Victor Okishev, a 20-year-oldAstana rider, has tested positive for steroids from a test taken in May.
that is now 4 Kazakhstani Astana riders in the past few months.
when i rode the UCI Asia Tour there was a feeling amongst the peloton that the Kazakh riders generally were not all they appeared to be. it was a hunch, going off performances we had seen. at the very least the nation seems to have something of a problem, as does its national team, with the abuse of banned substances.
and mullets.
it must have nothing to do with their general manager and national hero (destined to be president too by the looks of things) being an unrepentant doper himself.
no, not at all.
Nibali, what have you got to say now? time to get out, some might argue. but where to? Tinkoff? Vaughters and Garmin? any of the other teams staffed by former dopers?
yet again, the UCWhy reaps what they have sowed, and we get to choke on it…
They’ll do what they always do and say it’s an individual problem and not the team.
Until they as a team are punished this won’t stop.
It reminds me a bit of the football (soccer) federations of Russia and Serbia when their fans do monkey chants at Black players they just say ” We never saw it it didn’t happen”
The former eastern bloc countries don’t seem to be bothered with popular opinion/hard evidence.
Sort of a “North Korea lite” approach if you will
Don’t diss the Mullets or the Hoff will not be happy
To MTN Qhubeka 🙂
It was bad enough with just one doping case, but four@!? (and how many to follow?) It’s surely a bit of a watershed moment for Nibali (and Aru) if he’s going to retain any credibility for his stance on doping.
The number of riders popped and the apparent subterfuge employed by Astana to allow the team to ride at end of season races ought to elicit a strong response from the UCI also. Refuse to issue a World Tour license perhaps?
we can hope, VC, we can hope. it will be a test of the integrity of the ‘new’ UCI…