Team ASTANA has upped its offer to 2-time Tour de France champion Alberto Contador to dump all his suitors from an offered 4-million Euro/year to a jaw dropping, never before heard in the history of the sport – an 8-million/year, 4-year contract!!! Whoa! Multi-million dollar (or Euro) contracts has come a long way since Greg Lemond became the first cyclist to get a million dollar pay from team ZED back in 1990.
But why is ASTANA so keen in keeping the Spaniard for oodles of cash in these hard, economic times? For starters, the ASTANA has a reputation for being a team of dopers and a TdF champion in their roster would mean automatic qualification in any race.
Before the team had morphed to its current sponsor, ASTANA was once ONCE and then LIBERTY SEGUROS, two teams that had “doping” written all over it. The team’s laundry list includes at least 11 riders including Roberto Heras and Alexander Vinokourov. Team owner, Manolo Sainz, was implicated in Operation Puerto. After the embarrassing doping positives of Vinokourov and Andrei Kascheskin in the 2007 TdF, they hired Johan Bruyneel, the Belgian architect of Lance Armstrong’s 7 TdF wins, to show that they were serious about leaving their bad rep behind.
While Bruyneel succeeded a bit in presenting itself as a team serious in the fight against doping, they were denied the 2008 TdF. Then, the entry of LA back last year into the team created huge cracks between him and Alberto Contador. After the TdF, LA left ASTANA, taking with him the teams’ marquee support riders. Bruyneel then extricated himself from his contract with the team to join LA with his new team, RADIO SHACK.
This has left Contador, who has a 1-contract left with ASTANA, high and dry before the 2010 season. But then ASTANA gave Contador some room to wiggle out, when they failed to submit pertinent documents to the UCI on time. This put Contador in the middle of a tug-of-war between teams ASTANA, GARMIN, QUICKSTEP, CAISSE D’EPARGNE and lately, SILENCE-LOTTO.
To muddle things up, Vinokourov (and maybe Kascheskin) is back with the team, unremorseful as ever, even claiming that ASTANA was his baby from the start. This has put Contador in a bind. Surely, the other teams could not even give him half of what ASTANA is putting on the table, yet, he just can’t take a risk and ride for a team so toxic that their entry in the 2010 TdF might be denied.
Contador has 2 options: fulfill the final year of his contract in a bad team for more money or go to another team with good support for less money. Contador has two additional conditions if ASTANA really want him: that he can get out of his contract if there is a doping case in the team and the exclusion of Vinokourov in the Tour de France.
Contador had put ASTANA on the spot with his condition but now, the spotlight is on him. It would be interesting to see who’d blink first.
RACE RESULTS NOV 14, 2009 MANDAUE RECLAMATION AREA
CAT B 1- ORLAN TORING, 2- RONALD ALCONERA, 3- JPAG PAGNANAWON, 4- BOY PAGNANAWON, 5- ART LAMBO, 6- OME RODRIGUEZ
CAT C- 1- JV ARANETA, 2-HEIDE ESMALIN, 3- DEDENG JALUAG, 4- DODONG ALONZO, 5- JAIME NOYNAY, 6- BOGART DE LA ROSA, 7- TYRE LAMBO
Finally, I’d like to wish our good friend Rex Tan, who broke his clavicle after colliding with a motorbike while he was out training last week, a get well soon message……Edwin Mansueto, Thank You!!!......thanks to FACEBOOK, I finally got to exchange emails with classmates I haven’t heard of since 1987: Dr. Allessandra Desabelle, Dr. Ruth Rabor-Macawayan and Cheryl Senoron-Henderson. - THE FREEMAN