Reactions
“We truly recognize that last year's Tour de France was difficult for your organization and we supported all of your decisions. But now we feel that your judgment lacks reason. If your organization takes away fair play is your judgment better than the athletes that manipulate performance by use of illegal performance enhancing drugs? We strongly encourage you to change your decision and open the participation of your sport events to those athletes that abide by the rules and are qualified. As a former student at the Universite de Grenoble and as an athlete that competed in France many years I feel your decision undermines French values. You are now making a tribunal against the innocent, an attitude I never experienced in France, a country my family and I love. Please reconsider this decision so that we can make plans to travel to the Alps and be part of Tour de France 2008.”
“With LetLeviRide.com I’m not disputing the ASO’s right to decide which teams it invites to the Tour and which teams it doesn’t. I'm drawing attention to the fact that this decision by the ASO is completely arbitrary and unjust. I had nothing to do with Astana prior to joining the team this year. There are many other teams with tainted pasts that haven’t changed management or structure like the new Astana has, yet Astana is singled out and excluded.”
“It’s a very unfortunate situation for not only our riders, but also the sport of cycling. Through these times we have felt an overwhelming amount of support and I am grateful to our sponsors and fans who continue to show their loyalty to the new Astana team. It appears that only a few powerful race organizers do not recognize that we are an entirely different team from 2007 and should be allowed to compete in the world’s biggest races.”
“Why should Astana be singled out? It is completely unjust. It is a collective punishment on riders who have absolutely no involvement in the Astana team of 2006 and the problems of 2006 and 2007. These riders are new to the team, there is a new management, and they have done everything in their power to put the right systems in place to ensure that the team is 100% correct.”
“Denying the Astana team a chance to race in the Tour and other races promoted by your organization has done more to hurt the credibility of the Tour than any doping incident. This is a team that should be rewarded for their efforts to clean up the sport. They have new management, new riders and new drug control protocols. What else do they need…a totally french team?
Moreover, who wants to watch a Tour de France with so many real contenders denied a chance to compete. Whoever wins will not have the respect that they may be entitled to because your organization handed them a second rate victory by banning so many real Tour contenders.”
“Please let the Astana team ride in the 2008 Tour de France. It doesn't make sense to bar this team after all the changes made. Please listen to the fans. If not for us, there wouldn't be a tour!”
“Please register my extreme discontent and anger at your organization's exclusion of Team Astana from ASO events this year. As a competitive cyclist myself, I am completely against doping in our sport and abhor the effect it's had on it. However, punishing a team with exclusion from the TdF, a team that has taken the steps that Astana has taken, only harms the sport even more. I hope you reconsider the exclusion and work with the UCI to present a predictable and consistent program of racing this year. Otherwise, you are just alienating an already disgusted public and effectively dooming our sport to obscurity.”
“The actions of ASO are completely unjust; the sport of cycling is being torn apart in the battle that the ASO is waging on the UCI, WADA using the riders, teams and sponsors as weapons. The sport will suffer irreparable damage if your actions continue. Support the biological passports, play your financial part in the new system and judge every team on the merits of the current team and management. Look to the internal anti-doping efforts and current drug testing infrastructure and controls within each team and the reputable scientists performing and designing the testing.
Do not let prejudice and paranoia get in the way of the best sporting event in the world. The 2008 Tour de France will be a sham if ASO continues its ridiculous stance and pursues it's own self interest at the expense of the sport, the governing bodies, the athletes, the support staff and most importantly the sponsors. Let Levi and Astana ride the Tour and all the ASO events, sit down with Johan and Dr. Damsgaard and get the data and re-assurances that you need and let sensibility prevail.”
“As a life-long Tour de France fan (if not fanatic), first while growing up in Belgium (the Anquetil, Merckx, and Hinault eras) and later after I moved to the USA (the Indurain and Armstrong eras), I am most dismayed at your organization's seemingly poorly justified if not outright biased decision to bar the Astana Team from this year's Tour de France.
I agree wholeheartedly that the years 2006-2008 will turn out to be the period that cycling as well as other sports will turn the corner in the fight against doping (and as a clinical scientist with over a decade of research in EPO, I am most aware of the misuse of this and other agents in sports). As a sports organizer, ASO certainly has the right to refuse access to some teams. However, in this decision process it is critical to assess teams as to their current status, not what they were before.”
“Your recent decision to deny Team Astana a spot in this year's TDF might be seen as punishing a team for doping and drug allegations in last year's tour. Perhaps rightly so, but that team as it was no longer exists. Your decision is not making an example of anything or to anyone. Your decision is an example of too little, too late. Instead it comes across as punishing a genuine attempt at reform. You could, if you chose to, reward these efforts. Set them as an example for others who are willing to advance a higher standard. Sadly, your decision only sends the message that there is no benefit to reform and continues to promote an environment that allows perpetrators to participate until they are caught, if they are caught at all. Banning a team whose standards are quite possible higher than any other team is not being proactive and will only further hurt the sport, but specifically the TDF, something it can no longer afford.”
“If you are going to ban Team Astana for its doping activities in 2007 there are several other teams that should feel identical sanctions. If you are not going to apply sanctions in a consistent way for all teams, then you should allow Team Astana to ride. They have put in place wholesale changes in their team in order to avoid the embarrasment of last year, and this is a course of action that ASO should want to encourage.”
“From my understanding Astana is a new team from the top down, and they are putting processes in place to keep their team clean and drug free. The only thing from last years team is the name of the team. How can you eliminate such a team? Everyone on the team is new. I could understand if there was a person or persons who was under investigation, but if there are any I have not heard or read anything about it. If the ASO is to be consistent then they would have to eliminate half of the other teams you have invited to the tour. For if you applied the same logic to your selection of teams, as you did in the case of Astana, you would possibly not have enough riders to have a competition.”
“I would urge you to look at all the Pro tour teams, their individual anti-doping programs and the riders they want to compete in the 2008 Tour de France. If their current controls and riders are suspect, the don't let the ride. However if those controls meet the standards or exceed the standards of other Pro tour teams, as Team Astana does, you should allow them in.”
“I am both saddened and amazed by your organization's actions. Why was the Astana Team barred from competing in your organization's cycling events, but several other teams that have had riders implicated in drug use, including the French team Cofidis, were not subject to the same harsh penalty?”
Background
On February 13th, the Amaury Sports Organization (ASO) barred Team Astana from competing in any race or event organized by the ASO in 2008. The ASO owns premiere cycling events like Paris-Nice, Paris-Roubaix, Paris-Tours, and the famed Tour de France.
The ASO cited the doping scandals of last year’s Tour de France as justification.
There can be no comparison between the Astana team of 2007 and the new Astana. The entire organizational structure has been rebuilt under the direction of the team’s new General Manager, Johan Bruyneel, who has thoroughly cleaned house. What’s more, Astana has adopted the rigorous doping controls developed by anti-doping expert Dr. Rasmus Damsgaard, and Astana now spends more money on anti-doping controls than any other team in the pro peloton.
“That the happenings of last year…prompted the Tour organizers to leave Astana out of the season’s most important race sounds understandable,” notes Bruyneel. “However, Astana Cycling Team 2008 has nothing to do with the team of last year. We have done everything to change the dynamics of the team. New management, new riders, new philosophy. Only the name of the sponsor remained.”
The ASO has turned a blind eye to Johan’s efforts. By barring the entire team from competing in ASO events, outstanding athletes like Levi Leipheimer, who was not a member of last year’s Astana team and who has never been implicated in any doping affair, are forced to sit on the sidelines while their life’s work passes them by.
“When I saw the Tour de France on TV when I was young,” laments Leipheimer, “I knew that someday I wanted to do that race. I sacrificed my life to participate. After finishing on the podium last year I want to do even better. Now I’m a victim of an illogical decision and have been excluded from the race.”
Be Heard
Help put Levi’s dreams back on track by signing the petition to Let Levi Ride. Petitions will be sent directly to Christian Prudhomme, Director of the ASO, as well as to VS, the official US media partner of the Tour de France.
