Astana Continental team ‘suspended indefinitely’ by Vinokourov after Fedosseyev’s positive test

by Shane Stokes

Astana General Manager Alexandre Vinokourov has suspended the organisation’s Continental squad after a fifth Astana doping positive was revealed earlier this week.

The move follows Wednesday’s announcement by the UCI that the Kazakhstani rider Artur Fedosseyev had a positive A sample for anabolic androgenic steroids in a test taken on August 16.

Speaking to La Gazzetta dello Sport on Thursday, Vinokourov confirmed that he had “suspended the Continental team indefinitely. The young riders are crazy if they have not yet realised that this is no longer the cycling of doping.

“I want this to be a signal, a blast in their ear of our federation,” he continued. “As we’ve often requested, the Kazakh Federation has to do more controls and be more severe. They’ve got our full support.”

Some have interpreted Vinokourov’s suspension of the Astana Continental team as a bid to appear to be acting against doping and to separate the two squads, thus trying to avoid being punished by the Licence Commission.

Indeed he insists that the two WorldTour team positives and the other three must be considered separately. “People must understand that this is another reality that has nothing to do with this,” he said. “We only have jerseys and a name in common.”

However, as La Gazzetta points out, Vinokourov had the power to suspend the smaller team, implying some element of control over it. In addition to that, the Continental team’s manager Dmitri Sedoun is also a directeur sportif of the WorldTour team.

Click here to read more at CyclingTips.

Women’s NRS expanded in 2015 with two new races

The Australian Women’s National Road Series (NRS) will be expanded in 2015 with two new races being added to the calendar.

Image: Kevin Anderson

The first of those will be a four-day race to coincide with the Tour Down Under, an upgraded version of the three-stage Santos Women’s Cup which has run since 2011.

The Santos Women’s Tour will begin with a road race through the Adelaide Hills to Murray Bridge, followed by a criterium around Rymill Park in the city. Stage three will travel from Tanunda to Campbelltown, with another criterium around Victoria Park to take place on the final day.

The second new addition to the women’s NRS calendar will be a one-day race as part of the Cadel Evans Great Ocean Road Race weekend, held the day before the elite men’s race.

“The introduction of two new women’s events is a positive and critical step forward for the sport, in particular women’s cycling, within Australia,” said Cycling Australia CEO Nick Green.

Text adapted from a Cycling Australia press release.

Canadian William Goodfellow receives two-year ban for anti-doping violation

The Canadian Centre for Ethics in Sport (CCES) announced yesterday that cyclist William Goodfellow had received a two-year sanction for an anti-doping rule violation. The athlete’s urine sample, collected during in-competition doping control on August 24, 2014, revealed the presence of clenbuterol and darbepoetin.

A CCES press release said:

“
In response to the CCES’ notification of the adverse analytical finding, Mr. Goodfellow waived his right to a hearing and accepted a sanction of two years ineligibility from sport, terminating August 24, 2016. The athlete, who resides in Montreal, Quebec, is ineligible to participate in any capacity with any sport signatory to the Canadian Anti-Doping Program (CADP), including training with teammates.

Goodfellow, 26, has been racing with the Silber Pro Cycling team in 2014 with which he competed in the Winston-Salem Cycling Classic, Philly Cycling Classic, Canadian National Championships and the Tour of Alberta.

Click here to read more at the CCES website.

Rui Costa’s brother Mario inks deal to race alongside him with Lampre-Merida

by Shane Stokes

Former world road race champion Rui Costa will have company from close to home next season, with his Lampre-Merida team confirming that it has given his older brother a contract.

Mario Costa has inked a deal with the Italian squad and is looking forward to the experience.

“It’s such a pride and satisfaction for me to wear the colours of Lampre-Merida in 2015,” he said. “I will do my best to honour this opportunity, I’ll work hard daily to meet the targets that the team will propose to me.

“It will be exciting to fight in support of my brother Rui in his attempts of achieving top results,” he added, thanking the team and its general manager Brent Copeland.

Both Costa brothers tested positive for the substance methylhexaneamine at the 2010 Portuguese national championships. They were suspended but were allowed to return to racing after several months when WADA ruled that methylhexaneamine was now classified as a ‘specified substance’, and liable to lesser sanction if proven it was ingested accidentally.

Mario Costa took silver in the 2011 national road race championships. He was tenth in the road race and ninth in the time trial this year. He competed with the Continental Team OFM – Quinta da Lixa for the past two seasons.

Click here to read more at CyclingTips.

Peter Sagan helps launch first Israeli pro cycling team

Tinkoff-Saxo recruit Peter Sagan spent some time this week helping to launch the first Isreali Pro Continental team which will debut at the Tour de San Luis.

The team, which has been set up by Israel’s Cycling Academy, seeks to aid the development of young Israeli cyclists, while also featuring riders from countries such as Poland and Slovakia.

The team is expected to take part in 90 days of racing in 2015 and one day hopes to feature in the Tour de France.

Click here to read more at Cycling Weekly.

Martin Kohler signs for Drapac Professional Cycling

Martin Kohler of Switzerland will join Drapac Professional Cycling in 2015 having spent the past seven seasons with BMC Racing Team.

The former Swiss Time Trial (2011) and Road Race (2012) champion is the sixth new signing for Drapac Professional Cycling bringing the roster to 17 riders.

“Since I started racing I dreamt about winning races. I’ve done that in juniors and U23 but it became rare the past 7 years since I turned pro. I had to sacrifice myself to world stars and now I’m sure I have found a team where I can live my dream. A team who believes in me and trust me and a team where I can win.”

“I bring 7 years of professional experience, which 5 years of it were in the World Tour. I have done all the big races and I know a lot about racing and guiding or leading a team. I want to share my experience with the young hopeful guys and together we will bring success to the team and to the partners. I am looking for success as a team and not as an individual and although we might be a smaller team if everybody pulls on the same rope we will be strong and successful”, says Kohler.

Text via Drapac press release

Tom Southam replaces Henk Vogels as Drapac DS for 2015

Drapac Sports Director Henk Vogels has stepped away from the team to focus on his young family in 2015 with British former professional Tom Southam to take up the reins.

“I have been privileged to be a part of the growth of the Drapac Professional Cycling team in 2014″, Vogels said. “In 2015 I have decided to take a break from the rigours of travelling as a sports director and to focus instead on the growth of my own young family. I still possess the passion to be involved with professional cycling at the highest level, and I look forward to coming back to this level of the sport in 2016.”

Since his retirement from racing in 2011, Southam has worked as press-officer and assistant manager at the British Rapha Condor JLT team, where he has twice guided young riders to overall victory in the Tour of Korea, amongst other successes.

“Often the best things that come along just feel like a very natural fit. As soon as the opportunity came up with Drapac, it made complete sense to me”, Southam said. “Not only in terms of where I am in my own career, but also the fact that my own ambitions are mirrored in the goals of this team, and it’s an organisation that I’ve known for a number of years.”

Text adapted from Drapac press releases.

Canadian pro Woods blasts Astana rider Davidenok over Qinghai Lake dominance and doping

by Shane Stokes

The reactions of cycling fans and the media to the spate of Astana-team positives have been clear to those following the news on twitter and in reports, but another group which has been more affected has been relatively silent thus far.

However Canadian pro rider Michael Woods has made his feelings clear on his Rustywoods blog, saying that the third of the five positive tests affecting the Astana WorldTour and Pro Continental teams this year grates significantly.

“Rural China is beautiful and metropolitan China blew my mind,” he said, writing about his Tour of Qinghai Lake experience. “However, until its races no longer hand out prize money in crisp clean $100 bills on the final day of competition, it is going to take a lot of money to get me back to this dystopia.

“Yes, my lungs were ravaged and I contracted some type of bacterial infection there, but what pissed me off most about Qinghai Lake, was the fact that team Astana made almost $100,000 in prize money when that money was not fairly earned.”

5-Hour Energy competitor Woods’ was referring to the 22 year old Ilya Davidenok, the Astana Continental team rider who took the overall classification plus a stage win in the race and who, in his words, was a Kazakhstan version of Ivan Drago.

“[He] made the rest of the field his bitch,” he said, pointing out that he took the yellow jersey plus the best young rider award, was second in the green jersey classification, dropped climbers on climbs and won a bunch sprint.

“There were other questionable riders at this race, but Davidenok took the level of questionability to entirely new level. Sure enough, a few weeks ago he tested positive.”

Click here to read Woods’ blog post.

MTN-Qhubeka reveals kit for 2015

MTN-Qhubeka has revealed its new Castelli-made kit for 2015. What do you make of it? It reminds us of an earlier version of the CyclingTips kit!

RiderState game app allows cyclists to conquer their local roads

RiderState is a smartphone game in which the world is divided into 10,000m2 squares which riders can conquer by riding through them.

“Mobility and pollution are a serious issue in many cities around the world,” said the app’s makers. “The Riderstate app is an initiative that aims to help solve or mitigate these problems by using gamification techniques as a way to promote the use of bikes in our society.”

Check out the promo video below:

Click here to read more at the app’s website. Click here to read more at Cycling Weekly.

Tour d’ÖÖ Halloween XXII

Tour d’ÖÖ Tallinn is a night-time bicycle ride that was born in the summer of 2011, as a spin-off group ride to finish off the first Tallinn Bicycle Week in Estonia. It has since grown into a independent bike parade through the city attracting thousands of different cyclists.

Here’s a short video from the recent Tour d’ÖÖ Halloween. Looks like fun!

Photos from the ride can be found here.

Dog-towed cyclist vs deer

This isn’t the sort of thing that happens everyday, certainly not in Australia

Revolution Longest Lap: men vs women

A few weeks back we featured a video about the Marymoor Crawl, a race consisting of a four-minute track stand and then a one-lap sprint for the finish. Here’s a similar race at the Revolution track meet in Manchester the other week. Interesting viewing.

Coffee with a Champion: Kate Bates

You might remember the Coffee with a Champion video with Will Walker from a few weeks back. Here’s Matt Keenan chatting to Kate Bates, 2006 National Champion, about that particularly victory and the death of Amy Gillett the previous year. The video was recorded a few weeks ago but in the light of cricketer Phillip Hughes’ tragic passing, the timing of the video’s release is sad but fitting.

The Rocacorba Recap

And finally this morning, here are a few things you might have missed at CyclingTips:

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Today’s feature image was shot in Iceland by Jered Gruber.