GENEVA (AP) β International Cycling Union President Brain Cookson says the Astana team keeping top-tier status in 2015 does not mean the sport will revert to its old doping ways.
Astana, which includes Tour de France winner Vincenzo Nibali, will keep its World Tier license despite five senior and development squad riders being caught doping since August.
Cookson insists to the Associated Press that “it can’t carry on, it won’t, and it isn’t going to.”
Still, many cycling commentators and fans called Wednesday’s decision a step back, two years after the Lance Armstrong case.
Cookson says the UCI licensing panel imposed strict probation terms and awaits an Italian prosecutor’s file of alleged Astana links to Armstrong’s banned doctor Michele Ferrari.
The UCI leader says: “This is not the end of the story here.”
