Astana Licence to be withdrawn?

[hfer07]

this is bvllsh!t

 

[the sceptic]

Astana or any team deserves this after as many positive tests and connections to investigations as they have had. Other teams have the same connections but nobody else has the sheer numbers of positives. The question is, is that because they are the only ones doping or because the UCI is focusing on them.

If Astana was the only team running a team wide doping program, I'd expect them to dominate the sport a lot mre than they did.

And it was only the nobodies who tested positive. So this whole thing is a bit of a joke imo.

Astana going down is whatever, who cares. But I fear this is just the UCI playing favourites again. I'd rather have everyone dope on a level playing field than the UCI protecting their favourite teams.

 

[janraaskalt]

I would say it's not a wild speculation at all.. It's very likely that Kash would gain some role in the Astana Managment.. This is not about ending the Astana team, it's all about getting rid of Vino.

I don't think that hiring a convicted doper to replace a convicted doper is the way forward for Astana.

 

[markene2]

I am a 100 % sure that Astana will remain in the top ranks on one condition, fire Vino. All this is simply a powerplay to get Vino out of the sport, he does not fit their agenda of a clean generation.

Payback for not talking to CIRC, that's all it is. The UCI cant risk of smearing the latest Tour winner with suspision, does not fit their agenda. Just wait and see, Vino gone or Astana gone, that will happen, and Kashechkin to step up in a managment role together with Shefer and Martineli as i said before.

I don't think that hiring a convicted doper to replace a convicted doper is the way forward for Astana.

As mrhender said, he is all over Doha talking about how to fight doping and education of youth athletes, if you are looking for a singel rider that was CLEAN after his ban it's Kashechkin. He would gladly talk to CIRC to get a role. After all he has some sponsors already for a new Kazakh cycling team, but he needs 15m€ Euros.. And Astana needs a former high profile rider from their country to run the ship. Kashechkin fits both Astana and UCI's bill.

 

[Nick C.]

Reposting: Martial Saugy is a very senior member of the ISSUL, so for whatever reason the UCI wants Astana gone, ISSUL will deliver. Saugy must be how ISSUL, a pure sport science research organization got the job of doing something not at all related to their organization's mission.

Jimmy, please post some more about "the agenda" in this subforum.

I still want to know what Astana has done to deserve this treatment. And no, I don't mean the low-level positives.

Just so I understand, its the idea that essentially the UCI do/could have in their dossier any number of positives. Is the underlying question why did they decide to go opening up Astana's (and only Astana's) closets?

 

[JimmyFingers]

10 chars:

I'm not sure what your point is, since you are quoting someone else, but however you dress it up a lot of the reaction here to Kittel was disgraceful. The cry goes up constantly for riders to challenge Omerta and when someone does they are told they are calling out the wrong person, and even accused of racism. There was also this conjuring of a Northern European conspiracy against Southern Europeans, Eastern Europeans and the Turks. Do you realise how Brits/Dutch/Germans/Americans feel about each other? It ain't pretty, trying to pretend that they are somehow supporting each other while letting the Italians/Spanish/Turks/Kazahks take the fall is fantasy land.

 

[hfer07]

I am a 100 % sure that Astana will remain in the top ranks on one condition, fire Vino. All this is simply a powerplay to get Vino out of the sport, he does not fit their agenda of a clean generation.

Payback for not talking to CIRC, that's all it is. The UCI cant risk of smearing the latest Tour winner with suspision, does not fit their agenda. Just wait and see, Vino gone or Astana gone, that will happen, and Kashechkin to step up in a managment role together with Shefer and Martineli as i said before.

So be it, but then Riis is next

 

[DirtyWorks]

If Astana was the only team running a team wide doping program, I'd expect them to dominate the sport a lot mre than they did.

And it was only the nobodies who tested positive. So this whole thing is a bit of a joke imo.

Astana going down is whatever, who cares. But I fear this is just the UCI playing favourites again. I'd rather have everyone dope on a level playing field than the UCI protecting their favourite teams.

Unless the UCI's hand is somehow forced, it is ALWAYS the nobodies testing positive. Always.

Is it like the IAAF where you pay for your positives to go away and the Kazhaks stopped paying? No idea. Maybe it's a simple as Vino has played them a fool too many times.

They've been singled out for some reasons.

 

[TailWindHome]

Cookson won't do anything about Astana!
Cookson is targeting Astana!

 

[luckyboy]

UCI can't win in the clinic whatever it does

 

[DirtyWorks]

Just so I understand, its the idea that essentially the UCI do/could have in their dossier any number of positives. Is the underlying question why did they decide to go opening up Astana's (and only Astana's) closets?

Yes.

My belief is at least the UCI and the IAAF operate similarly. Lots of actual positives and lots of opportunities to not enforce those positives, for a price. The IAAF scandal with the Russians illustrates the many opportunities for corruption.

It's also important to note some may be operating under the false assumption a positive automatically leads to a sanction. It does not. If anyone bothered to read the WADA standard, you'd come to the same conclusion.

 

[skippythepinhead]

UCI can't win in the clinic whatever it does

UCI hasn't proven to be very good in their role, whatever it is

But once Vino is gone, cycling will be clean forever anyways

 

[Zinoviev Letter]

Of course you can be antidoping and a fan of a doper, Netserk (look at my avayar! ), but who here is an actual Astana fan? I can only think of two people, and they're both basically a caricature. No, I don't think anyone here has mixed feelings or feels bummed out simply because a team they support got done in. I sincerely believe what we're seeing, in many cases, is people who are selective in how they approach doping.

It's not so much selectivity as the logical end-point of the "everyone is doping" argument.

If you take that as a starting point (as many of the loudest posters here do), then the villains of the peloton aren't the dopers but those riders or team staff who make the most noise about not doping. They are guilty not only of doping and not only of doping and lying but of doping, lying and trying to undermine the cherished world view in question. Three strikes against.

Once you accept those premises than any action taken against dopers, particularly against dopers who heroically and admirably don't bother to try to pretend very hard that they are clean, is hypocritical and unfair. And not only, hypocritical and unfair but actively harmful to the spread of a correct understanding of doping in the sport. Such actions wrongly give fans the impression that some riders are doping, that this isn't universal and therefore, crime of crimes, some other riders aren't doping.

Of course this problem with the necessarily partial nature of doping sanctions would disappear should a Kittel, say, or some Garmin kid get popped. While in theory it would also be unfair that they be punished for something that everyone must do, that unfairness would be secondary to the educative impact. The point isn't that a doper being caught is a step forward. The point would be to demonstrate that there are neither clean riders nor clean teams.

"They are all dopers" eventually leads to a grudging partisanship for the most obvious dopers. So you get "critics" of doping whining that Vinokourov of all people is being treated unfairly if the authorities go after him.

 

[The Hitch]

I don't know where the idea that the clinic thinks "everyone is a doper" comes from.

It keeps getting used as a battering ram to bash the clinic with, and mostly by posters who know full well it isn't true but have no actual arguments to fight the clinic with.

Everyone in "the clinic" as it often gets labelled thinks that froome and Wiggins, contador and Nibali dope. In short all the guys who have been breaking speed records and dominating cycling for the last few years. They all.also think that Horner, Quintana, Valverde, Murito and Cancellara doped. Again people with strong links to doping who have been dominating the sport. After that most people don't even comment and it certainly isn't even remotely true that everyone here thinks everyone else in the sport is doping

 

[Zinoviev Letter]

I don't know where the idea that the clinic thinks "everyone is a doper" comes from.

I don't know where the idea that I suggested that "the clinic thinks everyone is a doper" comes from.

 

[The Hitch]

I'm not sure what your point is, since you are quoting someone else, but however you dress it up a lot of the reaction here to Kittel was disgraceful. The cry goes up constantly for riders to challenge Omerta and when someone does they are told they are calling out the wrong person, and even accused of racism. There was also this conjuring of a Northern European conspiracy against Southern Europeans, Eastern Europeans and the Turks. Do you realise how Brits/Dutch/Germans/Americans feel about each other? It ain't pretty, trying to pretend that they are somehow supporting each other while letting the Italians/Spanish/Turks/Kazahks take the fall is fantasy land.

I would think it should be pretty obvious why people who believe **** Pound, Michael Ashenden and Christophe Bassons (3 people who have more anti doping cred in their little fingers than jv could ever have) are telling the truth when they say cycling is still rotten at the top, were not particularly impressed with kittel only calling out nobodies for doping.

It's the equivalent of taking some 9 year old selling crack on a street corner and passing him off to the press as a major narcotrafficker. Such bull**** pr is designed to.impress sheeple and tabloid readers, but has no actual impact on the wider problem.

 

[ebandit]

steps

I don't know where the idea that I suggested that "the clinic thinks everyone is a doper" comes from.

i don't know where the idea 'dumping astana will completely clean up pro

cycling' comes from.........................however if reports show that astana

are as bad as suggested.........it will be a step in the correct direction

Mark L

 

[CanSprint]

It got rid of Ben Johnson.

Net dopers without that suspension: x
Net dopers with that suspension: x-1

x-1 < x

Hence it was better than the alternative. No it didn't fix track and field athletics, but you can't expect any single step to do that. And no, the authorities didn't really follow up or try to clean up the sport, but that doesn't mean the suspension itself wrong.

Its is when the rest of the field admitted to being on dope as well!

 

[Zinoviev Letter]

I would think it should be pretty obvious why people who believe **** Pound, Michael Ashenden and Christophe Bassons (3 people who have more anti doping cred in their little fingers than jv could ever have) are telling the truth when they say cycling is still rotten at the top, were not particularly impressed with kittel only calling out nobodies for doping.

It's the equivalent of taking some 9 year old selling crack on a street corner Armstand passing him off to the press as a major narcotrafficker. Such bull**** pr is designed to.impress sheeple and tabloid readers, but has no actual impact on the wider problem.

This would be the same Kittel who called out Contador, Armstrong, Vinokourov, Indurain, Samuel Sanchez etc? Or are we talking about some other Kittel?

 

[Benotti69]

So what is the alternative? not banning him? Just because it won't change anything we are not going to do anything.

Why convict a criminal if crime will never go away. What kind of thinking is that?

PD.: I saw that Hothra beat me to it.

The alternatives are proper anti doping testing and often, very often. Banning a team where everyone can go work elsewhere is BS.

I wish they'd go after those other ones too. But my point is, is the whole suspending Astana thing better or worse than the alternative? You wouldn't advocate looking the other way in the rare instances when you actually catch someone red-handed and you have the legal means to do something about it, would you?

Mexican drug cartels are very powerful, so we'd better let thieves do their thing?

All these criminal analogies, yes it is cheating and a white collar crime IMO.

Astana ranked 10th team in WT last year and they had a Ferrari driving them. If Cookson was serious he would investigate all the teams and make the teams pay for it.

So what shall Cookson do? Throw all teams out of cycling?

Or isnt it the better way now, by showing other teams "not only Astana was drinking in the last chance saloon, you all are, and we have the will to throw any of you out when having enough legal evidence".

Cookson is just a better manager of an International federation that needs to get its PR house in order. UCI are not anti doping.

Reposting: Martial Saugy is a very senior member of the ISSUL, so for whatever reason the UCI wants Astana gone, ISSUL will deliver. Saugy must be how ISSUL, a pure sport science research organization got the job of doing something not at all related to their organization's mission.

Jimmy, please post some more about "the agenda" in this subforum.

I still want to know what Astana has done to deserve this treatment. And no, I don't mean the low-level positives.

This. Saugy involved, might as well have had the Zorzoli do it.

UCI can't win in the clinic whatever it does

Yes it can. But it needs to be meaningful and effective. Cookson is neither. Wholesale change is needed for the sport to move forward and leave doping behind. Cookson not the man for the job.

 

[Benotti69]

This would be the same Kittel who called out Contador, Armstrong, Vinokourov, Indurain, Samuel Sanchez etc? Or are we talking about some other Kittel?

Links for Indurain and Sanchez.

Why not call out Wiggins and Froome, 2 cannon fodder riders that put in performances to leave Sayer in the halfpenny place?

 

[Zinoviev Letter]

Links for Indurain and Sanchez.

Why not call out Wiggins and Froome, 2 cannon fodder riders that put in performances to leave Sayer in the halfpenny place?

http://inrng.com/2012/10/pro-cyclists-usada-views/

Link for Indurain and Sanchez.

The first complaint is usually that a rider won't call out dopers. Kittel did that, so the complaint became that he won't call out big names. Kittel did that... and now the complaint has become that he hasn't called out every big name!

 

[skippythepinhead]

I don't know where the idea that I suggested that "the clinic thinks everyone is a doper" comes from.

Um, from your post. But you were only speaking of "the loudest" people in the Clinic to be more accurate. Yet you made your psychological assessment based on "the loudest posters in the clinic" who "think everyone is a doper."

I don't even know who you are talking about. People who think everyone is a doper are on Twitter writing posts to tell Lance Armstrong how much they love him and how much he means to them.

I tried to understand the point of your post, but it does look like you are painting everyone with the same broad brush.

 

[Hugh Januss]

http://inrng.com/2012/10/pro-cyclists-usada-views/

Link for Indurain and Sanchez.

The first complaint is usually that a rider won't call out dopers. Kittel did that, so the complaint became that he won't call out big names. Kittel did that... and now the complaint has become that he hasn't called out every big name!

But he didn't exactly call them out for being cheating dopers did he, not like what he had to say about Sayer.

 

[Zinoviev Letter]

Um, from your post. But you were only speaking of "the loudest" people in the Clinic to be more accurate. Yet you made your psychological assessment based on "the loudest posters in the clinic" who "think everyone is a doper.".

"Many of the loudest" does not equal "everyone" or "the clinic" as a whole. If you really think that there aren't many posters who believe that all pros, almost all, or all of the reasonably successful riders are doping, I'd suggest that you've been reading a different forum.