New UCI president David Lappartient continued to stir up controversy with his opinions about professional cycling, adding the desire to exclude former dopers from the sport to his desire to ban race radios and reduce teams in Grand Tours even further.
In an interview in the print edition of the Luxemburger Wort, Lappartient suggested he would not welcome Bjarne Riis - who together with Danish business partner Lars Seier aim to bring Team Virtu Cycling to the WorldTour - back to the top level of cycling.
"Former dopers have no place in the sport of cycling. To say anything else is hypocritical. All cyclists must stand for one goal: Cycling must be credible, otherwise everything is lost," Lappartient told Luxembourger Wort, using Riis as an example.
ADVERTISEMENT
Although Lappartient acknowledged that he has little recourse under the rules to exclude riders who have served their bans from returning to the sport either as riders or in the team cars, he contends that the sport would be better off without men like Riis and Astana manager Alexander Vinokourov.
"There are riders who doped themselves in their era and who are not welcome in the current cycling environment. They have inflicted immense damage on sport and have to live with the consequences," Lappartient said.
In 2011, the UCI introduced rules restricting licences to team staff who have had doping infractions within the past five years that resulted in bans of two years or more than one doping case (1.1.006bis). But efforts to put more restrictive rules into place have run up against legal issues.
You can read more at Cyclingnews.com
via Cyclingnews Latest News http://ift.tt/2AF6cEq
No comments:
Post a Comment