Public prosecutors in Italy are reported to have photographic proof that the banned doctor Michele Ferrari attended one of Astana’s training camps in November last year. The claim, hwich Ferrari has described as "media bullshit," comes at the start of a week in which the UCI is due to decide whether to grant Astana a WorldTour licence for next season.
La Gazzetta dello Sport says that investigators working on behalf of an criminal inquiry into doping that has been overseen from Padua since 2010 by public prosecutor Benedetto Roberti photographed Ferrari in November 2013 outside a hotel where the Kazakh team was holding a pre-season training camp.
It adds that photographs show the doctor speaking with a number of riders who were present at the camp in the Tuscan spa town of Montecatini Terme.
The 61-year-old doctor has been banned from working with professional cyclists in Italy since 2002 and in 2012 was handed a worldwide lifetime ban following the investigation into doping at the former US Postal Service team by the United States Anti-Doping Agency (USADA).
During November 2013, the same month that Ferrari is reported to have attended the Astana training camp, Armstrong, in written testimony given under oath, admitted for the first time that the doctor had supplied him with performance enhancing drugs.
In October 2012, Michele Scarponi, then with Lampre-Merida, admitted that he had trained under Ferrari’s supervision in late 2010. The following May, Scarponi came second in the Giro d’Italia to Alberto Contador, and was later given the overall title when the Spaniard was stripped of his title.
Scarponi received a three-month ban as a result of his association with Ferrari, and on his return to the sport in early 2013 signed with Astana.
In July this year, he was a key member of the team that supported Vincenzo Nibali’s Tour de France victory, as was Maxim Iglinskiy, sacked by the team in October after it emerged he had tested positive for EPO a week after the Tour de France finished.
Nibali himself said following his Tour de France victory that he considered doping an “abomination” and something that needed to be “eradicated” from the sport.
Gazzetta dello Sport journalist Luca Gialanella says that Roberti has sent a file on Ferrari’s presence at the training camp to CONI, the Italian Olympic Committee, which is responsible for pursuing alleged doping cases from a sporting aspect.
But the journalist says if there is one crumb of comfort in the file, it is that there is no mention “of a relationship between Nibali and Ferrari,” and that “there has never been any contact between the rider and the doctor.”
News of Maxim Iglinskiy’s failed doping control emerged shortly after the Kazakh rider’s brother Valentin had confessed to using EPO.
A subsequent positive test for steroids by Ilya Davidenok, a rider for the Astana Under-23 squad who was taken on in August as a stagiaire with the senior outfit, prompted the UCI to order its Licence Commission to review Astana’s management and anti-doping policies.
Two further positive tests for steroids by riders of the development squad led general manager Alexandre Vinokourov to suspend it from racing, and have given rise to heightened speculation that the UCI may not grant Astana a WorldTour licence for next year.
Vinokourov himself was banned after testing positive for an illegal blood transfusion during the 2007 Tour de France.
In USADA’s reasoned decision in the Armstrong case, published in October 2012, Levi Leipheimer admitted in a sworn statement that he had attended a 2005 training camp held by Ferrari on Tenerife where other riders present included Vinokourov, the current Olympic road champion.
USADA also said in its reasoned decision that “Health and Performance accounting records confirm Vinokourov was a paying client of Dr. Ferrari.”
Responding to the Gazzetta dello Sport's article on his 53x12 website, Ferrari said the newspaper's claims were "media bullshit" and that he had visited Montecatini Terme "if I remember correctly, in 1994 to taste the famous waffles," but not last November.
He said that "whoever has published it [the allegations] will respond about it in the appropriate courts: I hope that the Kazakh team will ask adequate compensation for the damages."
Ferrari went on to point out what he called "extraordinarily confusing statements," in the newspaper including "claims that I am living between Lugano and Ferrara."
Previously, the newspaper has reported that the Padua investgation has explored links between Ferrari and banks as well as a clinic in the Swiss town of Lugano, but he insists "I never even stopped in Lugano, nor have a study or home in that location."
He did concede, "Up to a few years ago I coached some of the Astana athletes, including Vinokurov: it has never been a secret, we never hid anything, we attended training venues where there were many other athletes, all in broad daylight."
But, he added, "Curiously Teide or St. Moritz, back then 'suspicious' locations as defined by the very UCI, have now been "cleared" and are more popular than ever with cyclists and teams above any suspicion ..."
Nibali has repeatedly insisted he is committed to riding for Astana, that the Iglinskiy brothers are an isolated case operating outside the team, and that the Under-23 development squad is entirely separate to the senior team.
He has also said he is confident that Astana will receive a WorldTour licence for the 2015 season – something that the latest news from Italy must cast serious doubt on.
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27 comments
Cheat or not, was Nibs dragged up the hills by people who did cheat - thereby gaining an advantage?
Dear road.cc the amount of spelling mistakes on here is terrible.
On the other hand i think that Nibali should find a new team there are far too many cheats in that team to be taken seriously and if people are doping in that team will there be as much peer pressure as there was during the times of the festina affair and amstrong? Cycling can not go back to being like that.
Be clean or give up
You might want to sort out your grammar before pulling up people on spelling mistakes.
For those wondering if Nabali should (or could) leave Astana, the consistently excellent INRNG covered this last month
http://inrng.com/2014/11/should-nibali-leave-astana/
Wasn't Astana Lance's last team.....
It would seem Cookson's decision has been pending what comes out of this investigation, some 90 riders named in the case reportedly which is said to be bigger than Operation Puerto. Given the Astana positive tests to date you have to think that if anymore of their riders are embroiled here Cookson will have to refuse their license. Will be interesting to see what names if any make their way into Gazzetta over the next few days
I think a line has to be drawn in the sand here, the team should be banned from competition. If Ferrari turned at up a team hotel, any decent team management would have him escorted as far away from them as possible, the fact the team didnt do this makes me think they were either aware or condoning on some level of cheating, now not saying rehabilitation isn't possible but look who the general manager is.
If we want it out of the sport altogether there has to be much harsher punishment that really does deter doping.
This situation shows how ineffective the MPCC is. Astana signed up to the organisation to look credible and ethical and then do what they want.
If it's true what they say cycling is a team sport and lots of the Astana team have been caught it's going to have an impact on Nibali even if he's clean.
Being surrounded by a team who have tested positive will increase your chances of winning more than being surrounded by a team who were there one day and then not the next.
Ferrari reacted indignantly to the paper’s accusations. “I have absolutely NO link to this team. I don’t know where these stories come from. I might have made mistakes in the past, but I’m a decent man, there is no way I would engage myself with Astana. There is a limit.”
Are we sure that something hasn't been lost in translation here and that Astana team members weren't just testing some nice, Italian sports cars?
It seems to me that there's a lot of goodwill towards Nibali, and hardly any online commenters are ready to try and convict him in the absence of evidence - whereas far more did so with Wiggins and Froome.
However, he's riding for a team that appears to be rotten to the core, and whatever the legal aspects, if he wants to be regarded as clean, he needs to get out of that team pronto.
There are times when it's not appropriate to give people the benefit of the doubt. What's the story - Ferrari just happened to be passing the town where Astana were holding their training camp, and just happened to bump into the riders, and it would have been rude not to have a chat? Come on, nobody's going to swallow that.
A photo of the Dr talking to riders proves nothing. Bloody hell i was talking to Alan Shearer whilst at work the other day but it doesn't mean he was in trouble.
Admittedly in their current predicament it doesn't look good though.........
Ferrari is banned from having any links with cyclists. Any professional cyclist caught talking to him can face a ban of 3 months.
stagaire is missing an 'i'
Why has Nibali refused to leave? It makes no sense. There is no evidence of cheating by him, but he is ruining his reputation.
what does his contract say? Can he BREAK his contract? is there a get out clause whereby he can walk away without repercussion?
It does seem that Nibali SHOULD walk away, but it might not be that easy, and that is without considering which team can afford to sign him, which team has a space he could fill?
UCI rules allow riders to leave a team if it loses its WorldTour license so if I were Nibali I would do as he is: defend his position, sit on his rather nice contract and slip into another big budget team should Astana be cast aside.
In practice, not that simple. There is a limited number of teams with real GC ambitions, and it's unlikely any that did would have the budget to sign Nibali on anything like his current salary
Moreover, they will already have more or less a full quota of riders under contract for next season.
Nibali would have to come as a package with Agnoli and Vanotti (who moved with him from Cannondale), as well as members of back-room staff. It all stacks up.
We should find out in the next 48 hours whether Astana will get their WorldTour licence.
If they don't, we're looking at a repeat of the CAS appeal that Katusha had to make a couple of years back (although at least this time we have a better idea to start with of the reasons behind why the licence wasn't granted).
Nice to read a sensible, considered critique of Nibali's options for a change. Guys like him can quite often be nearly 25 percent of the team's entire budget - an enormous figure when you typically need to employ another 28 or so riders to fully staff a world tour team. Even if he wanted to, it's not just something he can do overnight, nor can other teams take him and his domestiques at the drop of a hat.
As always, everyone should read the previously linked inrng.com article on this, or any other pro-cycling story. The standard of journalism on his (hers? I'd love to know who runs that site...) is exceptional.
No evidence? Apart from the evidence of his personal coach being in frequent contact with Ferrari.
Even if he is clean his Tour win will lack credibility if most of his team was doping.
Well done Vino and Astana you have just set cycling back 5 years! I really thought the days of team-wide doping programmes was over.
I think that will only be the case if Astana are allowed to continue. If Cookson has the balls to kick them out, we can see it as a positive step for cycling as a whole.
Vino phoned the A-Team this morning
In my opinion, if Nibali wants to be considered a true champion, he needs to find himself a new employer.
Which riders? And are these photographs in the public domain?
If this is true, how stupid can Astana be? If it wasn't naive enough to brazenly dope up their Continental team with steroids then go and win big events to guarantee the riders will be tested
Now they invite one of the biggest pariahs of professional cycling over for dinner! Come on Cookson, kick them out!
Well it's going to be very interesting to see what the UCI does in this case. A true test of Mr Cookson's leadership.