Astana Out
Alexander Vinokourov has spent his last year complaining about his team being left out of the 2006 Tour de France. If you remember back to July last year, several of his Astana Teammates were implicated in a Spanish blood doping scandal. This left Astana with too few riders to compete in the Tour, and Alexander had to go home. He has been complaining about that for over a year now, and it now looks like he is just as dirty as his comrades. Today, Vino tested positive for blood doping. A test on his blood found two different types of blood cells. This positive test forced Vino and his entire team to pack up and go home, and possibly robbed his friend Andreas Kloeden of another podium finish in the Tour de France.
There was alot of talk before the race this year that widespread doping had been purged from the sport. I believe that doping is on the decline, and the kinds of incidents that have happened this year are only going to make it easier to get rid of the epidemic. T-Mobile will likely end its sponsorship in a press conference this Sunday. Discovery Channel is vacating it’s sponsorship, and the team has not been able to find a replacement. Several other teams have lost smaller sponsors. If the sponsorship dollars for these established teams goes away, it will create room for a new wave of teams that actually tests riders. Team Slipstream in America has been a vocal team against doping. They have stated that their goal is to become a pro-tour team by 2009. They may get there one year earlier than that. It seems that there may be room in 2008.
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