According to L’Equipe this morning, the UCI have asked it’s Licence Commission to review the Astana team’s case and revoke its World Tour license.

This follows on from an audit conducted by the Institute of Sport and Science University of Lausanne (ISSUL), which shows that the Kazakh team is not sufficiently organised, and not doing enough to prevent various doping cases.

In September last year, it emerged that Valentin Iglinskiy had returned a positive test for EPO at the Eneco Tour, he confessed to doping to the team and was immediately sacked, three weeks later Valentin’s brother, Maxim Iglinskiy was provisionally suspended by the UCI for an EPO-positive on August 1.

Subsequently a sample taken at the Tour de l’Avenir in August from Ilya Davidenok, a rider with the Astana Continental Team and a stagiaire with the Astana Pro Team, tested positive for anabolic steroids. Davidenok was provisionally suspended, and a review into the team’s licence was announced following the positive tests for Davidenok and the Iglinskiy brothers

This decision could result in the winner of last year’s Tour de France, Vincenzo Nibali, being unable to start this year’s race. Other big name riders on the team include Fabio Aru, Lars Boom, Luis Leon Sanchez, Dario Cataldo, Rein Taaramae, Jakob Fuglsang, Michele Scarponi and Lieuwe Westra.

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