclear option if the rules say “You need to at least look credible ethically to get/keep a license” and they clearly aren’t. It’s the only option left to the UCI. Licenses are binary, you either have one or you don’t. Given it seems they’ve lied to the UCI license commission, you’d have to assume that the UCI are 100% positive this can stick.

Excellent, hope to God that the UCI has all the t’s crossed and i’s dotted as this is gonna run and run in the legal system.

What now for Nibbles?

TBH, I’m not entirely convinced that we should pity Nibali. Anyone with half a brain knows that the Astana camp is a dodgy one so he doesn’t have anyone to blame but himself.

I always struggle when it comes to dopers coming back into or running teams within the peloton. For every Vaughters there’s a Vino

Astana has always been a shades of grey team for me as they were formed out of Liberty-Seguros, who folded because of operation puerto, the Astana team was formed with most of the backroom staff and riders

Liberty-Seguros weren’t exactly known for being peachy-clean so forming a team out of that was never going to end well, I’m just amazed it’s taken this long for there to be these kind of ramifications

I’m guessing nibbles will sit out for a year and then another big team will hire him. Some of his entourage may need to find other work
Fabien Aru may be worst* off from this and may not get the big deal he would be expected from moving to another team under normal circumstances.

EDIT: *Well in comparison to nibbles as he hasn’t had the big million dollar deals yet. Worst off will be the neo-pros and support riders who won’t get world tour rides

I always struggle when it comes to dopers coming back into or running teams within the peloton. For every Vaughters there’s a Vino

Except Vaughters is less than transparent too. He’s BETTER than Vino but his lack of transparency about who doped in his team is troubling enough.

Liberty-Seguros weren’t exactly known for being peachy-clean so forming a team out of that was never going to end well, I’m just amazed it’s taken this long for there to be these kind of ramifications

As INRNG says, don’t forget Astana was “cleaned up” by Bryuneel

Vino, Ekimov and a long list of doping allegations. Please, please UCI, make this stick.

TBH, I’m not entirely convinced that we should pity Nibali. Anyone with half a brain knows that the Astana camp is a dodgy one so he doesn’t have anyone to blame but himself.

+1

And he’ll already have an escape route lined up if he’s as smart as he seems.

Except Vaughters is less than transparent too. He’s BETTER than Vino but his lack of transparency about who doped in his team is troubling enough.

+1

I (want to) believe that Slipstream is a clean team, i think the reason the (former) dopers aren’t identified is because they would end up with a retrospective ban which would harm them whilst there would be equivalent riders pedalling along scott free in other teams with no ramifications for them

I’m just amazed it’s taken this long for there to be these kind of ramifications

Cookson stamping his authority I suspect, whilst McQuaid was happy to stand by/didn’t fancy the epic legal battle which will now ensue! Particularly given Astana must have the biggest budget of any team to fight this – a GDP of $243.6bn (I just checked!).

I don’t want to draw parallels with Armstrong, because it’s not the same at all, but there’s got to be a degree of “making an example” of Astana, and setting a precedent. Good on him I say.

Yeah I’m sure he will, but his team of 5 or so support riders plus staff might be a bit screwed.

Could put together a nice team from the guys that have retired this year, Nibbles, with Voight, Millar, Evans, Dekars in good form……

And he’ll already have an escape route lined up if he’s as smart as he seems.

Problem is he comes with a load of other people. It’d be quite the team that had berths for not only Nibali but a few other riders and helpers.

I’m guessing nibbles will sit out for a year and then another big team will hire him. Some of his entourage may need to find other work

That’d be massive for Nibali. Coming off the season he had, in his prime, gearing up to defend his Tour title. A year sat on the sidelines with no racing would be a disaster. Jump ship and a big pay cut more likely (but as inrng states, he has his preferred entourage too) but who would take him at this stage in the season given the state of rosters and budgets etc.?

Can see them being allowed to race on appeal while a lot of legal stuff goes on which will probably take until the end of the season (or at least till after the Tour) before it’s resolved.

Cookson had to do it, otherwise he’d have been seen as ineffective. Hope he goes for Bertie next….

Part of the condition for their licence was an audit of their practices. The audit came back with big differences between what Astana said they were doing and the reality.

Slight difference as it was a ban, but Contador missed a season and came back, his entourage all found other jobs then mostly came back together when he was back in peloton.

Question is who would have nibbles? Even a reduced wage is still too much for some of the teams who have space for a GC rider

EDIT: Aru will be the sensible grab in the firesale; young, no/little entourage, cheaper, already shown he can compete

My money would be on BMC.

I think we discussed this before – the team actually losing their licence gives him the out to find another team, which would have been contractually difficult before. It’s possible he’s already got something lined up behind the scenes in anticipation, but if not he’ll presumably have to take a massive pay cut, though it’s not like he won’t find a team willing to take him.

Are we still assuming that he’s clean?

Are we still assuming that he’s clean?

Can we assume any sportsperson is clean? He’s on the cleaner end of the scale in my mind but unless i was there watching him stick the needle i’ll never know

My money would be on BMC.

TVG wouldn’t be too pleased about that.

the reason they were initially handed a licence back in december (despite criticism) was because according to the rules they met the criteria, but Cookson said that it would be subject to the audit that has just finished – so in this case they are following the absolute letter of the rules to stop it being overturned by CAS

I would reckon that Garmin would be a likely team to take Nibali, they have potential GC riders but not a superstar, he would have to take a wage drop but I bet he’d take that on the chin to keep riding… he may have to go wherever he could without his usual support and take that on the chin too

or orica ?? ride with the Yates as support ?

TVG wouldn’t be too pleased about that.

No, and there are also the commercial consequences of a US team displacing a US rider for an Italian – but they still seem like the best fit in terms of both their requirements and resources IMO.

Cannondale-Garmin – 27 riders
BMC – 30 riders registered but one only starts in July and Cuddles is gone
Orica-Greenedge – 27 riders

My guess would be a year out unless one of the teams changes tack and decides to try to be a GC team that currently isn’t (i.e. from the above Garmin/Orica).

As for BMC they’re only notionally a US team and I don’t think you can just cut riders and hire new ones as you see fit. You don’t need to race them but I think once they’re on the roster they need to do something like Petacchi did the other year and retire to be removed.

Well I have to congratulate the UCI for doing the right thing. No doubt Astana will go to the CAS. That could be very interesting if the court seeks to overturn the licence withdrawl which could happen depending on the wording of the contracts and agreements.

You have to assume the UCI have spent lots of time running through scenarios with their lawyers (if I were them I’d have employed an extremely good lawyer to act for Astana in a virtual sense to try and find a weakness in their case).

Ooh ek. Well I’d be very suprised if the license is pulled for much longer than say a month. Clearly if this does go ahead they’ll be lawyers all over it and let’s not forget Astana have very deep pockets. They’ll go for a temporary license whilst they clean up and TBH the UCI can’t afford to loose the money form them.
So I suspect a hard line from the UCI, a claim back to CAS, temporary license granted, then Astana folds at the end of the year to be replaced by another form of the team without a few DS’s and Vino on the sidelines.

Do I feel sorry for Astana, nope, do I feel sorry for the riders not sure as they all know what’s going on inside the team.

😐

I guess what Cookson/ UCI would deliberate over is the risk of an internal legal battle with Astana and the loss of money vs. the public profile/ opinion of the sport and resulting sponsorship revenue.
The latter arguably being more important to the long term future of the sport. Omelettes and breaking eggs.

I’m not sure it works like that. They could (and probably will) get a temporary licence whilst waiting for the case to be heard in full, but not for any other reason.

the UCI can’t afford to loose the money form them.

I think they can. they don’t generate any more money than Europcar did and they were quite happy to dump them from the World Tour over 50 grand shortfall in their budget IIRC. The UCI make enough money, mostly from the world champs, that a single team leaving the world tour won’t cause a crisis.

exactly, it’s not that the UCI needs the money, rather that there isn’t an abundance of World Tour teams with the capital required to play at a World level.
but if you get shot of the bad eggs, like Astana, and improve the reputation of the sport then sponsorship money for new teams might be more forthcoming.