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OLeg Tinkov (source Tinkoff Saxo on Facebook)UCI “stupid and impotent” over Russian Rio bans, claims Oleg Tinkov
Oleg Tinkov has called the UCI “stupid and impotent” over the exclusion of six Russian cyclists from the Rio Olympics, which start this week.
The Tinkoff team owner, who is severing ties with professional cycling at the end of this year, was reacting to the news that six of the 17 riders selected to represent Russia in Brazil will not be allowed to take part.
The six include Katusha rider Ilnur Zakarin, who won a stage of the Tour de France last month.
However, in common with men’s team pursuit rider Sergey Shilov, and London 2012 road and time trial bronze medallist Olga Zabelinskaya, Zakarin will not be permitted to take part since he has previously served a doping ban.
Three further Russian cyclists, whose names have not been made public to date, have been excluded from the squad due to being potentially implicated in the doping cover-up scandal that has embroiled Russian sport.
Posting a picture of Zakarin to Instagram, the Russian entrepreneur said: “Zakarin can't go to #Rio but Valverde and others who been caught on doping can?
“If this is not political revenge on Russia, what is it?
“It show again how stupid and impotent that f*cking #UCI. Just bunch of bureaucratic idiots.”
In fact, the decision to exclude Zakarin, Zabelinskaya and Shilov – in common with athletes in other sports who have been banned from doping – was one taken by the Russian Olympic Committee, in line with a directive from the International Olympic Committee in its response to last month’s McLaren report commissioned by the World Anti-Doping Agency.
> UCI clarifies position over Russian riders at Rio
The Russian Olympic Committee also passed the names of the other three riders to the UCI, which said it was liaising with WADA so their cases could be dealt with promptly.
The IOC’s decision to refer the eligibility of Russian athletes to the individual global governing bodies of the various sports at the Olympics, instead of implementing a blanket ban, has dismayed anti-doping campaigners.
Had Zakarin, banned from two years in 2009 for taking anabolic steroids, represented any country other than Russia, he would have been eligible for Rio – as he would have been at London 2012 following a change to IOC rules on athletes returning from a suspension.
Under an IOC rule introduced in 2008, athletes who had served a doping ban of six months or more were forbidden from taking part in the Olympics immediately following the expiry of their ban.
But in 2011, announcing its decision in an appeal brought by the American 400m runner LaShawn Merritt, the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) said the so-called Osaka Rule was “invalid and unenforceable.”
In 2012, CAS also ruled that the British Olympic Association’s lifetime ban from representing the country at the Olympics was inconsistent with the World Anti-Doping Code, paving the way for David Millar to act as road captain in the road race in London.
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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32 comments
I get the impression that people on here are almost "putting all their eggs in one basket" when they talk about the Russian problem and the likes of Jamaica, Kenya etc etc. It's like putting a shoplifting in with a high value house burglary, yes they are both theft but the parameters are massively different.
The Russian problem is a totally seperate issue and the powers that be need to come down hard on it.
Yes, we need to act on the other countries who are turning a blind eye on certain individuals but unless someone out there has evidence that the other countries are doing the same as Russia did they cant be all treat as a similar case.
Unconstituted does come up with some valid points but lets himself / herself down by throwing in that its due to Russia invading Crimea. As Colin P pointed out it was a whistle blower so the only people to blame is the Russina Govt for putting the livelihoods of many clean sports people at risk due to trying to be the best by cheating.
I think Unconstituted has a point, but it's often hard to flesh out an argument on a comments page.
On one hand the Russian state sponsored doping was undone by whistle blowing and has exposed an institutional level of doping, and so I agree that this needs to be treated more broadly by the governing body.
But there is a wholesale level of hypocrisy given that many State level sporting bodies either actively or passively allow doping in Sports. Jamaica are a good case in point - the IOC should have issued a ban on them for failing to do even one doping control in an Olympic year. But let's not forget how UK athletics were quite happy for our top athletes to pop off to Australia to train (and that situation is mirrored with Mo and his US and Moroccan training camps).
If you turn the gaze of anti-doping onto any country and any sport you'll find that there is little appetite to catch them. The ironic outcome is that you favourite champion is likely to be dosed up. At the end of the day I suspect Unconstituted has reconciled himself to this fact. So it's not the winning, but the performance, attitude and manner of taking part that count.
Part of me thinks that they should dispense with medals and awards for winners, but that, in the same way they award gongs to actors, they should have a jury that chooses the most entertaining performance - that way it's not necessarily about winning. A crazy notion - but no more crazy that believing that your favourite athlete has been chugging anabolics and blood doped.
When careers are won and lost by seconds or metres, I'd expect doping to be rife amongst professional sports people. Let's face it, the world is full of cunts that would stop at nothing to shaft someone else.
unconstituted; are you Russian?
more like closet commie lol.
I'm in good company with my fellow 'Putinbots' and 'closet commies'.
Former British Olympic rowing gold medallist Zac Purchase posted on Twitter: “Given huge amount of resources @ their disposal, having multiple missed tests/filing failure is a monumental cockup! Imagine what we would be saying if she was Russian … #NotWorthIt #KeepSportClean.”
Canadian three-time former Olympian cross-country mountain biker Geoff Kabush added: “1st test understandable but I’d be hyper aware about missing 2nd. If I missed 2nd there is no chance I’d miss 3rd??? So many questions. How is World Champ suspended for 3 weeks and no one knows? Why did British Cycling fund appeal?”
Looks like we're all out today, eh. Dispatched from our training quarters in Moscow.
Your use of bold not mine.
I have lifted this from cyclingnews.
"Armitstead's statement also thanked British Cycling for their support. The governing body has said that they did not put any funds into supporting Armitstead's defence but had sought their own legal advice in the event that the appeal was unsuccessful and she was banned, which would have forced them into selecting an alternate rider for the Olympic Games."
While I don't believe everything I read on news sites, I certainly don't believe everything I read on the comments section too.
oh dear oh dear looks like I hit a nerve !
your own belief that Russia is being hard done to is clouding your judgements. let's face it Russia is rotten to the core and must have spent millions to cover up their ineptitude but just rolling out "crimea" "kenya" and "jamiaca" just makes you look silly. Not once have you actually condemned what Russia has done and just tried to justify it as political. Personally I find that in itself as pretty poor.
Blimey, the Putinbots have even got to Road.cc.
Cringe.
In the face of objectivity, you cower behind a CIF random putdown.
So weak.
Tinkov is just a bitter man who doesn't like to lose.
Russia is in a mess full stop, you just have to watch the tv channel RT (Russia today) to see that.
Putin needed to paint a picture that everything was hunky dory to keep himself where he is, living a life of luxury whilst the everyday Russian people suffer. His govt have used sport to try and make themselves look fine and its backfired big style.
Yes other countries are in a mess with their drugs testing and they to should be punished so lets keep going with these reports / investigations and act accordingly.
Russia should have been banned, fullstop, because of the state-sponsored doping and falsification of dope tests. Yes this would have hurt some clean athletes, but probably would have been worthwhile.
It is utterly illogical however to ban just some Russian sportspeople on the basis of a qualification that doesn't apply to people of other nationalities. Either all people with "spent" convictions should be disqualified or none. Apart from anything else, the Russians who were previously caught clearly weren't part of the Russian false laboratory system, or else they wouldn't have been caught.
Yes punish innocent athletes because you can't get at the officials who actually did something wrong.
Anti-intellectual, bigoted knee-jerkery.
People are talking as if every sport's athletes in Russia go through some state-sponsored doping program.
Sillyness worthy of Katie Hopkins.
The Lizzie Armistead story has kinda ruined that event for me before it's started. 'Yey, go all conquering rider who missed 3 consecutive drugs tests!'. I don't care whether she's British or Russian.
Lizzie may or not be dodgy, but so are a hell of a lot of others. Pretty much a level playing field even if it is synthetically enhanced one.
Forget that stuff and enjoy the race. Champions still have to suffer incredible amounts to get where they are. That said, this expose by Mark Daly was interesting, where he got him into peak condition, then started dosing on EPO, and got a WADA insider to run the tests to see if he could get his passport cleared. Apologies for Beeb link, but it is worth a read.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-32983932
The benefits sound too good to pass up, can see why even amateurs are tempted.
This was interesting by The Secret Pro, who basically all but says that he knows doping is rife and easy to spot in the peloton as guys are suddenly getting a 40 to 50 watt boost.
http://cyclingtips.com/2015/06/the-secret-pro-on-the-giro-there-were-day...
I have my heroes, but I wouldn never defend them as being clean. You just never know.
As a side note, interesting to see that British Cycling has successfully got Lizzie Armistead of the hook on one of her three wherabouts failures, on a technicality, which means she can compete at Rio. The offical was to blame they argued, not the athlete hiding out - because they never do that, of course (especially not Lizzie with her history of it). Nothing you can't do with a lot of cash and a room full of lawyers.
We know athletes micro-dope and simply disappear until all trace is clear.
Actually that's not true, and it's a common misconception - all trace doesn't have to disappear from your passport. Testers can see traces of what athletes have been doing, but it needs to be strong evidence before they can give a positive result for say EPO.
Looking forward to Rio. A lot of medals. A lot of doping. A lot of cheering.
Good times.
Yep lets turn a blind eye to the Russian drug programs...
But they didn't turn a blind eye to it. They know that some officials were in involved in test cover ups. We also know this isn't unique to Russia, and we also know this has been going on in all sports for decades, but just now after Crimea, we go all out after them.
So if there's to be a cleanup in sport, lets do it.
But to go after Russia and pat ourselves on the back? Farce. What Coe arse-licking automaton buys that line.
Rio games will be full of dopers, from all countries, from all sports.
Fact.
Care to enlighten us as to which other countries are using their secret services to cover up state-organised doping? I'm sure lots of other countries have skeletons in the closet, and I'm sure plenty of athletes who dope all by themselves will slip through the net, but I very much doubt any country is doing it on quite such an industrial scale. If they are, and they're found out, I'd hope they are treated much more severely than Russia have been.
Well certain African countries are long suspected of it, long before Russia was even mentioned. You shouldn't have to be told that as before commenting you should have a decent knowledge of any subject matter.
Besides the point any way. The point clearly is that where there is investigation into sports and drugs, dirt will be found. Russia is being targetted for political reasons. If you can't see that you've got no idea what's been happening in the world recently.
It's distraction politics and muppets lap it up. Politicians know that. Coe was in hot water there with the London drugs scandal, the corruption scandal and then pop, Russia. Any time you need to divert attention, China, Russia, terrorists, benefits cheats. Too easy to get drones to jump.
I'm well aware of other countries' problems - Kenya and Jamaica seem to have got off rather lightly so far, and closer to home I'm not remotely convinced by the explanations from Mo Farah's coach, but none of the allegations about other countries rival the findings against Russia, and if you can't see that then you've got no idea what's been happening in the world recently.
As has been pointed out, if Russia are being targeted for political reasons then it's equally true that it was doping its athletes for political reasons. The world cup, Sochi and the accompanying drugs program are all part of Russia's use of sport to promote its standing. Nothing wrong with that, unless of course you do so by conspiring to flout the rules on a massive scale. The IOC has cocked up by re-imposing double jeopardy for athletes like Zakarin, but it cocked up far worse by abdicating responsibility to individual federations like the UCI, leaving them open to misguided criticism like that of Tinkov.
Aye pointed out by some joker with no clue of the difference between hard and soft power.
Long time since I cringed at a sentence. May as well have written, 'I don't follow the news but am typing about politics anyway'. Every reference you have is gleaned from my input.
If I asked you what the elephant in the room here is, what would you say?
I have a lot of sympathy with that view - just because Russia's been caught and their athletes (selectively) banned, people can rest easy that nobody else is doping where there are no Russians competing!! Russia the big bad wolf of sport! utter bull sh1t of course . Too few people are questioning the competence of other countries' anti-doping bodies. Utterly shambolic in Jamaica and Nigeria since the last two olympics - but that's OK, it's not like they have any top athletes, is it?!!
On the other hand, I was disapointed that IOC have dodged the decision on coming down hard on Russia as an example - the situation now is farcical with individual sports bodies dithering over their decisions just days before the olympics. Just because many countries and sports haven't got a grip on doping, doesn't mean you shouldn't come down hard when there's flagrant cheating. Two wrongs don't make a right.
Two wrongs don't make a right - is the reasoning against blanket bans though, because you also catch innocents.
It seems that sport has become so dodgy that no matter what you do, it's still going to be a mess.
The only genuine option now is to abolish all existing sports institutions, replace them with new transparent and accountable ones, with fully available public data on testing. For a start.
The current cat and mouse and distraction games we're being fed are a joke.
Pipe dream of course. A lot of well paid people need to remain well paid. Nothing's going to change.
True. Current outcome is very unsatisfactory, with the impact on innocents too.
He's spot on here, too much political shite in sports since Crimea. People need to take their Cold War nonsense and disappear back under a rock.
Not sure your comment is anywhere near the mark, but regardless of that, sport is and always will be political in some way shape or form, and if there are links to the cold war esque happenings in some of the sport related decisions around Russia, they can't really complain as the whole doping program they were involved with was all about politics (i.e. making themselves look better on the world stage, even if it's only so they can brag about it on home TV to bolster support for Putin et al.).
tldr;
you've got no idea what's been happening and are going to make some blanket comment.
Could say the same about some of your comments.
Really, which?
Notice again of course you've nothing really to add. Just want to get in some sort of sideswipe.
I'll just keep calling you out, so why bother.
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