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UCI urges ban on Astana cycling team over doping

The world cycling federation, Swiss-based UCI, on Friday called for the withdrawal of the racing licence for the Astana team of Tour de France winner Vincenzo Nibali over doping accusations.

Published: 27 February 2015 15:39 CET
UCI urges ban on Astana cycling team over doping
UCI headquarters in Aigle in the canton of Vaud. Photo: UCI

The UCI said a study on the Kazakhstan-based team contains "compelling grounds" for a review by the body's independently-run Licence Commission and that it requests "the Astana Pro Team licence be withdrawn."
   
The World Tour Licence gives access to the main international races, including the Tour de France and big tours in Italy and Spain.
   
Astana said it was "compelled to respect" the UCI move while it awaited a final decision.

Media reports said it was consulting lawyers.
   
The team has been under the spotlight since brothers Maxim and Valentin Iglinksy and three other Astana riders tested positive for banned substances in the past year.
   
It has also been on the defensive over Italian media claims claims that banned doping doctor Michele Ferrari had met with the team.
   
The UCI agreed to give Astana a World Tour Licence in December on condition that the team cooperated with a study by Lausanne University's Institute of Sport Sciences (ISSUL) on last year's doping cases.
   
"After careful review of this extensive report, the UCI strongly believes that it contains compelling grounds to refer the matter to the Licence Commission and request the Astana Pro Team licence be withdrawn," said a UCI
statement.
   
"The UCI considers that the ISSUL audit has, among other things, revealed a big difference between the policies and structures that the team presented to the Licence Commission in December and the reality on the ground."
   
The federation said it had also been given details of an Italian investigation into doping and tax evasion by cycling teams. Media reports said the Italian magistrates had details of a visit to an Astana camp by banned doctor Ferrari.
   
Ferrari was banned from cycling for life over his role in the doping scandal surrounding disgraced US cycling champion Lance Armstrong.
   
"As some evidence concerns Astana Pro Team members, the file has been passed to the Licence Commission as part of this referral," the UCI statement said.
   
Astana's general manager is Alexander Vinokurov who twice tested positive for blood doping on the 2007 Tour de France and had worked with Ferrari in the past.

He has strongly denied any systematic doping by the Astana team.
   
An Astana Pro Team spokesman told AFP of the UCI move: "We are compelled to respect the decision pending due process from the Independent License Commission."

The Iglinsky brothers of Kazakhstan are members of Astana's World Tour team.

They tested tested positive for EPO in September.

A team trainee and two members of the third ranked Continental team also failed blood doping tests.

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SPORT

Nurse weeps as tells German court of her blood doping role

A nurse, one of the co-defendants in the trial of a German sports doctor accused of masterminding an international blood-doping network, described on Friday how she helped athletes dope with illicit blood transfusions.

Published: 19 September 2020 10:19 CEST
Nurse weeps as tells German court of her blood doping role
Mark Schmidt talks to his lawyer in court. Photo: Peter Kneffel/AFP
Sports physician Mark Schmidt, 42, and four co-defendants who allegedly aided him, stand trial in Munich accused of helping at least two dozen athletes undergo blood transfusions to boost performance.
   
So far, 23 athletes — mainly skiers and cyclists — from eight countries are known to be involved.
   
If found guilty, Schmidt and his co-defendants face jail for up to 10 years under anti-doping legislation introduced in Germany in 2015.
   
One of the accused, named only as Diana S., told the court how she first helped Schmidt in December 2017 when she travelled to Dobbiaco, Italy, to administer a blood transfusion before a skiing competition.
   
Blood doping is aimed at boosting the number of red blood cells, which allows the body to transport more oxygen to muscles, thereby increasing stamina and performance.
   
 
“It was about transportation, blood and athletes, but at first I didn't know what was behind it,” she is quoted as saying by the German media.   
 
“The treatments were always such that before the race the blood was taken in and after the races, the blood came out.”
   
She claimed to have been given precise instructions “via WhatsApp or by phone calls” where to go, which car to take, who to treat and how much blood to take or inject.
   
The trained nurse, who often sobbed while speaking, was told to dispose the bags of used blood on her way home after the “treatments”.
 
The single mother of three said she was motivated to earn extra money, having been told she would earn 200 euros ($237) per day.
   
At one point, she claims she told Schmidt that she wanted to stop.
   
“I told him that I was too agitated and too scared” to keep doing the clandestine work, because a sense of “panic travelled with me”, but Schmidt convinced her to stay involved. “It is also true that I simply had a shortage of money.”
   
Schmidt is alleged to have helped skiers who competed at both the 2014 and 2018 Winter Olympics and cyclists who raced at the 2016 Rio summer Olympics, as well as the Tour de France, the Giro d'Italia and the Vuelta a Espana.
   
He was arrested in Germany as part of Operation “Aderlass” — or “blood letting” in German — which involved raids at the Nordic world skiing championships in Seefeld, Austria in February 2019.
   
A verdict in the trial is expected by late December.
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