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Astana May Return To The Tour, Teams Access To The World Association

Organisers and ProTour teams are agreed: The controversial racing team Astana will again next year in the Tour de France. The professional teams are in violation of the UCI World Federation, threatening to return their license.

Tarbes - "All 18 ProTour teams may be guaranteed in the next three years with the three major tours start", said Milram team boss Gerry van Gerwen rest day on the Tour de France Tarbes in southern France. This is what the teams and the three organisers of the Tour de France, Giro d'Italia and the Vuelta in Spain on 30 June agreed.

REUTERS
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This also means that the Kazakh team Astana again in the future in the Tour of France to be. This year, Tour organizers Aso the team to last year's winner Alberto Contador and the German Andreas Kloden unloaded. Why were the doping scandals of the previous year, as Astana of the Tour de France had to leave and Captain Alexander Vinokourov positive for blood doping had been tested.
Contador is also under suspicion of doping customer doctor Eufemiano Fuentes to have been. Before the 2007 Tour was already Astana professional Matthias Kessler has been convicted of doping, after the end of the race Kasache Andrei Katschtschkin. Actually wanted to Aso end of the year wait to have a new Astana participation to decide.

But the organisers and racing teams wanted in the longer simmering dispute with the World Federation UCI apparently already common position - and rely on pressure. "The ProTour teams have informed the UCI that they license for 2009 does not benefit from, if not much changes," said Gerolsteiner team manager Hans-Michael Holczer after the meeting the team leader at the Tour rest day in Pau in conversation with Online Newspaper ONLINE. It had become apparent that the UCI ProTour race series with the performances of the teams and sponsors "under one roof" to bring. Details about the exact issues he is not known.

For Holczers colleague Jonathan Vaughters is the decision "a sign of the UCI. But nobody wants a whole new racing series, UCI ProTour teams and should not break apart" - as the head of Garmin Chipotle team Online Newspaper ONLINE. The team of U.S. American does not belong to the 17 ProTour teams in the Tour of France, Vaughters is growing at the meetings of the chiefs of the ProTour teams.
addition to the 17 on the Tour started ProTour team Astana will also support the decision, such as team spokesman Philippe Maertens the news agency Reuters confirmed: "If any other station, I can not imagine that Astana is doing something else."
UCI President Pat McQuid threatened in a first reaction of the "outs" with consequences. "These teams have to reckon that they are excluded from us," said the Irishman.
With the planned withdrawal of the teams, the UCI the fight with the organisers of the three major tours Tour, Giro and Vuelta to sovereignty in professional road cycling only lost once. The ProTour was founded in 2005. In its nearly 30 races originally were all top teams to start. 2008 series includes only 15 races, after organisers of the Tour, Giro and Vuelta, not only with the ausstiegen tours, but also with their one-day classics such as Milan-San Remo, Paris-Roubaix and Liege-Bastogne-Liege. Then the UCI had already several times with an exclusion of those teams threatened, but in these races.
German ProTour races this year are still the Hamburg Cyclassics and the Germany tour. According to Holczer, the intention was to seek a new series, in whose development the UCI should be involved: "We need the next World Federation, but our interests have given more consideration."

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