Luca Paolini has revealed he recently tried to make a comeback after his 18-month ban for cocaine but Alexander Vinokourov was too concerned about his drug-taking to hire him.
Having been caught blood-doping and been removed from the 2007 Tour de France, Alexander Vinokourov has apparently developed some ethics post-career.
The Kazakh, who seemed to get better with age even after his two-year ban, recently refused to hire Luca Paolini for Astana because the Italian had served a ban for cocaine use.
Paolini has made the claim in a newspaper in his native Italy, saying the attitude of notorious drugs cheat Vinokourov amused him.
Paolini's 18-month ban concluded just over a week ago and he wanted to return to the sport for a short stint.
He gave himself until Christmas to find a contract for this year but has been unable to find one and has now resigned himself to retirement.
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He has invested in a coffee shop at Lake Como and said he was now looking ahead.
The 40-year-old, who wanted to come back so he could then retire on a more positive note, outlined his unsuccessful efforts to find a team in a just-published interview with La Gazzetta dello Sport.
“I trained hard, I was back in form. Nothing happened. I remained bitter,” he said of readying himself to race again but finding no place at a team.
“I found closed doors. At team Astana, Vinokourov told me that with the ban that I had, he could not hire me. Coming from him that made me laugh.
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“I would’ve liked to race with Bahrain, but the Arab culture is such that they don’t accept the minimum error when it comes to alcohol and drugs.”
He believed he had worked hard while racing, often for others, and while he had harmed cycling by taking cocaine he felt he deserved a chance to end his career by choosing to retire rather than not making it back to the peloton after his ban.
Paolini returned an adverse test result for cocaine in the 2015 Tour de France and was fired by Katusha.
He said after he was caught and banned that he had drifted into a cycle of substance abuse, including stimulants and sleeping tablets.
After he tested positive he said the death of his brother began his decent into substance abuse, which last 11 years.
He became locked into a pattern of abusing sleep pills in an effort to get the rest he needed and then took cocaine for energy during the day.
He said after his positive test for cocaine, which he initially denied using after being caught, he had undergone a detox programme.
“It all started with sleeping pills, whose main active ingredient is benzodiazepine,” he said at the time.
“But this creates an addiction. I needed a good night’s rest to meet the physical and mental effort the next day.
“I started in 2004 when my brother died. The real problem is everyday life. There are big problems and smaller, but it all adds to this very stressful sport.
“Mentally, it affects you a lot. It’s at the time you start taking the substance, and that is sad. These errors led me to cocaine.”
He said he took the drug before the Tour when he was alone at a training camp.
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