PARIS—Astana, the team of last year's winner Alberto Contador of Spain, will be barred from the 2008 Tour de France, Tour director Christian Prudhomme said on Wednesday.
Astana will not be invited to any of the events organised by Amaury Sport Organisation (ASO) this year, among them the Tour, Prudhomme told Reuters.
Contador joined the team, who have also been ruled out of this year's Giro d'Italia because of doping scandals, in a two-year deal last October.
Astana changed their structure after the team were forced to pull out of last year's Tour in July when Kazakh rider Alexander Vinokourov, who has since retired, tested positive for blood doping.
"Astana have appointed a new leadership and their manager Johan Bruyneel has asked us to trust them but we can't," Prudhomme told Reuters.
Astana took over from Liberty Seguros, a team that was left out of the 2006 Tour after several of their riders were barred from taking part in the race because of their alleged implication in the doping investigation named Operacion Puerto.
"We remember what happened in 2006," said Prudhomme. "Then came 2007 with a new team who asked us to trust them. We did that and paid dearly for it."
International Cycling Union (UCI) president Pat McQuaid, who said last week that there was no reason for organisers not to include Astana in the Tour, was not surprised.
"However, it is a decision I cannot understand," he told Reuters. "This team has done everything to bury the past...I still hope there will be a solution and that Astana will be at the start of the Tour in July."
Bruyneel said in a statement that the new team should not be compared to last year's disgraced one.
"Only the name of the sponsor remained. No pressure was put on us, there was no demand for big wins. We are spending 460,000 euros on internal anti-doping efforts for 2008," he said.
Contador deprived
Contador told reporters after finishing the fourth stage of the Mallorca Challenge race that his aim had been to defend his Tour crown.
"They've deprived me of that opportunity. Astana should be in the Tour," he said. "The Tour is the race I've always dreamed about, I've always fought for it and I hope I'll still be fighting for it in the future."
The 25-year-old Spaniard will now make the Tour of Spain the focus of his season with Victor Cordero, director of that race, saying the rider and his team would be welcome.
"Contador deserves to be in all the races and for me he is a model for the future but what his team did in the past has led to this ban," Cordero told Spanish media.
"The Vuelta excluded Astana last year when they didn't deserve our confidence, but that confidence has been renewed and teams that don't have any problems with doping will be invited.
"Contador and Astana will be in the Vuelta because of the sporting interest in them."
The ASO also organises the Paris-Nice, a stage race won by Contador last year, as well as prestigious one-day races Paris-Roubaix, the Fleche Wallonne, Liege-Bastogne-Liege and Paris-Tours.
ASO released on Wednesday the list of teams invited to the Paris-Nice next month, featuring all the UCI Pro-Tour teams with the exception of Astana.
Prudhomme said organisers had hesitated about Rabobank, whose leader Dane Michael Rasmussen was expelled from the 2007 Tour while in the lead because he had lied about his training whereabouts. Rasmussen was immediately sacked by his team.
"We hesitated but came to the conclusion that it was Rasmussen and his boss that hurt the Tour, not the sponsor, Prudhomme said.
The list of teams invited on the Tour will be announced on Feb. 29.
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