Tour de France: Astana banned

Brian B

skavanagh.bikeradar wrote:

This forum is by its nature a bit one eyed. A bit like an internet forum for an extreme cult probably looks and sounds. The bottom line for me is that Astana made serious mistakes last year, didn't react quickly enough or with enough sincerity and attempted to make a mockery of the Tour. ASO are in a position now to be able to extract revenge for that.

It is not beyond the bounds of possibility that ASO (being insiders in the sport) know the personalities involved and are prepared to extend liberties to some that they are not to others based on what they know of people. Perhaps they see better relationships and lower ongoing risk to their business in High Road and Stapleton than they do in Bruyneel, and a bunch of annonymous Kazakh's.

I'm taking the long view on this and will judge ASO on the standing in which the Tour finds itself in 5 - 10 years time. One thing is certain if the riders and the DS's don't start cleaning up their act and taking their responsibilities to the organisers, the sponsors, the media and the fans seriously again sometime soon there won't be much of a sport left to cheat at. It can clean itself up from the inside protecting jobs and keeping sponsors and media contracts into the bargain.

Kloden, Contador and Leipheimer all chose to stay or move to Astana knowing the risks - they've paid for that and it's too late to moan about it.

Dont know quite where you are going with this and you seem to be jumping all the place but my long view on all this is that who will sponsor any big team in the future knowing that they might not get to ride the ASO race calender and perhaps the other big races and this will put off more sponsors than doping ever will.

In reality you must have to face that this sport and others will never clean up properly. Someone will always try to cheat - sure it might clean up substantially but there is always going to be a taint.

andy_wrx

Look at the politics and way of doing business in Kazakhstan - it's an ex-sovbloc state where big business equates to the mafia.
Astana are the sort of sponsor who will want results...whatever the costs, whatever the morality.

They are not a sponsor like T-Mobile who walked away, Discovery Channel who walked away, Oracle who decided they wouldn't sponsor Tailwind : western companies operating in a totally different marketplace, different political arena, with public brand image, shareholders,etc who decide they don't want to be associated with drugs.

So in Astana we have a team with dodgy current sponsors, a dodgy suspected-yet-to-be-proven current DS and team management, dodgy suspected current riders. plus a previous proven very dodgy history which is dished-up by the media every time the team is mentioned.

Are we surprised they're not invited ?

enjoy_the_ride

'...but my long view on all this is that who will sponsor any big team in the future knowing that they might not get to ride the ASO race calendar and perhaps the other big races...'

Some one like Slipstream/Chipotle, who did their PR home work, understand the mood of the moment, what to say, how to say it and importantly whom to say it to.

OK so they are not a big Pro Team... yet.

iainf72

enjoy_the_ride wrote:

'...but my long view on all this is that who will sponsor any big team in the future knowing that they might not get to ride the ASO race calendar and perhaps the other big races...'

Some one like Slipstream/Chipotle, who did their PR home work, understand the mood of the moment, what to say, how to say it and importantly whom to say it to.

OK so they are not a big Pro Team... yet.

They're also a team who is just the plaything of a very-rich-man [tm]

There aren't commerical pressures because someone is funding is as a noble gesture [tm] It's not like a commercial sponsor who expects some kind of return. Notice how they say they need to be careful about sponsors and what they can offer - That tells you what sponsor want (results in short)

skavanagh.bikeradar

Brian, what I'm saying is that we aren't ASO, we don't know the people they know and we don't know the conversation they've had with the Pro cycling world since last July, therefore we can't really be sure why they've done what they've done. I for one will wait and see how it all turns out.

Generally though, I welcome Astana's exclusion.

enjoy_the_ride

iainf72 wrote:

enjoy_the_ride wrote:

'...but my long view on all this is that who will sponsor any big team in the future knowing that they might not get to ride the ASO race calendar and perhaps the other big races...'

Some one like Slipstream/Chipotle, who did their PR home work, understand the mood of the moment, what to say, how to say it and importantly whom to say it to.

OK so they are not a big Pro Team... yet.

They're also a team who is just the plaything of a very-rich-man [tm]

There aren't commerical pressures because someone is funding is as a noble gesture [tm] It's not like a commercial sponsor who expects some kind of return. Notice how they say they need to be careful about sponsors and what they can offer - That tells you what sponsor want (results in short)

Granted, but the question was raised as to what type of sponsor might come forward. Doug Ellis is one type. He may not be in it for the money, but at the end of the day he won't want to be running a loss-making plaything. Usually, these guys don't get rich in the first place by playing fast and loose with their money. Slipstream/Chipotle have seen the current situation in top flight cycling and identified how they can move up the cycling food chain. For them the current doping melee has opened doors, which in previous years would have cost a fortune to enter.

From a sponsorship point of view Astana’s omission doesn’t particularly concern me (yes I know that’s hard on any Kazakh’s reading this but there you go).

It’s what the likes of Rabobank will do next that is of bigger concern. They are a long-term, grass root, commercial sponsor. In a way that might be a problem for them in that they are to close to take a step back and look afresh at the sport. T-Mobile tried to do it and got it so wrong.

Remember, the return for a commercial sponsor is publicity. Cycling itself doesn’t make anything. And the teams running costs quickly eat up prize money.

On that basis I do believe there is a lot the big sponsors can learn from the smaller guys like Doug Ellis, if only by the fact that organisers seem to be falling over themselves to offer Slipstream/Chipotle race entry.

Brian B

skavanagh.bikeradar wrote:

Brian, what I'm saying is that we aren't ASO, we don't know the people they know and we don't know the conversation they've had with the Pro cycling world since last July, therefore we can't really be sure why they've done what they've done. I for one will wait and see how it all turns out.

Generally though, I welcome Astana's exclusion.

Fair point but I am worried about the future if the money is not available to sponsor teams.

skavanagh.bikeradar

Me too, but the whole sorry lot of 'em have brought it on themselves.

iainf72

skavanagh.bikeradar wrote:

Me too, but the whole sorry lot of 'em have brought it on themselves.

I dunno - Did you read Conte's comments about this years Olympics? Something like "everyone will be on drugs"

It's not a war that can be won. The drugs work, the tests don't, therefore use drugs. Everyone seems to be on some kind of moral high horse but if they were in the situation, they're reach for the needle too.

And with that, see y'all later.

drenkrom

9 pages in two days! That's gotta be some kind of record. :shock:

Kléber

You will never stop doping. But why not take the simple steps to reduce the incentives, to increase the costs of doping?

For example, many make the valid point of testing riders' blood counts on the start line of a race. This would almost end blood doping overnight, this would go a long way to making riders more equal.

For sure, riders can always get up to no good. But simple ideas like this would help. The trouble with cycling is that blood doping and EPO abuse make massive performance differences. We can now test for EPO, even the once-invisible Dynepo is supposed to be detectable now.

Also, why not test ten times the number of riders too, for all the fuss in the Tour de France only 5 riders get tested a day! Test 50 and the likes of Moreni wouldn't dope. ASO should put its money where its mouth is and introduce blood/endocrinal monitoring for the top-20 on GC and everyone who places in the top-5 of a stage, appointing a panel of independent experts to monitor the riders' parameters during the race.

These are easy moves, someone just has to say yes...

skavanagh.bikeradar

What he said. I say yes to that.

victorponf

Copy from another web:

Del Nero and Taaramae's advantage ballooned to close to ten minutes at the Pollença Special Sprint (km. 36). The Spanish fugitive won both that one and the meta volante at Inca two dozens kilometres later. But the peloton, driven mainly by the Astanas, had started the chase for real. The Switzerland-based team set up the following move from Alberto Contador: the last man in yellow at the Champs, who might be forced to skip the 2008 edition of the TdF, rolled out of the field alongside fellow countryman David López (Caisse d'Epargne) and quickly brought the gap down to five minutes. The latter gave up soon, whereas the world-class athlete from Madrid continued his pursuit of the front duo. Whose advantage over Contador had further dropped to about four minutes as the race hit the top of the Sa Batalla climb for the second time (Taaramae crested first), and to just 02'24" about ten kilometres later, with over sixty miles to go.

Contador's show continued on the two other mountains in the menu: the second category Puig Major and the equally categorized Ca'n Costa. He closed down on Del Nero and Taaramae, and went away on his own later, despite falling on the Puig Major descent (the two other frontrunners hit the tarmac too, anyway ...). In the meantime the Andalucia-Cajasur pairing of Luis Carrasco and José Ruiz had successfully attacked the peloton, and caught Del Nero - as much as thet dropped the young Estonian escapee. The all-Spanish chasing trio couldn't match the power of Alberto Contador however. The man from Madrid was enjoying a good lead of over two minutes at the summit of the last climb (Carrasco came second, Ruiz third and Del Nero fourth) and his advantage increased to up to 2 mins 17 secs in the very next portion of the stage.

But when the three guys ended up being reeled in by the (first) field of about 30-35 guys things took a different turn. Half a dozen Caisse d'Epargne rouleurs took matters into their hands and rushed to the front, getting some precious help from Gilbert's Française des Jeux team mates; they were going to succeed in keeping Alberto from making his triumphal parade to the finish line complete. Contador's solo adventure was over about eight kilometres from the finish, but not before he made it clear that he's in good form again.

And not before he made one more thing clear. While he was about to get caught, he moved closer to the TV cameras, pointed fingers to his jersey, and said it more than once, loud and clear: "Astana, Astana ... EN EL TOUR!!!". "Astana ... EN EL TOUR!!!" It looks like the guy does want to be able to defend the Maillot Jaune he conquered the past season. In after-race talks, he admitted that today's move was a response to the decision made by the TdF bosses to exclude his team from this year's race. A choice the guy respects but also regards as bad for both the French contest and the Astana team. "There's more races than the Tour anyway, and I'll keep struggling in order to win some of them. If I can't try and win the Tour, I shall tell fans to follow (me at) the Vuelta and other events" Contador added.