Though the Astana cycling team is under new leadership with Johan Bruyneel at the helm, it has been barred from the Tour de France and other events organized by Amaury Sports Organization (A.S.O.), the A.S.O. announced today.

In a news release, the A.S.O. cited problems with the team in 2006 and 2007, which included the exclusion of the team in 2006 because of ties to Operacion Puerto and the team being ejected from the Tour de France last year after a positive doping test by Alexander Vinokourov. The management of that team was swept away after last season and replaced by Bruyneel, who brought with him the remnants of his former Discovery Channel team that folded after winning eight of the past nine Tours, including seven by Lance Armstrong.

The banning of Astana means that Alberto Contador, the defending TdF winner, won’t be back to defend his title and that American Levi Leipheimer won’t get a chance to improve on his third-place finish, even though both rode for Discovery Channel last year and had nothing to do with Astana. The Giro d’Italia also didn’t invite Astana to its race in May, along with High Road Sports (formerly T-Mobile) and two other UCI Pro Tour teams. The Vuelta has announced that Astana will be invited this year, which may place its desire to race in the Tour of Missouri in jeopardy.

Oddly, the A.S.O. did invite High Road Sports to its Paris-Nice race. High Road Sports, now under American Bob Stapleton, has instituted strict anti-doping controls, just as Astana did under Bruyneel. The old management of Stapleton’s team, then known as T-Mobile, made a mockery of the Tour with admitted doping by 1996 winner Bjarne Riis and six-time sprint winner Erik Zabel, and suspected doping by 1997 winner Jan Ullrich. Yet High Road with new management is OK, and Astana with new management is not?

Many in France have long suspected and even accused Armstrong of doping en route to his seven TdF titles. Armstrong has repeatedly denied all allegations, and has won a couple of cases accusing him of using p-e drugs. This move against Astana might be the A.S.O.’s way of striking back at the guru behind Armstrong’s wins — Bruyneel.

The A.S.O.-Astana flap portends to serious problems for the future of cycling, with the two major players at odds – the Union Cycliste Internationale vs. organizers of at least two of the grand tours, i.e. the Giro, the Tour de France. After working together for several years, the UCI and the grand tours parted ways before this season, and now the UCI Pro Tour teams are being denied access to the biggest events in cycling.

It’s a mess, and it comes at a horrible time for international cycling, which is on the uptick with the success of the events such as the Tour Down Under in Australia and the three, week-long events in the U.S. — the upcoming Tour of California, the Tour de Georgia and the Tour of Missouri.

To ol’ 10 Speed, who also writes a motor sports blog, this division in cycling is reminiscent of the strife in Indy car racing in the mid-90s, when the main racing series — CART — and the owners Indianapolis Motor Speedway (and the Indy 500) parted company. The CART owners formed their own series, and even had a race to compete with the Indy 500, while the Indy 500 kept its crown jewel and formed its own series, the IRL. 

Unfortuantely for open-wheel racing and fans, the fractured audience and the diminished competitive field for the Indy 500 ruined open-wheel racing in the U.S., allowing NASCAR, once a regional (southern) phenomenon, to attract a national following. NASCAR’s top two series — Sprint Cup (formerly Nextel Cup) and Nationwide (formerly Busch) – are the top two motor sports series in the U.S., based on television audience. And the Sprint Cup is on par with the NFL.

Meanwhile, Champ Car (formerly CART) and the IRL are still hanging on by a thread, but NASCAR has long since left open-wheel racing in its dust.

Ol’ 10 Speed can see the same thing happening in cycling, with two hard-headed groups  locked in a power struggle. What the Tour de France organizers fail to realize is that without the best team, which includes two of the three podium finishers last year, the winner of the race this year can’t say that he truly beat the best.  The same thing happened at Indy. The Indy 500 had the heritage, just like the Tour de France, but whether we’re talking about the Indy 500 or the Tour de France, without the best drivers, riders and teams, the race loses its cachet.

Here is the ASO news release …

13/02/2008 - Press release

A.S.O. has decided not to invite Astana on the events that it organises in 2008, based on the damage caused by this team during the 2007 Tour de France and to cycling in general, both in 2006 and 2007.

The Astana team has indeed betrayed, last year, the confidence of the organisers that had invited them based, already, on their faith of a renewal announced by its leaders.

However, as the team has once again changed, A.S.O. will remain careful at the efforts that Astana will set up to live a 2008 season without affairs or suspicion, and could then reconsider a possible candidacy for its future events.

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