Interesting interview with Bruyneel
Don't know if this has been posted before, but it's really interesting.
http://www.pezcyclingnews.com/?pg=fullstory&id=5988
Some interesting parts:
BTW, I personally am convinced that ASO's decision not to reinvite Astana was NOT due to the positive drug results in the last two TDF's but the Kazakhs' decision to give Vinokourov such a short suspension (and their attempt to help get him off entirely, and their comments originally that ASO/UCI/WADA were mistaken).
http://www.pezcyclingnews.com/?pg=fullstory&id=5988
Some interesting parts:
(ASO not inviting Astana) ...was definitely a huge motivator. For Alberto and me there’s different ways to try and make an argument for things...We have shown from the very start with this team and we deserve to be in every single big race. We started with winning the Tour de California which was in my opinion the first big race of the season, internationally. Then at Paris-Nice and the Tirreno-Adriatic we were not allowed to participate so we went to the next one which was the Tour of Castilla y Leon, and we won that. Then we won Tour of the Basque Country and we won Tour of Romandie, and now finally the Tour of Italy.
So, even if we don’t win a single race for the rest of the year it’s a great success already, but I’m convinced that we’re going to do more. Each time we win, I have to say that the mood in the team is definitely “what will they say now in Paris?”
BTW, I personally am convinced that ASO's decision not to reinvite Astana was NOT due to the positive drug results in the last two TDF's but the Kazakhs' decision to give Vinokourov such a short suspension (and their attempt to help get him off entirely, and their comments originally that ASO/UCI/WADA were mistaken).
Once I spoke with the responsible people behind the team in Kazakhstan, and I wanted to understand why they wanted to keep going with the team after all the problems...(Their) answer was that cycling is becoming very popular in Kazakhstan and they want to make it bigger. We see the sport in their country as a pyramid. There are a bunch of young kids that are riding bikes and then they have sixteen cycling schools all over the country. Then they have a few U23 teams, a few Continental Teams and then a Pro Tour Team. So once I saw that they absolutely wanted to keep going with this project no matter what happened and no matter who wasn’t there anymore, and I felt that commitment, I said this was a great challenge for me to rebuild this team.
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