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Disgraced doctor Michele Ferrari denies meeting the Astana team Sorry - this page has been removed.
(4 months later)
The disgraced doctor Michele Ferrari has denied meeting Astana riders last year as the Kazakh team, which features the Tour de France winner, Vincenzo Nibali, in its ranks, sweats over its participation in next season’s top races. This could be because it launched early, our rights have expired, there was a legal issue, or for another reason.
Astana’s World Tour licence – which guarantees a place in the top events – is under review by the licence commission, which is expected to tell the International Cycling Union (UCI) whether the team will keep its credentials later this week.
Two Astana riders, the brothers Maxim and Valentin Iglinskiy, failed dope tests in August before three riders from their Continental (second-tier) team also tested positive later in the year, triggering a close review by the licence commission. For further information, please contact:
To make matters worse, the Italian sports daily La Gazzetta dello Sport reported on Monday that Ferrari, banned for life in July 2012 for his implication in the Lance Armstrong scandal, had been spotted at the Astana training camp in November last year, which the Italian strongly denied.
“I feel obliged, albeit very reluctantly, to once again deny the latest MEDIA BULLSHIT with regards to my presence (“during the night”, or even in broad daylight, if you prefer) at the Astana Team Training Camp in Montecatini (I’ve been in that town, if I remember correctly, in 1994 to taste the famous waffles) last year in November,” Ferrari wrote on his personal website.
“The bombshell of “the dark shadow of Ferrari” is absolutely FALSE and whoever has published it will respond about it in the appropriate courts: I hope that the Kazakh team will ask adequate compensation for the damages.”
In 2008 the Astana team was left out of the Tour de France after drugs scandals, one of which concerned the current manager, Alexandre Vinokourov, then a team rider, failing two dope tests during 2007 races.
Should Astana be denied a World Tour licence for 2015, it can to take the matter before the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS).