Hurray! I can dust off my Astana kit and pretend I'm Vino again.

P.s. I see that in the photo accompanying this story Bruyneel is holding up eight fingers. I feel that two would be rather more appropriate...

Hmmm, so on the one hand we have Astana, a team which has had multiple riders caught red-handed blood doping. (Not evidence of systematic doping within the team they say, but given the logistical and medical support needed to implement a blood doping program this is a claim which I find hard to believe).

On the other hand we have Bruyneel, a director sportif who has managed to evade any major doping 'busts', even though a wide range of team 'insiders', including riders, have alleged that systematic doping was the norm within his teams. As is widely known, there is reason to believe that, under Bruyneel, a sophisticated blood doping regime was developed within Discovery involving the re-injection of "800 ml of packed cells" at key points during the Tour de France, a process which, given that it used the rider's own blood, was effectively undetectable. Even when direct evidence of the use of performance-enhancing substances came to light, as with the 'Actovegin' incident and Armstrong's positive test for steroid use, under Bruyneel's guidance 'Team Teflon' were able to find a way to evade censure. For example, by the use of an (allegedly) pre-dated Therapeutic Exemption Certificate, which was accepted by the UCI even though Armstrong himself apparently stated very shortly before his positive test that he used no products which required such a certificate. (For some interesting insights into the allegations of doping within Bruyneel's 'Disco' team, look up the interviews with David Walsh, Betsy Andreau and Greg Lemond on the US radio station www.competitorradio.com).

On top of all this Bruyneel signed Basso for his Discovery team even though he had the cloud of Operation Puerto hanging over him. This action suggested that Bruyneel was willing to work with just about anyone he thought had the ability to win, even when this ability apparently relied on 'medical intervention' as much as natural talent. Given all this it is perhaps little wonder that Astana saw Bruyneel as being an ideal match!

Whatever next I wonder? Perhaps we will soon hear that not only has Bruyneel signed with Astana, he has signed up Ferrari to provide the team's 'training plans'! After all his 'programs' seemed to work for Vinokourov and Armstrong...

THE ASTANA SUPER TEAM 08!!!!!!!!!! Look out!