Bruyneel brought a core of riders from his old outfit, including 2007 Tour winner Alberto Contador, and quickly asserted control.
During Vino’s time in the cooler, Astana had changed: its Kazakh backers brought in Johan Bruyneel, architect of Lance Armstrong’s seven Tour wins, to rebuild after the disastrous, doping-filled 2007 season. In 2009, reporters crowded into a stuffy conference room at the opulent Fairmont Hotel in Monaco for a press conference about Vinokourov’s imminent return to racing after serving a two-year suspension for blood doping at the 2007 Tour.
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Recalling that he’s clashed with Martinelli before, I’m reminded that this is far from the first time that pro cycling has seemingly dropped Vinokourov, only to see him claw his way back into contention. For the first time since 2009, he won’t be at the Tour, a fast and ignominious end to a long run as a rider and team official.Ī short, three-paragraph statement from the team suggests that Vino is voluntarily giving up his management position but “will remain a valued member of Astana” in an unspecified role, while assistant directors Giuseppe Martinelli and Steve Bauer will jointly assume the Team Principal title.īut a report in l’Equipe asserts that Vinokourov was sidelined for nebulous “personal reasons” which he refutes, and his lawyers are already fighting to reinstate him. He has, depending on what you read and believe, suddenly stepped down on the eve of the Tour de France from his role as Team Principal at Astana, or been shoved aside for reasons that remain unclear. On Thursday, I awoke to the news that Alexandre Nikolayevich Vinokourov-the sanguineous Khazakhstani former pro rider turned team manager, and one of the wiliest survivors in the cutthroat sport of pro cycling-is gone.
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