Katusha - WTF !!!!

apriliarider

http://uk.eurosport.yahoo.com/news/cycl ... 23244.html

Doper in at the expense of Rodriguez :evil:

No no no !!!

thomthom

In expense?

Katusha is, together with BMC, OPQS and ASTANA, the team with most links to doping...

And has just been mentioned in the Ferreri case.

apriliarider

Point taken but still think its a pity that a convicted doper is in and Rodriguez is out

Will / can he move teams ???

Not to mention Team Evils' (Saxo) record / personnel

Bit harsh I think :?

Bakunin

apriliarider wrote:

Point taken but still think its a pity that a convicted doper is in and Rodriguez is out

Will / can he move teams ???

Not to mention Team Evils' (Saxo) record / personnel

Bit harsh I think :?

And which convicted doper would that be...the Garmin cheats, the Green Bullet, klodi...so many to pick.

Yellow Peril

Contador is a huge draw in cycling. WE actually need BOTH of them in to get the exciting racing we saw last year.

hstiles

Can you imagine the FA unilaterally deciding to relegate Chelsea from the premiership, accompanied by a press release that states 'they have been relegated, they don't know why, we haven't told them, but we'll let them know in a few days. They can still apply for the championship.'

dougzz

hstiles wrote:

Can you imagine the FA unilaterally deciding to relegate Chelsea from the premiership, accompanied by a press release that states 'they have been relegated, they don't know why, we haven't told them, but we'll let them know in a few days. They can still apply for the championship.'

It's like my favourite dream

No_Ta_Doctor

dougzz wrote:

hstiles wrote:

Can you imagine the FA unilaterally deciding to relegate Chelsea from the premiership, accompanied by a press release that states 'they have been relegated, they don't know why, we haven't told them, but we'll let them know in a few days. They can still apply for the championship.'

It's like my favourite dream

:-) +1

LeicesterLad

Bakunin wrote:

apriliarider wrote:

Point taken but still think its a pity that a convicted doper is in and Rodriguez is out

Will / can he move teams ???

Not to mention Team Evils' (Saxo) record / personnel

Bit harsh I think :?

And which convicted doper would that be...the Garmin cheats, the Green Bullet, klodi...so many to pick.

^this

Whats the big deal about 'just' Contador. Nobody moaning that licences were dished out to Radioshack, Ivan Basso, Michele Scarponi and lampre et al, Valverde and the rest of Movistar, David Millar and his Garmin buddies...the list goes on and on and on. I also wouldn't be stupid enough to put money on Rodriguez being squeaky clean either.

ddraver

Pretty meh about either team really.....

MrTapir

Have Tinkoff and Makarov got a bit of beef with each other? Does this mean Argos are in as well? I thought the last spot was out of Argos and Saxo...

Richmond Racer

MrTapir wrote:

Have Tinkoff and Makarov got a bit of beef with each other? Does this mean Argos are in as well? I thought the last spot was out of Argos and Saxo...

Makarov reportedly a threat to Fat Pat for the presidency...Tinkoff and Makarov with any history?...does Riis have photos of FP doing something unmentionable with an Alpine goat and a bar of toblerone?

The plot thickens...

And yes, Argos are in. Everyone assumed Kathusha were getting the licence so it would be a question of 4 teams going for 3 spots. Then the UCI pulled the rug and booked Katusha.

RichN95.

hstiles wrote:

Can you imagine the FA unilaterally deciding to relegate Chelsea from the premiership, accompanied by a press release that states 'they have been relegated, they don't know why, we haven't told them, but we'll let them know in a few days. They can still apply for the championship.'

A bit like what the Scots did to Rangers you mean?

moonshine

RichN95 wrote:

hstiles wrote:

Can you imagine the FA unilaterally deciding to relegate Chelsea from the premiership, accompanied by a press release that states 'they have been relegated, they don't know why, we haven't told them, but we'll let them know in a few days. They can still apply for the championship.'

A bit like what the Scots did to Rangers you mean?

not quite a good example. Rangers know exactly why they are where they are now. (but whether they like it is another matter completely)
Rangers didn't pay the tax man PAYE or NI, and went bancrupt as a result. Rules (sanctions) for this required Rangers to start as a new club and work from the botton up.

Financial maladministration was at the core of the matter.

lostboysaint

RichN95 wrote:

hstiles wrote:

Can you imagine the FA unilaterally deciding to relegate Chelsea from the premiership, accompanied by a press release that states 'they have been relegated, they don't know why, we haven't told them, but we'll let them know in a few days. They can still apply for the championship.'

A bit like what the Scots did to Rangers you mean?

As has been said, that's not a good example.

Now if Chelsea were relegated because of their complete and utter failure to control their fans or players but no-one told them..............

derbygrimpeur

Would love to see Chelsea relegated.

Back on topic, OP - are you sure Rodriguez is clean though? I'm not convinced. Dodgy team. Some rather "Not Normal" performances, hmmmm.

I'm not really bothered that much either way with Saxo. Not keen on Contador because I don't trust he's clean, but not much we can do that until one of his teammates blows the whistle in 10 years time...

thomthom

Bu.. But his nickname is 'Purito'..!

...

nathancom

UCI proves that it has no clue how to run a professional sport. Sure there are plenty of questions for Katusha to answer but how can a sport be run by such arbitrary decisions. This just encourages corruption. Hopefully a better professional structure will be brought in as a result of this...

Richmond Racer

Galimzyanov's postive this year, Kolobnev's positive last year, same rider's selling of L-B-L to Vino, the unholy trinity of the conveyor belt of Tchmil-Holczer-Ekimov as manager in the last 4 years, Ekimov as Rider 11 in the USADA report, several riders implicated in the Padua investigation....

God knows I hate Riis and Tinkoff and distrust Bertie...but at some point there really is just taking the mickey

morstar

nathancom wrote:

UCI proves that it has no clue how to run a professional sport. Sure there are plenty of questions for Katusha to answer but how can a sport be run by such arbitrary decisions. This just encourages corruption. Hopefully a better professional structure will be brought in as a result of this...

This^

Thousands of reasons to boot any team you decide you don't like on any given morning. Governing a sport is supposed to be slightly more structured though.

Richmond Racer

morstar wrote:

nathancom wrote:

UCI proves that it has no clue how to run a professional sport. Sure there are plenty of questions for Katusha to answer but how can a sport be run by such arbitrary decisions. This just encourages corruption. Hopefully a better professional structure will be brought in as a result of this...

This^

Thousands of reasons to boot any team you decide you don't like on any given morning. Governing a sport is supposed to be slightly more structured though.

How do you know its arbitrary? How do you know its not on the basis of ethics for example?

mroli

No-one knows (including Katusha) why they weren't included. They will (as we will) get the reasoned decision in the course of time, as the UCI have indicated (a couple of days to Katusha). Obviously, this is not ideal, but let's not jump to conclusions beforehand?

nathancom

Then the UCI website simply says "The request from the team Katusha for registration in first division has been rejected." So the registration to WT has been rejected on some basis as yet unpublished yet is sufficient for them to ride Pro Conti. If it is on ethical grounds then it seems you need to be less ethical for the lower division. That is a great message to send out.

The very fact that the UCI decides on a number of positions in the top division on a basis other than sporting results encourages "lobbying", and is reminiscent of domestic football administration in Argentina and Brasil where the league format has been changed several times over recent years to prevent powerful teams being relegated.

If the UCI believes Katusha has contravened rules then there should be a due process leading to sanctions set out within the code of the sport. If one of those sanctions is exclusion from the top tier then so be it. However, that kind of process has not been followed which leads to the only conclusion that the process followed has been arbitrary and driven by political rather than sporting considerations.

RichN95.

My guess is that Igor Makarov was told that he had to choose between cycling administration or team ownership and failed to sufficiently comply.

On one hand he owns Katusha, Rusvelo and the Itera team. On the other he is President of the Russian Federation, a member of the UCI management committee. He was also UEC Chairman, but stepped down last month, getting his puppet Tchmil elected (by becoming their main sponsor).

He's the very definition of conflict of interest, and he probably needed to be curtailed a little bit.

Jez mon

RichN95 wrote:

My guess is that Igor Makarov was told that he had to choose between cycling administration or team ownership and failed to sufficiently comply.

On one hand he owns Katusha, Rusvelo and the Itera team. On the other he is President of the Russian Federation, a member of the UCI management committee. He was also UEC Chairman, but stepped down last month, getting his puppet Tchmil elected (by becoming their main sponsor).

He's the very definition of conflict of interest, and he probably needed to be curtailed a little bit.

Taking out Katusha from the top division of cycling is a rather cack-handed way to achieve this though. If I was in the position of a potential sponsor looking to come into this sport the dismissal of the most successful team from the top tier might make me question the sanity of the governing body.

Fair enough, Katusha might not be a shining bastion of clean cycling. But a fair few teams aren't.

RichN95.

Jez mon wrote:

RichN95 wrote:

My guess is that Igor Makarov was told that he had to choose between cycling administration or team ownership and failed to sufficiently comply.

On one hand he owns Katusha, Rusvelo and the Itera team. On the other he is President of the Russian Federation, a member of the UCI management committee. He was also UEC Chairman, but stepped down last month, getting his puppet Tchmil elected (by becoming their main sponsor).

He's the very definition of conflict of interest, and he probably needed to be curtailed a little bit.

Taking out Katusha from the top division of cycling is a rather cack-handed way to achieve this though. If I was in the position of a potential sponsor looking to come into this sport the dismissal of the most successful team from the top tier might make me question the sanity of the governing body.

Fair enough, Katusha might not be a shining bastion of clean cycling. But a fair few teams aren't.

It may be cack handed to you, but it's an effective way of doing it. Makarov has his fingers in to many pies to be healthy and if threatening him with the loss of the licence is a way to force him to drop some, then so he it. Good move.

To use another football analogy, if the owner of Manchester United (and Preston and Oldham) was also Chairman of the FA, a vice President of FIFa and the main sponsor of UEFA, everyone would call foul and expect something to be done.

Richmond Racer

Rich is right. If this was James Murdoch (and if he also headed up BC), people would have been screaming blue murder from the day Team Sky was launched.

Jez mon

I'm not disagreeing about whether Makarov had his fingers in too many pies, just about whether this is the best way to go about things.

To go back to our football analogy, if this happened...well it wouldn't happen, surely, the chairman of the FA wouldn't be allowed to own Man U, and vice versa. If it did somehow happen, he would be made to give up one of his positions, Man U wouldn't get relegated.

Richmond Racer

Katusha's statement as handily pasted onto INRNG's site:

http://inrng.tumblr.com/post/37719601412/katusha

With this decision the UCI have caused irreperable moral and psychological damage to their riders apparently*

Man the guns - the Russians are about to march on Aigle


*Menchov has got stuck into a vat of 40% proof vodka and won't come out

RichN95.

Jez mon wrote:

I'm not disagreeing about whether Makarov had his fingers in too many pies, just about whether this is the best way to go about things.

To go back to our football analogy, if this happened...well it wouldn't happen, surely, the chairman of the FA wouldn't be allowed to own Man U, and vice versa. If it did somehow happen, he would be made to give up one of his positions, Man U wouldn't get relegated.

And when he refuses to give up one of his positions (he's not going to lose an election), then what do you do?

Jez mon

RichN95 wrote:

Jez mon wrote:

I'm not disagreeing about whether Makarov had his fingers in too many pies, just about whether this is the best way to go about things.

To go back to our football analogy, if this happened...well it wouldn't happen, surely, the chairman of the FA wouldn't be allowed to own Man U, and vice versa. If it did somehow happen, he would be made to give up one of his positions, Man U wouldn't get relegated.

And when he refuses to give up one of his positions (he's not going to lose an election), then what do you do?

To be honest, I'm not sure . But I don't think I'd wait to the end of the season to do it, and when I did whatever it was, I'd publish full reasons for my decision.