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London 2012 anti-doping lab (picture credit LOCOG)Oh brother… Astana’s Maxim Iglinskiy joins sibling Valentin in testing positive for EPO
Astana rider Maxim Iglinskiy, who in July helped Vincenzo Nibali win the Tour de France, is provisionally suspended after testing positive for EPO, a UCI document reveals. The news comes just three weeks after the Kazakh team sacked his younger brother, Valentin, after he too was provisionally suspended following a positive test for EPO and admitted having used the banned substance.
Blogger the Inner Ring this evening tweeted a link to the UCI’s list of riders who are provisionally suspended. The UCI’s current policy is not to issue individual press releases when a rider receives such a suspension.
However, the document does reveal that the test that has resulted in the elder Iglinskiy’s provisional suspension took place on 1 August – less than a week after the Tour de France ended, and the day before he took part in the Clasica Ciclistic di San Sebastian.
Meanwhile the positive test which led to his younger sibling admitting doping happened a week and a half later on 11 August.
Of the Iglinskiy brothers, Maxim has the much higher profile. In 2012, the Kazakh beat Nibali, then riding for Liquigas-Cannondale, to win Liege-Bastogne-Liege.
Astana is a member of the Movement for Credible Cycling (MPCC), under whose rules teams signed up to it should suspend themselves from racing where two riders have tested positive in the preceding 12 months, starting eight days from when they became aware of the second positive test.
As the Inner Ring points out, if Astana comply with that rule, they will have to withdraw from the most prestigious race in their home country, the one-day Tour of Almaty, which is held on Friday. The inaugural edition last year was won by none other than Maxim Iglinskiy.
Under another rule the team, whose general manager is Alexandre Vinokourov, must explain itself at the next MPCC meeting for the positive tests.
Simon joined road.cc as news editor in 2009 and is now the site’s community editor, acting as a link between the team producing the content and our readers. A law and languages graduate, published translator and former retail analyst, he has reported on issues as diverse as cycling-related court cases, anti-doping investigations, the latest developments in the bike industry and the sport’s biggest races. Now back in London full-time after 15 years living in Oxford and Cambridge, he loves cycling along the Thames but misses having his former riding buddy, Elodie the miniature schnauzer, in the basket in front of him.
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28 comments
Surely the big story here is that after 5 years Road.CC have finally ditched the classic drug story blue syringe image for something new...
ban the riders and the team..... guess then the teams will take it doping controls to another level!
Wawaweewa!
After all the fanfare about the TdF not having a single positive test for doping this year.
What a coincidence!
Astana and Vino are stain on the sport. This may not be a team led doping ring but its amazing how Astana comes up again and again. Yes, I do think this has a bearing on Nibali, even if he did not (and I believe he does not) dope. If I were him I would have a clause in my contract that gets me the hell out of there if there are repeated doping offences within the team. Also you have to be amazingly stupid to get caught with EPO these days.
Vino is probably seething at them for being caught, rather than doping.
Nibali, get the hell out, you have grounds on the fact their kit is disgusting alone!
Cookson, pull their Pro tour license.
In Kazakhstan, the team (and Vino) are still regarded as heroes, in part because of state controlled media that blocks out minor indiscretions like doping and bribery...
Vino is a sort a Kazakh cycling version of David Beckham, they love him. In fact believe it or not, he holds a high-ranking honorary position in the Kazakh army!
In Kazakhstan, the team (and Vino) are still regarded as heroes, in part because of state controlled media that blocks out minor indiscretions like doping and bribery...
Vino is a sort a Kazakh cycling version of David Beckham, they love him. In fact believe it or not, he holds a high-ranking honorary position in the Kazakh army![/quote]
It is this that is the biggest obstacle to cycling cleaning up its sport. If you can dope and still remain a hero in your own country the biggest risk to cheating is lost. Before we pick on Kazakhstan in isolation there are many traditional cycling countries where this seems possible too. Contador and Valverde seem to be heroes despite serving bans. There are some Italians too.
Could you remain a hero with drug ban in the UK. No I don't think you could be a TdF star caught doping and still be a respected (David Millar who is respected took a very different route from his errors than Contador, Valverde or Vino). The Germans think the same way and it is obvious when there stars of the past were caught it decimated the support for the sport.
The removal of all the gains from doping - financial, prestige and reputation, needs to be the 'real' punishment. This is dependant on the attitude of the countries that provide the prestige and reputation.
Its a difficult one - it you can *prove* that the team knew about and sanctioned the doping, then yes - but if its a 'rider acting on their own' then no.
EDIT - I do think teams should have a duty of care to try an make sure their riders are clean - and they should be held more accountable when they are found not to be. For example, if a domestique if found juced up in one event, then you could restrict the number of domestiques the team has in future races.
It would be good if that UCI doc also had the suspension start date....Erick Castano has been provisionally banned for a sample from almost 5 years ago....he appears to have stopped riding in 2012
Should the UCI go further if a domestique is caught doping in support of a winning team leader?
In know the positive test was post TdF but if it were proved he doped during it and in doing so the winner accrued some benefit, then I genuinely believe the sanction should be against the whole team including the leader. That would focus the minds of potential dopers. I don't suggest Nibali was juiced at all but he made the wrong choice jumping into bed with Vino and his tinpot team.
I was thinking about this after that handbags incident in the Vuelta where Rovny rider went back, pulled hard for Bertie and finally gave up to the inevitable around 25 minutes after Brambilla...OK it is different but...oh I don't know.
I agree with you though
This is not proof that Nibali doped of course.
But on the other hand lets not forget that this is a team who allowed a practitioner of acupuncture to treat its riders and be unsupervised by other legitimately qualified medical staff and in doing so introduce needles into the body of those riders and in doing so go against the UCI rules regarding the use of needles and injections... not that I am saying there is anything dodgy about some person turning up in the middle of the evening or night with nobody else around and then sticking needles into into arms and legs, or that I can ever recall anything even slightly similar happening in cyclings history and feeble sounding excuses being made as to why it was happening then.
As if I would ever imply such a thing
"Oh no, not Vino...."
Any self respecting corporate sponsor would have thrown in the towel with this team years ago. But only a beetroot republic with a questionable human rights record like Kazakhstan would persist with the PR disaster on two wheels that is Astana.
Time for the UCI to chuck em out, they're part of the problem not the solution.
I love the irony of Vinokourov having to explain the actions of his team on doping.
Yes. Who'd like to be a fly on the wall for that one!
"Well these guys made a bad decision, clearly, I really don't understand it. I would never have done such a thing. Oh, hang on, that's not right..."
Giorgio Squinzi you know what you need to do, save Vincenzo and Fabio from these buffoons #Mapei
That's 6 riders popped for EPO in a 10 week window! You can win clean though!!
Yes, you can indeed.
I suppose so, if you're British
Plenty of winners from different countries this year - seem few prosecutions on them as yet.
so you think they're clean because they've not been popped? Hilarious
I looked at the MPCC rules because the article doesn't make sense on this.
The 'auto-suspension' doesn't start from 8 days after they know about the second positive, it starts from the first day of the next World Tour event (excluding Grand Tours), and it lasts for 8 days.
If they get 3 positives in 24 months, there's a 4 week suspension.
I think the bigger news on that list is the positive EPO test of 18-year-old Kristjan Kumar.
I'm absolutely sure he doped with San Sebastian in mind. Why would he cheat if he wasn't a Tour favourite?
Luckily, however, he rides for Astana - we can rest assured they knew nothing and it was an isolated incident
Multiple drugs cheats? At Astana? What a surprise!