VinoKourov and Kolobnev charged with corruption

[joe_papp]

Re: Re:

No I meant legal according to criminal law if a rider sells a race to a fellow competitor for monetary gain then that is corruption and fraud. Particularly here in the Uk if anyone bet on that rider.

This isn't a fair way of looking at what happened, I don't think. They both knew, and we know, that Kolobnev never stood a chance 1v1 at the end. Meanwhile, Vino needed help to get to the finish, or the bunch might catch up. Kolobnev didn't have much motivation to work his ass off, so Vino motivated him.

Since the money was more about Vino paying Kolobnev to work for him, this is more like Richie Porte taking a compatriot's wheel than match fixing. The whole thing gets muddied because Vino and Kolobnev don't put it that way in their communications. I suspect that's because they are respecting each other as riders.

This is a great way to describe it. I, myself, have paid host-country riders in breakaways to ally themselves w/ me and ensure we made it to the finish so I could use my sprint to take the win. While hardly close to the level of L-B-L, they were still UCI races and not just in Europe.

Cycling has a long, great tradition of this improvisational zero-hours contracting, and it's a shame to see Vino and Kolobnev being persecuted for their sporting and entrepreneurial excellence.