Action against the Astana team of the Tour de France winner Vincenzo Nibali remains “not shelved but suspended”, the International Cycling Union’s licence commission has stated.
The body has made public its ruling of 23 April on the vexed question of whether the Kazakh team should have its licence to race withdrawn following two positive drugs tests in the WorldTour team and three in its development squad.
“The commission reserves the right to reactivate the procedure,” it said.
The “reasoned decision” of the licence commission, released by the UCI on Tuesday night, made it clear that Astana might well have lost its licence last autumn had the commission possessed the information revealed by the audit it commissioned from the University of Lausanne (ISSUL) at the end of last year after provisionally granting Astana permission to race.
Instead, the Kazakh squad remains in the professional peloton after having shown sufficient signs of progress, and because, the statement said: “They have agreed to adhere to all the conditions set them, which will allow them to undertake profound reform to avoid the risk of doping.” Their progress will be further monitored by the Swiss university and they clearly remain on probation, as they have been since December.
The commission reveals that one reason why the UCI called for Astana’s licence to be withdrawn was that the ISSU team found it had “fabricated documents” – training plans – “expressly to satisfy the inquiry team”, but it concludes that this was done through “clumsiness due to pressure” rather than to an actual intention to deceive. It further states that, “ISSUL revealed that the team produced, both before the commission and for the attention of the auditors, documents presenting its way of working which did not correspond to reality”.
Astana is also criticised for “globally deficient” management, “an old-school culture”, poor back-up for its team of trainers, “blurring of responsibilities due to the team management being too omnipresent” and “poor control of riders who were geographically distant, notably the Russian-speakers.” “The organization of the team is defective in that it pays little attention to at-risk riders,” continued the report. The commission concluded that “if these defects had been known in autumn 2014, withdrawal of the licence would have been probable” and would have been even further justified because Astana initially claimed it was well organized and denied that it bore any responsibility for the doping cases.”
The UCI president, Brian Cookson – whose organisation had called for Astana’s licence to be withdrawn following ISSUL’s initial report – said he was satisfied with the commission’s work and called the decision ‘proportionate’. “Astana Pro Team has committed to a process of in-depth reforms thanks to this procedure initiated before the licence commission. Taking into account that the team will be under the supervision of the ISSUL and monitored by the licence commission for the rest of the 2015 season, we are satisfied by this decision … We are confident that the measures that the team has committed to put in place will help it improve its culture, its structures and its systems for governing anti-doping. We believe it is our responsibility to accompany each UCI WorldTeam towards increased professionalism.”
There is no implication that Nibali was involved in any of the activities outlined and Astana have still to make any formal comment on the commission’s conclusions.
