Predictor-Lotto to Sue Astana!

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yello

Guest
Predictor-Lotto had better be bloody sure that that's not a glasshouse they are throwing stones from.
 

monnet

Guru
Great stuff. We have a sport sullied by drugs and now it's about to be sullied even further by lawsuits.

I might sue chris for putting up this thread before I thought of it.
 
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chris42

chris42

New Member
Location
Deal, Kent
monnet said:
Great stuff. We have a sport sullied by drugs and now it's about to be sullied even further by lawsuits.

I might sue chris for putting up this thread before I thought of it.

Ok I'll sue you for not telling me you were going to read this post. :thumbsup:
 

Blonde

New Member
Location
Bury, Lancashire
Aw, you are so innocent in the ways of the world Two Sheds! It won't make any difference to whether or not riders dope. It is endemic in the sport and part of the culture. It all comes down to money. IMO teams only really about it when riders get caught and make the sponsors pull out.
 
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chris42

chris42

New Member
Location
Deal, Kent
ajevans said:
Could anyone cut and paste the article in here please?

I'm coming up with a 403 error for some reason with cyclingnews.

Predictor-Lotto to sue Vino and Astana
By Paul Verkuylen

The Predictor-Lotto ProTour team is planning on filing a claim against Alexandre Vinokourov and his Astana team for loss of publicity. The Kazakh rider won the Stage 13 time trial before testing positive for blood doping, taking away victory from Predictor-Lotto's Cadel Evans who finished second on the stage and currently holds second on general classification. If Vinokourov is found guilty and disqualified from the race, Evans will be declared the winner of the stage, however will obviously have missed the publicity benefits associated with a stage victory in the prestigious race.

Speaking on Belgian TV, Predictor-Lotto's spokesperson Filip Demyttenaere was clearly disappointed with recent events at the Grand Tour. "I am surprised everyday," he confessed. "The Astana scandal dropped like a bomb, I don't understand it and I don't know what to say."

"My biggest frustration is for the sponsors, we came he to get as much publicity as possible for the team," he added. "Cadel was second on the time trial stage, but now it appears that he should have won, as Vinokourov cheated. But Cadel didn't get to stand on the podium as the winner of the stage, which means we lost a lot of publicity that would have been generated by his win."

The team is reportedly planning on suing the Kazakh and his team for 10 million Euros. "The day after the time trial the front pages of all the papers were covered with images and headlines of Vinokourov, we missed out on that publicity," explained Demyttenaere. "Yesterday [the rest day] it was the same at the press conference, instead of the journalists coming to see us, they all went to write about the positive dope test. Again today the papers are full of images and stories on Astana. We do our best and yeah, it's frustrating."

Demyttenaere went onto to explain that he feels because of Vinokourov the rest of the Tour has been falsified. "We don't know how the following stages would have been ridden, they may have been less aggressive," he said.

"We have missed a lot of publicity because of this, and that is worth a lot of money," Demyttenaere reiterated, adding that the team is at fault just as much as the rider. "Vinokourov didn't do it alone, he is surrounded by people helping him to dope, you can't possibly do that kind of thing alone."

Demyttenaere said he had also spoken with Patrick Lefevere, claiming the director of Quick.Step said he also thought about taking action. "Teams like Astana win by using un ethical means, taking all the publicity that belong to the clean riders and teams. We can't let that go by," he concluded.
 

gillan

New Member
Location
Glasgow
yup

its the onjly way that these punters will realise that the tide has turned is when they are shunned by fellow competitors, sacked by their team and sued by competitor teams

after all post festina....ex-dopers are all but welcomed back with open arms

perhaps if Millar had been sued, Hamilton, all the festina team, Ullrich and Basso we might have a bit more reluctance from current riders to dope

here's hoping they win

then we can see shots of vino cleaning a hick railway station in kazahkstan as a salutory reminder to other riders the pitfalls of doping
 

ajevans

New Member
Location
Birmingham
Thanks for pasting it in.

It's a pity I don't do expert witness accountancy anymore or I could have got the job of calculating the damages! Would have asked nicely for a signed Ridley tour bike if they were happy with my work!

I think this will be a very difficult case to quantify. It is easy to show you lost publicity, however it will be difficult to show the real value of that publicity. I think 10 million euros is a complete stab in the dark.

One method would be to calculate the cost of the column inches in every paper Vino appeared on after that stage. However you could argue that Cadel wouldn't have got as much coverage as he's not as big a personality, plus what value is publicity in a country where you don't sell your products?
 

Tim Bennet.

Entirely Average Member
Location
S of Kendal
I agree, I think the case is provable. Teams provide sponsors with constant feedback on how many column incles / minutes of airtime they get, and a simple comparison between the coverage Evans got with Vino's coverage will show the defecit.

And sueing is a brilliant way to keep the pressure up on these dopers. A team that is established by one man, to essentially support one man, can't claim 'they didn't know' what was going on. They could fall back on their traditional alibi and claim 'they were only following orders', but hitting the bank account which pays the salaries of all those who helped or collaborated with Vino is surely worthwhile.

Unfortunately, this will not be the end of sport being exploited for crass nationalistic jingoism. We have the Beijing Olympics to look forward to yet. I think they are going to make Berlin in 36 look subtle. A key part will to be for the world to see quite how 'good' Chinese athletes are. And if their 'suport staff' confuse who's blood bag is who's, it will be more 'bullet in the back of the head' rather than a 'day in court' for them.
 
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