Alexander Nikolayevich Vinokurov

Alexander Vinokurov

Alexander Vinokurov at the 2012 Tour de France
To person
Nickname	Wino
Date of birth	16th September 1973 (age 46)
nation	Kazakhstan
discipline	Street
height	1.77 m
Racing weight	68 kg
To the team
Current team	Astana
function	Team manager
doping
2007	Foreign blood doping
Team (s)
1998–1999 2000–2005 2006–2007, 2009–2012	Casino Telekom Astana
Most important successes
Grands Tours Vuelta a España 2006 Olympic games Road race 2000 Road race 2012 World championships Time trial 2004 , 2006
Last updated: February 10, 2020

Alexander Nikolajewitsch Vinokurow ( Russian Александр Николаевич Винокуров , mostly Alexandre Vinokourov , born September 16, 1973 in the village of Bishkul , Kazakh SSR ) is a former Kazakh racing cyclist . His greatest success was the 2012 Olympic victory in the individual road race in London . Immediately afterwards he announced the end of his sporting career and became manager of the Astana Pro Team . Today Vinokurov is active in triathlon .

Career

Way into cycling

Alexander Vinokurow grew up in his native Bishkul near Petropavlovsk ; his father was an electrician, his mother a housewife. His family had no sporting ambitions, but Vinokurov caught the eye early on for his ambition. From the fifth grade he attended the children's and youth sports school in Petropavl and began cycling at the age of eleven. In 1986 he won a race attended by students from all over Kazakhstan, even though he was the smallest and youngest in the field. After graduating from school, he attended the Petropavl Pedagogical College and studied sports and biology. In 1997, after getting married, he moved to Saint-Étienne in France .

First professional years

In 1998, Alexander Vinokourov became a professional cyclist with the French cycling team Casino . In the same year he was among other things the overall winner of the Four Days of Dunkirk . After a successful 1999 season - Vinokurow won the Dauphiné Libéré stage race , among other things - he moved to the German Telekom team . At the Olympic Games in Sydney in 2000 , he was second in the road race behind Jan Ullrich . In the 2001 season he won the Germany Tour and in 2002 Paris – Nice . In the Tour de Suisse 2002 , he won the stage to Samnaun .

In March 2003 Vinokurow won again Paris – Nice ; He dedicated his victory to his compatriot and friend Andrei Kiwiljow , who had a fatal accident in the same race. In May, he won the World Cup race Amstel Gold Race and in June, the Tour de Suisse . He crowned this achievement in July with third place in the Tour de France , a stage win and the award as the most combative driver .

At the Tour de Suisse 2004 , Vinokourov fell and had to cancel the Tour de France . He only got back into shape in autumn, won the Regio Tour and took bronze in the time trial of the road world championship .

In April 2005 he won the classic Liège – Bastogne – Liège ahead of his fellow escort Jens Voigt . On June 26th he became a Kazakh road master. At the Tour de France 2005 he won the eleventh stage from Courchevel to Briançon on July 13 and the final stage to Paris . In the overall standings, he was fifth, two places behind the later disqualified team captain Jan Ullrich (which subsequently moved Vinokourov to fourth place).

Doping scandals and Vuelta victory

During the 2005 Tour de France, Vinokourov announced that he would be leaving the T-Mobile team. With his new team Liberty Seguros-Würth he hoped to win the Tour in the following years.

In May 2006, the Once team was involved in the Fuentes doping scandal . The main sponsor, Liberty Seguros, ended his engagement immediately and he was threatened with exclusion from the Tour de France. Vinokurov then contacted the Prime Minister of Kazakhstan and managed to get a consortium of five commercial companies to become the new main sponsor. A few days later, the tour management asked the team to voluntarily refrain from starting because of the involvement in the doping scandal, but the team management refused, and the tour management went to the international sports court, but could not enforce an evacuation from Astana due to lack of evidence .

One day before the tour, the Spanish police published a list of all suspects in the doping scandal, including five out of nine drivers on the Astana tour squad. The sporting directors of all teams agreed that all drivers on the doping list were excluded from the tour and that no substitute drivers could be nominated. As a result, the Astana tour squad consisted of only four drivers, and the team was no longer eligible to compete, as at least six drivers were required.

Vinokurow then wanted to take over the then operating company of the Astana Active Bay team from the previous owners Pablo Anton and Manolo Saiz together with the Kazakh consortium Astana . As team boss from 2007 he wanted to win the former Vuelta-a-España winner Tony Rominger and had already brought the former team boss of T-Mobile, Walter Godefroot , into the team as an advisor to the sports management. Vinokurov himself wanted to join the team in 2008 as a sports director .

Vinokurov's first start after being excluded from the tour was on the 2006 Deutschland Tour . At the Vuelta a España in the same year, he won the eighth stage from Ponferrada to Lugo with a successful breakaway attempt shortly before the finish .

Already on the seventh stage, a mountain finish in Alto de El Morredero, he had attempted to break away 1,500 meters from the finish, but was set by Alejandro Valverde and ultimately only finished sixth. After winning just eight seconds over the overall leader Valverde in the time trial of the ninth stage, despite a stage victory, and having repelled an attempt to attack the Calar Alto observatory in Valverde on stage 16, Vinokurow succeeded in the penultimate mountain stage the next day, and Valverde more To distance nine seconds and take the lead in the overall standings. On the following 18th stage, the last mountain stage, he was able to extend his lead to 52 seconds. On the day after that, on his 33rd birthday, he won the final time trial and secured overall victory.

At the road world championships in 2006 Vinokurow won his second bronze medal at a world championship with third place in the individual time trial. In October 2006, Vinokurov was honored by the Kazakh state for his services to cycling. Prime Minister Danial Akhmetov presented Vinokurov as the first athlete ever to be awarded the medal “For Services to the Fatherland”.

Before the start of the 2007 Tour de France , Vinokourov was the favorite to win this tour. However, due to a fall during the 5th stage , he was initially unable to meet these expectations. On July 24, 2007 it was announced that he had tested positive for blood doping when he won the individual time trial of the 13th stage and three days later on the 15th stage . This was not about autologous blood doping, which was often mentioned in the Fuentes doping scandal , but about foreign blood doping. Even if Vinokourov had denied any doping up to this point (“That's not my way of cycling”), his Astana team initially suspended him and ended the contractual relationship after the results of the B-sample were announced. The foreign blood doping detected in Vinokourov's A and B samples is on the list of prohibited methods of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA).

On December 7, 2007, Alexander Vinokurov announced his retirement from cycling after he was banned for a year due to the doping incidents in the Tour de France. The fact that the Kazakh association only banned Vinokurov for one year, while in comparable cases a minimum bans of two years had been imposed, was sharply criticized by the UCI.

Comeback, Olympic victory and change to team management

At a press conference before the start of the Tour de France 2009 , Vinokourov announced his comeback. He announced that he would compete in the Vuelta a España (29 Aug - 20 Sep) and that he had also planned a start at the Road World Championships in Mendrisio (23 to 27 September). On August 4, he competed in the criterion in Castillon-la-Bataille, southern France, his first race since his tour exclusion on July 24, 2007. As a member of the Kazakh national team, he took part in the four-day Tour de l'Ain in France in August . He won the third stage, an individual time trial, and thus secured his first victory after his comeback.

On April 25, 2010 Vinokurow won the classic Liège – Bastogne – Liège . As a result, he was accused of having bought the victory from runner-up Alexander Kolobnew , with whom he ran away together, for 150,000 euros. Exchange emails and transfers should serve as evidence. The prosecution brought charges, demanding six months' imprisonment and heavy fines; However, both defendants were acquitted by a Liège court for lack of evidence. At the subsequent Tour de France 2010 , Vinokourov finished 15th in the overall standings.

On the 9th stage of the Tour de France 2011 , he broke his thigh in a serious fall and was forced to end the tour early. He then said goodbye to active cycling on July 17th.

On September 22, 2011 Vinokurov announced his resignation from his resignation. Initially, only a single race at the Chrono des Nations was planned as the last race, but it also competed for Team Astana in 2012.

On July 28, 2012, Vinokourov won the gold medal at the road bike race of the 30th Summer Olympics in London and immediately afterwards declared his final retirement from active cycling. He then became General Manager of the Astana Pro Team .

In the course of the doping investigation by the public prosecutor of Padua , Vinokurov was suspected at the end of 2014 of having been a customer of the controversial sports medicine specialist Michele Ferrari as a driver . In particular, he is also accused of having signed a contract with Ferrari as a driver in 2010 to look after at least ten Astana drivers.

In December 2017, it became known that Vinokurov would have to answer the Russian driver Alexander Kolobnew in a court in Belgium from March 2018 . He is accused by the public prosecutor of having bought victory in the Liège – Bastogne – Liège race in 2010 for 150,000 euros from Kolobnew. Vinokurov had defeated Kolobnev in this race. During the investigation into the Michele Ferrari affair, transfers from Vinokurov's account to Kolobnev's were noticed. In November 2019, Vinokurov and Kolobnew were acquitted of the fraud allegations by a court in Liège, Belgium.

Triathlon since 2016

In July 2016 he started in the triathlon at Ironman 70.3 Budapest on the middle distance (1.9 km swimming, 90 km cycling and 21.1 km running).
In September 2019, the then 45-year-old became triathlon world champion of the age group (amateur athletes) in the M45-49 age group in Nice. He has also been the record holder of the 45-49 age group at the Ironman Hawaii (Ironman World Championships) since 2019 .

Private

Vinokurov has a daughter and two sons with his wife. The family lives in Monaco (as of 2012).

Sporting successes

1998 Overall standings Four days from Dunkirk Overall standings and one stage Circuit de Lorraine a stage Tour de Pologne Overall ranking and a stage Tour de Picardie 1999 Overall classification of the Tour of Valencia Overall ranking Dauphiné Libéré 2000 Olympic Games - Road Racing a stage Vuelta a España 2001 Overall ranking Germany Tour 2002 Overall ranking Paris – Nice 2003 Overall ranking Paris – Nice Amstel Gold Race Overall ranking Tour de Suisse a stage and the most combative driver Tour de France 2004 World Championship - Time Trial three stages Paris-Nice

2005 Liège – Bastogne – Liège Kazakh champion - road race two stages Tour de France 2006 Overall ranking and a stage Vuelta a Castilla y León Overall ranking, three stages and combined ranking Vuelta a España World Championship - Time Trial 2007 two stages of the Dauphiné Libéré 2009 a stage Tour de l'Ain Asian champions - individual time trial Chrono des Nations 2010 Overall ranking and one stage of the Giro del Trentino Liège – Bastogne – Liège a stage Tour de France 2011 one stage tour of the Basque Country a stage Tour de Romandie 2012 Olympic Games - Road Racing

Grand Tour placements

Grand Tour	1999	2000	2001	2002	2003	2004	2005	2006	2007	2008	2009	2010	2011	2012
Giro d'Italia	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	6th	-	-
Tour de France	35	15th	16	-	3	-	5	-	DSQ	-	-	15th	DNF	31
Vuelta a España	-	28	-	DNF	-	DNF	-	1	-	-	DNF	-	-	-

Legend: DNF: did not finish , abandoned or withdrawn from the race due to timeout. DSQ: disqualification.

Triathlon

Web links

Commons : Alexander Vinokurow  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

• Alexander Nikolajewitsch Vinokurow in the database of Radsportseiten.net
• Alexander Nikolajewitsch Vinokurow in the database of Sports-Reference (English; archived from the original )
• Alexander Nikolajewitsch Vinokurow in the Tour de France database(French / English )

Individual evidence

1. ^ Vino's Parents Recall His Childhood. Astana Cycling Team Fan Club, September 25, 2011, accessed November 17, 2014 . 
2. ^ Wheel: Vinokourov wins Paris-Nice. news.ch, March 16, 2002, accessed on November 16, 2014 . 
3. ↑ Vinokourov has to copy Tour. Handelsblatt, June 14, 2004, accessed November 16, 2014 . 
4. ↑ Vinokourov wants the tour victory. ntv, July 26, 2005, accessed November 16, 2014 . 
5. ↑ Annette Jacobs: Dr. Fuentes' strange views. Stern , July 7, 2006, accessed November 16, 2014 . 
6. ↑ radsport-news.com of November 23, 2012: Will Astana join the movement for credible cycling?
7. ↑ cyclingnews.com from June 3, 2006: Sáiz's team becomes Astana-Würth
8. ↑ Jaksche and Wino are allowed to tour. radsport-news.com, June 22, 2006, accessed November 16, 2014 . 
9. ↑ Vinokourov is not allowed to start. radsport-news.com, June 30, 2006, accessed November 16, 2014 . 
10. ↑ Dominik Jozic: Godefroot returns to cycling. Handelsblatt , July 21, 2006, accessed on November 16, 2014 . 
11. ^ Vuelta: Vinokourov wins the 8th stage. Hamburger Morgenpost , September 2, 2006, accessed on November 16, 2014 . 
12. ↑ Vinokourov receives high Kazakh medal. radsport-news.com, October 18, 2006, accessed November 16, 2014 . 
13. ↑ Vinokurow tour favorite among English bookmakers. radsport-news.com, June 5, 1007, accessed November 16, 2014 . 
14. ↑ spiegel.de of July 24, 2007: Blood doping in Vinokurow - Astana gets out
15. ↑ spiegel.de of July 25, 2007: Second blood doping finding against Vinokurow
16. ^ Vinokourov resigns. radsport-news.com, December 7, 2007, accessed November 16, 2014 . 
17. ↑ on radsport-news.com from August 6, 2009: Vinokurow starts at Tour de l "Ain
18. ↑ from December 5, 2013: Vinokurow goes on the offensive in the bribery affair
19. ↑ Vinokurov and Kolobnew acquitted of allegations of bribery. In: radsport-news.com. November 5, 2019, accessed November 5, 2019 . 
20. ↑ Diary of the stage on letour.fr of July 10, 2011 ( Memento of July 13, 2011 in the Internet Archive )
21. ↑ Professional cyclist Vinokurow ends his career on kurier.at , accessed on July 17, 2011
22. ↑ radsport-news.com of September 22, 2011: Vinokurow continues
23. ↑ rp-online.de of July 28, 2012: Vinokurow wins and resigns
24. ↑ Vinokurow becomes team manager of Astana on radsport-news.com v. October 7, 2012
25. ^ Gazetta dello Sport: Systematic doping in Astana. radsport-news.com, December 10, 2014, accessed December 11, 2014 . 
26. ↑ Vinokourov, Kolobnev to face corruption trial in March. In: Cycling News. December 19, 2017, accessed December 19, 2017 . 
27. ↑ acquitted - despite emails and transfers (November 6, 2019)
28. ↑ Karim Massimo arrived in Hungary to support Kazakhstani team at IronMan triathlon competition (July 30, 2016)
29. ↑ Alexander Vinokurov resigns for the third time. news.ch, July 28, 2012, accessed on November 17, 2014 . 
30. ↑ DREITZ DISCHARGED FROM HOSPITAL - SCHEIRING WORLD CHAMPION (September 8, 2018)