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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. 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. 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.
Or is it?
A 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.
But 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. 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.
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. 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. Bruyneel brought a core of riders from his old outfit, including 2007 Tour winner Alberto Contador, and quickly asserted control.
Of course, when Armstrong himself returned to the sport in 2009, there was little doubt which director he would ride with. The question, of course, was where Astana would go once Vino returned, and how all the alpha males on the team would get along.
Not well, it appeared. “It’s my team,” Vinokourov defiantly said at the presser. “And if Johan has a problem with me it is up to him to leave the team, not me.”
It was not bluster; at Vino’s side sat Nikolai Proskurin, vice president of the Kazakh Cycling Federation, who added that Vino’s return was a sure thing. “It is the wish of the sponsors,” he added. Bruyneel skipped the affair, but Philippe Maertens, then the team’s press officer, leaned against a wall, frowning as he scribbled in a notebook.
Vino’s pronouncement was, of course, correct. He’d essentially created Astana, after all, when its former iteration as Liberty Seguros-Wurth burned up in 2006’s Operacion Puerto scandal. Vino brought the new sponsors and management, and he brought the results, like his 2006 Vuelta España win after the team was prevented from riding in the Tour de France. By the end of that turbulent 2009 season, Bruyneel and Armstrong were off to their new, short-lived RadioShack team, and Astana was firmly back in Vino’s hands.
As a rider, Vino animated the sport in unpredictable ways. He attacked on the last descent of the Alps in the 2003 Tour, forcing the desperate chase that led to Joseba Beloki’s unforgettable crash and Armstrong’s cyclocross shortcut. He jumped clear of the field on the Champs Elysees in 2005—the last time the final Tour stage saw a successful breakaway—and gained bonus seconds that bumped him past American Levi Leipheimer to fifth place overall. And it was Vinokourov who almost singlehandedly upset the powerhouse British team on home soil to win the London Olympic road race in one of his final races.
Rarely was he or the team without controversy: doping scandals galore; rumors of race victories bought; his and the team’s relationship with Michele Ferrari, the most infamous trainer in the sport. But every time, cycling’s own supervillain survived, reminding the sport, “I am inevitable.”
Now, in a seeming Thanos snap, he’s gone. Astana has had rumbles this season, with several high-ranked staffers departing. Dmitry Sedun, a now-former assistant director, grumbles that the changes are due to the entrance of Canadian investors, via new co-title sponsor Premier Tech and sports director Bauer. If that’s the case, then the push for change may also come from Yana Seel, the 36-year-old Kazakh management professional brought in during the 2018 season as Managing Director. A cycling outsider—not to mention one of the only women in high-ranking positions in the sport—Seel is reportedly responsible for bringing in Premier Tech this season on a three-year deal.
Sedun’s sour grapes complaints about the Canadians may be too simplistic. The team (and Kazakhstan) was badly hit in the pandemic and slashed salaries, but Astana is still the lead “sponsor”—actually a consortium of Kazakh companies; Astana is the country’s Capitol. The kits are still the sky blue and yellow of the national flag. We may see Premier Tech-Astana renamed next year, but as long as the team remains tightly tied to national identity, I think the only thing that would ever fully force Vino out would be if he’s finally worn out his welcome with his long-running benefactors. It may be weeks or months before we know that. In the meantime, he is doubtless plotting his return.
At that cramped, uncomfortable press conference in Monaco over a decade ago, Vinokourov entered the room dressed casually in track pants and a t-shirt with a bizarre, airbrushed graphic of himself on a bicycle, in an Astana kit, attacking with his teeth bared in his trademark snarl. He’d later put it on a cycling jersey, and launch a development team under its banner. It’s still around, as Vino-Astana Motors (another sign of his deep ties in Kazakh cycling). But the project’s original name tells you all you need to know about his self-regard, and his survivalist abilities: Vino4Ever.
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