High Road and Slipstream get Tour de France invitation; Astana gets un-vitation
Four of the five teams with U.S. ties received invitations to the Tour de France from the Amaury Sports Organization.
American-based Slipstream-Chipotle and High Road, two teams at the forefront of the anti-doping movement, were invited, along with American-sponsored teams CSC and Quick Step, two of the best teams in cycling.
However, Astana, which is run by former U.S. Postal and Discovery boss Johan Bruyneel and his staff, again was snubbed by the ASO even though Astana is perhaps the best team in cycling with defending TdF champion Alberto Contador and 2007 third-place finisher Levi Leipheimer. Under Bruyneel, Astana also has instituted strict anti-doping measures on par with Slipstream, High Road and CSC.
ASO is sour about the former management of Astana, which had ties to the Operacion Puerto scandal that left the team unable to compete in 2006 and which also guaranteed a drug free 2007, only to get booted from the Tour after team leader Alexander Vinokourov got busted for blood doping.
And then there’s the suspicion that the French are sour at Bruyneel for dominating the Tour de France with seven titles by Lance Armstrong and last year’s title by Contador. And many in France believe Armstrong won with chemical aid, though he never tested positive for doping, has vociferously denied all allegations of impropriety and won a couple of court cases. So, they may be getting back at Armstrong, by proxy, by snubbing Bruyneel’s team. (On the down side, Andreas Kloden is on Astana and an inquiry in Germany stated there are indications he doped while with T-Mobile.)
Interestingly, French team Cofidis also got booted from the Tour de France last year after Christian Moreni tested positive for doping, yet Cofidis received an invite. Then, there’s the whole Rabobank deal, in which the team allowed Michael Rasmussen to ride even though he had missed some doping control tests before the TdF. The team yanked Rasmussen from last year’s Tour while he was wearing the yellow jersey and poised to ride into Paris as the presumptive race winner. All because he lied about his whereabouts in missing the test. Rabo is back this year, tho.
And under the banner of T-Mobile, the old High Road management seemed to be on the cutting edge of doping, with Bjarne Riis admitting that he won the 1996 Tour de France with the help of EPO and with sprinter Eric Zabel admitting he won six sprinter’s titles with the help of EPO. In total, seven T-Mobile riders have admitted doping en route to Riis’ title in 1996 and Jan Ullrich’s in 1998. Good ol’ Ullrich, by the way, is under suspicion because of Operacion Puerto, tho a German panel ruled Thursday that although there’s indications Ullrich doped, there’s no proof. Oh, and there’s Patrik Sinkewitz, who got booted from the Tour last year because of a failed drug test (which was the final straw for T-Mobile in pulling the use of its name by the team after last season).
So, based on ASO’s logic in banning Astana, Cofidis, Rabobank and even the new-llok High Road would seem to be candidates for un-vitations this year. It is painful to put High Road in that group because owner Bob Stapleton has worked hard to sweep out the riff raff and remake the team as anti-doping crusaders, plus 10 Speed fave and Tour of Missouri winner George Hincapie is on the team. I’m just including High Road to make a point about ASO’s hypocrisy in banning Astana. ASO’s stated reasons for banning Astana just don’t hold water.
It’s a darn shame that the best race in the world won’t have the best team competiting, so whomever wins this year can”t say he beat the best.
Don’t think the ASO cares, though.
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I don’t think you characterization of High Road and doping is fair; the regime in which Riis and others doped was ousted before T-Mobile dropped their sponsorship. Stapleton took over and instituted changes while it was still T-Mobile.
Even with that, ASO definitely looks to be playing favorites, b/c applying the same logic as they applied to Astana would still mean exclusion of High Road and others.
ASO should man-up and state the real reason: it’s their soccer ball and their backyard, and they’re only going to invite their friends.
Hopefully, there will be other major tours who have enough backbone to either be honest or be consistent, or invite major contenders like Astana.
Yes, Stapleton came on board last year to clean house while T-Mobile was still involved. I did not make that clear, tho I think I did make it clear that the doping indiscretions occurred with the old management in the pre-Stapleton era. (Well, except for Sinkewicz, whose dopey doping cost the team the T-Mobile brand and financing beyond this season.)
In many ways, Johan Bruyneel is in a similar situation this year with Astana as Stapleton was last year with T-Mobile, in that he cleaned up the previous mess, swept out the old management and instituted state-of-the-art doping controls, ala Slipstream, CSC and High Road.
I mentioned High Road to illustrate the point that ASO’s logic in un-viting Astana doesn’t add up. Both teams have new leadership and appear to be on the cutting edge of changing the sport, yet one is invited and the other isn’t. I also think High Road’s inclusion in the Tour is less of an issue than the invites for Cofidis (kicked out of the Tour last year, just like Astana) and Rabobank (having the yellow jersey kicked out days from Paris seems to be far more embarrassing to the Tour than any team getting kicked out.)
The former managements of T-Mobile (wide-spread use of EPO) and Astana (Operacion Puerto, under the Liberty Seguras/Mutual sponsorship) did as much, or more, to sully the sport as the Festina Affair in ‘99. And I agree it’s as unfair to blame the current management of High Road for the T-Mobile mess as it is to blame Johan for the previous Astana mess.
Which is why I think there’s more to this story than meets the eye. I agree that ASO would be better off admitting to what exactly is going on than running around and saying the “best teams” in cycling were invited to the Tour de France when in fact perhaps the best team (Astana) was not. One could construe ASO’s “best team” comment as a lie, or disingenuous, or delusional.
The problem with ASO is that it seems to lack a world vision, such as UCI has. UCI sees a global sport, and the U.S. has benefited with the Tour of California, the Tour de Georgia and the Tour of Missouri. On the other hand, you have the ASO and the other grand tours in a neat, little provincial circuit. While those races certainly have cachet and should have a prominent place in the new world order, cycling has expanded beyond its provincial roots into a global sport. L’affair ASO/Astana comes at a terrible time, on the heels of the doping madness and on the verge of explosive growth for cycling on a world-wide basis.
Considering ASO has the Tour of Qatar, you’d think its leaders would understand that.