Brewing over cycling exit

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Tinkoff Credit Systems owner Oleg Tinkov(Image credit: Gregor Brown)

An interview with Oleg Tinkov, December 19, 2008

Igor Makarov's Itera backs the new team with additional funding from sponsors Gazprom and Rostechnologii. With the budget of 15 to 20 million Euro, it signed several key riders to bolster its ranks – Australian Robbie McEwen, Belgian Gert Steegmans, Italian Filippo Pozzato, Russians Vladimir Karpets and Alexandre Botcharov. The signing of former top professional Andrei Tchmil as general director in July did not make sense in Tinkov's eyes. The two tried to work side-by-side, but Tinkov decided to leave his loved sport in September.

We talked at the Giro, he said he liked our team and it would be a good idea [to take over Tinkoff]. We signed the deal in May and we agreed I would be the president and he would pay the bills. For some reason during the Tour de France he said his old friend Andrea Tchmil would like to be involved and he wanted him to be there. I said 'why do we need two captains on one boat, when there are two captains the boat does not go anywhere?'.

CN: Makarov signed Tchmil, though. Then what happened?
OT: I tried to make it work with Andrei Tchmil. I am a president and he has not had any title, but just a representative figure, so it was a complicated a situation. For me cycling is, was and always will be a passion, an emotion. I was running the team and not making any money. For Andrea Tchmil cycling is a business and I am sure he would like to make some money on this deal. We just didn't get along.

CN: Is it better to have someone like Bob Stapleton, who is not a past cyclist, in the sport?
OT: I think that is better. For instance, I brought in to cycling [general manager] Stefano Feltrin. He was a lawyer for my company and I brought him into the business and everyone started to laugh. Now, for the three years that he has been running the show, I think he is qualified and he is running Katusha. Cycling needs these types of people, like me.

CN: Who made the decisions to sign the new riders for Katusha?
OT: All the signings were both of our [with Tchmil - ed.] decisions until the end of September. I was not involved with the signings of [Danilo] Napolitano and [Laszlo] Bodrogi. It was good, Ridley [bikes], Pozzato, Steegmans, Karpets, Botcharov. Karpets and Botcharov came to the team because of me, and they are pissed off now that I left.

CN: Is it true what some media reported, that Katusha was offering lucrative contracts to riders?
OT: We did not buy anyone at a crazy price. That is why we did not buy [Denis] Menchov. It was an obvious choice for the team – he is Russian, he can win the Tour or Giro – but we did not buy him because he wanted two million Euro. I said, 'No, it is not your price. It is fine if you want to join for 1.2 [million Euro]'.

Now we have this crisis, I believe that all the wages for the riders should go down 30 or 40 percent. I am from the business side, and believe me, I know what is going on the other side of the road – there is no money. Next year you will see lots of sponsors pull out. Lots will pull out or they will decrease their expenses. There is no way this guy is going to drive a Ferrari or nice cars. They look fine now, because the contracts were signed one or two years ago.

CN: Is it your dream is to return to the cycling world?
OT: My dream was, is and will be to have a Russian national [team] win the Tour de France once, to be on the Champs-Élysées [in Paris] with the Russian flag waving. I will come back in three, four, five or maybe eight years and we might have someone from Russia able to win. If my business is able to allow me I would like to have my own, big team.

CN: How can you be sure they are all clean?
OT: Because I know how they trained, what ground they came from. Maybe they would like to, don't get me wrong, but they don't know how to. It is expensive, they don't know the stuff and they did not have the money. Eventually they may. Ignatiev, Trusov, Kiryienka...if you ask about Tinkoff Credit Systems, I am 99-percent certain they were clean. I did not mention some Italians, Spanish or Germans that were in my team.

You look at an amateur team in Italy, which I won't name. The team wins a lot, they are all 18 to 20 [years old], they win a lot in 2006, but obviously they have been doping. Unfortunately, that is the culture, they all want to become professionals and they use a lot a s**t and that is simply because they can afford it. The UCI pushes the biological passports and ProTour teams, but I would rather see [Pat] McQuaid spend his money on the amateur teams. That is where all the s**t starts, that is where they learn how to do it. They want to become professional and they want to earn big money. When they are 18 and they want to drive a BMW, the only way they can do is to sign a contract with a big team, but they feel they have to dope – that is the problem that exists.

CN: At the end of 2007, you tried to fill you team with only young Russians?
OT: In a way we did it. We did not renew a lot of people. It is not about specific nations, Italy or Russia, it is more about the Eastern Bloc cyclists not having the money or the culture. In Italy you have the preparatore or the so-called doctors, in Russia there are no doctors or preparatore. Maybe in five years time it will be the same, when they have more money. It Italy, the preparatore and doctors teach them [the riders - ed.] how and what to do, because they want to make money too.