A search for Dmitriy Fofonov's name on Google brings up a series of headlines gravely announcing his positive test for the stimulant heptimanol during the 2008 Tour de France, and so when the Kazakhstani was named as Astana's new team manager earlier this month, it seemed a curious appointment for an outfit that has spent much of the past year trying to rehabilitate a rather toxic reputation.
Yet in a very roundabout way, that episode would ultimately lead to Fofonov's elevation with the Astana management structure. When the team was beset by a spate of positive tests in the Autumn of 2014, it was Fofonov, a relatively junior directeur sportif, who was delegated to make Astana's case at the Movement for Credible Cycling's annual meeting in Paris.
That was partly due to his command of French and his rapport with MPCC president Roger Legeay, his manager at Credit Agricole at that 2008 Tour, but also, an Astana source explained, because Fofonov had some prior experience in this field. He had, after all, managed to secure a reduced ban of three months for his own positive test by successfully arguing that he had ingested the stimulant inadvertently while taking a supplement to alleviate cramp, and was back in the saddle by the spring of 2009.
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"It's the past and I can't do anything about it now," Fofonov tells Cyclingnews of the 2008 case. "Even so, it's now six years since I won my case and showed that the doctor committed the error. But look, I can't go back and search for excuses. I know there will be people who will say 'Ah, he's got a past, he's had a positive test' but I know that I have nothing to reproach myself for."
Now 39, Fofonov was part of the first wave of Kazakhstani riders to arrive in France as amateurs in the late 1990s, a generation led by Alexandre Vinokourov and the late Andrey Kivilev. Indeed, Fofonov raced alongside Kivilev at Cofidis early in his career, and then hung up his wheels at Astana the same time as his old friend Vinokourov at the end of 2012.
When Vinokourov took over as Astana general manager that winter, Fofonov was appointed a directeur sportif, but it wasn't until the team's WorldTour status was cast into doubt last winter that he was handed a more public role. After serving as emissary to the MPCC, Fofonov was designated as Astana's point man when the UCI Licence Commission decreed that the team would undergo an audit by the Institute of Sport Sciences of the University of Lausanne (ISSUL).
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