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Astana's Maxim Iglinskiy reportedly set to confess to doping next weekAstana logo

Astana's Maxim Iglinskiy reportedly set to confess to doping next week

Team will race in Italy and Kazakhstan tomorrow, says La Gazzetta dello Sport, but will withdraw from Tour of Beijing
by Simon_MacMichael
Sat, Oct 04, 2014 21:10
5

Astana rider Maxim Iglinskiy, revealed this week as having positive for EPO on 1 August, will confess early next week to having used the drug without his team’s knowledge, says Italian sports daily, La Gazzetta dello Sport. The team is expected to withdraw from the season’s final WorldTour race, the Tour of Beijing – but will ride Il Lombardia tomorrow, as well as the Tour of Almaty in its home country, Kazakhstan.

As a member of the Movement for Credible Cycling (MPCC) in common with ten other top-tier teams, Astana is obliged to voluntarily suspend itself from racing if, in the space of 12 months, two riders test positive for a banned substance.

The suspension, which lasts eight days, is required to take effect from the next WorldTour race following the date the team became aware of the positive test; for the purposes of the MPCC’s rules, the result must be confirmed by the analysis of the B sample or a confession from the rider.

News that Iginskiy had tested positive broke on Wednesday, just three weeks after his team mate and brother, Valentin, had admitted using EPO in a test taken at the Eneco Tour in August. He was sacked by the team.

As we reported on Thursday, discussions were taking place behind the scenes regarding Astana’s participation in tomorrow’s Il Lombardia, the final Monument of the season. It now looks as though the Kazakh outfit will participate, with its hopes resting on Fabio Aru.

Clearly were Iglinskiy, winner of Liege-Bastogne-Liege, to have confessed to doping prior to Il Lombardia, the team, whose general manager is Alexandre Vinokourov, would have had to voluntarily pull out of that race.

More embarrassingly, it would also have had to withdraw from tomorrow’s Tour of Almaty, the biggest race in its home country, won by Iglinskiy last season and where Vincenzo Nibali, whom he helped win this year’s Tour de France, is to end his season.

Should the Gazzetta dello Sport’s prediction be correct and a confession does come from the rider early next week, the team’s blushes will have been spared in that regard, but it would be open to accusations of having ignored the spirit of the MPCC’s rules to suit its own purposes.

Maxim Iglinskiy
Valentin Iglinskiy
Astana
Il Lombardia 2014
MPCC
Simon MacMichael

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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5 comments

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Him Up North | 10 years ago
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An Astana rider (Lutsenko) won the Tour of Almaty earlier. Aru for the Lombardia...? 39

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patto583 | 10 years ago
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Their credibility suffers, as the fact that teams who are members are able to bend the rules to their liking. This may be resolved in future by a tightening of those rules, but the current case has made the MPCC less credible than it was.

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Gkam84 | 10 years ago
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The MPCC cannot even enforce it's own rules because it is a voluntary code you sign up to.

So teams will bend that to suit themselves.

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patto583 | 10 years ago
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So the MPCC gets less credible by the minute.

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portec replied to patto583 | 10 years ago
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patto583 wrote:

So the MPCC gets less credible by the minute.

You're being a little premature there:

for the purposes of the MPCC’s rules, the result must be confirmed by the analysis of the B sample or a confession from the rider

Unless there's something I'm not aware of neither of those things have happened yet. We have a rumour that the latter might happen but that's all. Of course, for obvious reasons Iglinskiy will not confess until after Lombardy, and perhaps that's a hint to the MPCC that they should revise their rules but it does not discredit them.

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