Vincenzo Nibali has said at the startline of Strada Bianche yesterday that the UCI’s decision to request the withdrawal of Astana’s WorldTour license is a political decision, not a sporting one.

“My opinion is that it’s all about politics. It’s not anything to do with the riders,” Nibali said after initially saying he did not want to comment.

“We’ve done a lot as riders and explained a lot. We’ll see what happens in the next few weeks. I’m not worried but if our licence is suspended we’ll have to go and ask for invitations to races. My professionalism isn’t under discussion.”

Nibali stated his belief that even if the team loses the license, he thinks organisers would still invite the team to races.

“I think the race organisers know how dedicated we are in training and how many sacrifices we make at the races,” he said. “I think their opinion will counts a lot. If we lost our licence we can only hope to be invited to the races by the different organisers. But that’s the worst case scenario.”