Vinokourov: “We want our credibility back as a matter of urgency”

Reputation damaged by a total of five positive tests from the Astana WorldTour and Continental teams in the latter half of 2014, Alexandre Vinokourov has said that regaining people’s trust is a major priority for the setup.

“We want to get our credibility back as a matter of urgency,” the WorldTour team’s general manager said at the team presentation held prior to the Dubai Tour, according to Sporza.

The team’s woes began last autumn when it emerged that the brothers Maxim and Valentin Iglinskiy both tested positive for EPO in August. The situation was exacerbated for the team when one if its stagiaries, Kazakhstan’s national champion Ilya Davidenok, was found to have traces of anabolic androgenic steroids in his system.

He had started the year as a member of the Astana Continental team and two more riders from that squad, Artur Fedosseyev and Victor Okishev, also tested positive for the same substance.

The five positive cases connected to the two Astana teams led to the UCI asking its Licence Commission to undertake a review of the WorldTour team’s licence.

That commission finally confirmed a probational licence for Astana in December, but said that the licence was subject to several conditions.

Once of those was that the team would be independently audited by the Institute of Sport Sciences of the University of Lausanne (ISSUL) to determine “to what extent the team and or/its management is responsible of the recent events.”

It said that the audit would also seek to “assess the team’s internal structures, culture and management systems to understand whether these are adequate to ensure that the highest ethical standards are upheld.”

The UCI told CyclingTips last week that the report will be issued in early Feburary, as had been anticipated.

Vinokourov confirmed that the report was indeed nearly finished. “I went into the last detail in explaining the functioning of the team,” he said. “Each doctor has five to six riders [to deal with], each team leader also. Every three or four days there is contact with the riders and there is also an internal control system.

“I don’t see what more we can do.”

Following the various positive cases Vinokourov – who himself incurred a ban for blood doping during his own career – said that the riders were all acting independently of the team and that there was no systematic problem in either squad.

He is continuing to stand by that assertion.

“I can hardly put each rider under guard,” he said. “We still want to win Grand Tours, but we will prove that we are credible.”

However he faulted the young riders of the country, saying that they didn’t have the right mentality.

“With all the policy makers of our country, I am convinced that the culture of the Kazakh youth must change urgently,” he said. “They think they cannot win without false means.

“We carry the biological passport in approximately 5,000 affiliated young people. And those who put the young people on the wrong track need to be addressed.”

Vinokourov’s claims about having such a large biological passport need to be verified, however, due to what is the enormous cost of the programme for several hundred WorldTour riders. That anti-doping programme costs millions of euros and so it seems unlikely that the Kazah system has the same in place for so many more competitors.

rwrouse

Vino had no credibility.
- jules
  
  he reminds me of those interviews the media love to do with Mick Gatto trying to convince us he’s cleaned up his act, you just shake your head
  - Dopers aplenty
    
    If “we” got rid of Veino, who else would need to go?
    Other ‘former’ dopers (busted) running WT teams include Bjarne Riis at Specialized Tinkoff, Matt White at OGE, Jonathon Vaughters at Garmin Cannodale. Then you can also look at those who have never been busted but have very dark clouds like Ochawitz (who ran Lance Armstrong’s teams Motorola and US Postal), Ekimov GM of Katusha, etc etc.
    
    Where do we stop?
    Remember, only 3 Tour de France winners in the past 15 years have not tested positive.
    - jules
      
      most of those guys have the mitigating factor in their favour that it was either dope or work in a bike shop. which isn’t to say we shouldn’t be concerned. but Vino is fighting race-fixing charges from 2012. there’s no objective measure of crookedness, but if there was, Vino would be at the wrong end of it.
      - Dopers aplenty
        
        Not quite sure I agree with your rationale, so it’d be ok to steal my wallet if you’re a bit hard up? My point is, picking off one bad guy (and it doesn’t even look like they’re doing this because he’s still running a team and making a lot of cash doing it) to make an example of is not enough.
        If the UCI and/or “the sport” were serious, there would be a requirement on these team managers and bosses. Start with some accountability, sign a contract stating they’re unable to run / manage a team if x number of positive tests occur in y years. Put some accountability on them to run their teams properly.
        That’s not saying there isn’t a chance for a dirty doper to come good. That’s simply saying they can’t perpetuate it amongst younger riders.
        It’s a cultural thing. Runs through a team culture, and can run through a country’s culture too.
        
        jules
        
        i couldn’t agree more with that. make the team managers responsible. that’s kind of the point of being a team manager.
    - tomness
      
      Surely that should be 5. Sastre, Evans, Wiggins, Froome & Nibali
      - Dopers aplenty
        
        While we’re at it, if you want to talk about race fixing ask Phil Anderson about his admissions a while ago on Lance’s Motorola stich up. Why is it just the nasty cartoon villains, not the Jens or Phil?
    - Sean Doyle
      
      Where do we stop? When we get to the first that hasn’t been pinged either with the needle in the arm or for supplying/aiding. Then we get on with whats left as I’d agree, you have to draw the line somewhere. I think most people would be happy with that. Then, from that day forward any one caught, immediate life time. If your test comes back positive, immediate suspension till proven otherwise. No riding while case is pending.
Darren Yearsley

5000 in biopassport. Lol. Can’t understand why they have no credibility.
Samuel G

1) vinokourov to give press conference admitting to the full extent of his doping as a rider and apologising for bringing the sport into disrepute 2) vinokourov to step back from frontline PR work 3) Vinokourov to speak to CIRC 4) Martinelli, Scarponi and LL Sanchez to admit to doping past and possibly retire 5) relaunch team….they won’t have much credibility left at this point but at least they will be able to start afresh. Of course none of this will happen.
Atganirider

My EPO-enlarged heart bleeds for Vino
CB

It’s hard for young riders to listen an ex rider and DS who did everything he is asking them not to do for a good 15 years. Concurrently, it seems if you retain that world tour licence, it doesn’t matter what your reputation is, only lower tier teams seem open to arbitrarily being denied race invites due to positive dope tests, recent or otherwise.
jules

Vino has shown a lot of leadership at Astana. unfortunately the result of following his leadership was this..
pedr09

The problem for Astana and Vino is that “credibility” and “urgency” are mutually exclusive. Credibility is built up slowly over time and once lost, is never fully regained. I don’t know why he thinks it can be otherwise.
Stirrer

Unintentionally the funniest thing I’ve read for ages.
Well since I looked at Oleg Tinkov’s Twitter feed anyway.
Next we need a statement from Matt White and Neil Stephens. Oh wait…they’re Aussies so that’s ok.
Tony Abbott

With role models like Vino…
natev

Not gonna happen. Not for me at least….

Vinokourov: “We want our credibility back as a matter of urgency”

By Shane Stokes - February 3, 2015