Tinkoff team boss Oleg Tinkov has critized the Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI) because of Ilnur Zakarin’s exclusion from the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro. The Katusha rider has been banned fromthe race due to a previous doping case. He was handed a two-year suspension in 2009 following a positive test for the steroid methandienone.

"Zakarin can’t go to Rio but [Alejandro] Valverde and others who been caught on doping can? If this is not political revenge on Russia, what is it? It show[s] again how stupid and impotent that f**king UCI. Just bunch of bureaucratic idiots", the Russian millionaire wrote on his Instagram account. 

Tinkov was commenting on the recent decision by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) that Russian athletes cannot compete at the 2016 Games if they have previously been sanctioned for doping. Athletes from other countries can participate. The IOC’s decision was made in light of the McLaren report, which found evidence of widespread organised doping and cover-ups in Russian sport.