Any decision on the future of the Astana team has been put back to Friday April 24, according to a report in Gazzetta dello Sport. This means the team will be able to continue racing in the intervening period.
The Italian newspaper claims that the UCI Licence Commission hearing lasted nine hours with Pierre Zappelli, the president of the Licence Commission, deciding to give the Kazakh team time to prepare further documentation and evidence.
The UCI issued a brief statement on Thursday night, confirming that representatives of the UCI, the Institute of Sport Sciences of the University of Lausanne (ISSUL) and the Astana team appeared before the Licence Commission, although he refused to make any further comment on the matter “as the proceeding is pending”.
ADVERTISEMENT
The Astana team also agreed not to comment on the case, only saying, “Further information has been requested and we are preparing it.”
Gazzetta dello Sport suggests that the nine-hour hearing was tense, with the UCI and experts from the Sport Sciences department of the University of Lausanne (ISSUL) insisting the team deserves to lose its WorldTour licence, with Astana team manager Alexandre Vinokourov, directeur sportif Dimitriy Fofonov and chief doctor Joost De Maeseneer defending their position.
Gazzetta dello Sport describes it as a "very important political-sporting case,” suggesting that the UCI is divided, with Italian Cycling Federation president Renato Di Rocco and Russian Federation president Igor Makarov (both are members of the UCI Management Committee) openly on Astana’s side. The Italian sports newspaper suggests that the decision not to give an immediate verdict is a sign that Zappelli wants to “demonstrate the independence of the UCI Licence Commission and does not want to accept an already prepared package of accusations and documents”
You can read more at Cyclingnews.com
via Cyclingnews Latest News http://ift.tt/1Hua88k
No comments:
Post a Comment