Making his first-ever appearance at Il Lombardia, the UCI President Brian Cookson was questioned about the current situation of Astana team, which two riders tested positive in less than six months.

According to the MPCC regulations, in such circumstances each team is forced to miss eight days of competition counting from the next WorldTour event, which would prevent Astana from participating in the Il Lombardia, Tour of Beijing and highly important for their sponsors Tour of Almaty.

Traditionally, Gazzetta dello Sport added some fuel to anyway tense situation, suggesting that the older and more renowned Iglinskiy brother, Maxim, held off his doping confession until Monday only to let his team participate in Il Lombardia on Sunday.  

Interestingly, the MPCC regulations doesn’t seem to fit into the ones imposed by the UCI on the WorldTour teams, requiring their presence in every WorldTour event of the calendar.

Thus, Cookson was asked to comments on the issue and insisted that the MPCC, as a n advisory body, need to re-think their approach and find a better way to work with the UCI rules.

“It’s something that we’re still in discussion about. We’ll see what happens,” he told Cyclingnews. “UCI rules are rules and the team’s commitments to the UCI are commitments. MPCC is an advisory body, so they need to discuss and consider the implication. But I need to emphasise that UCI rules are the rules.”

He hinted, however, that current situation of the Kazakh team is considered as serious and could affect decisions concerning granting the WorldTour licenses for 2015.

“Two doping positives in a year is a serious matter and something that the licence commission will be taking account of.”