After today's rumours that Alexandre Vinokourov and Alexandr Kolobnev will face corruption charges due to claims that the former paid the latter 100,000 euro for the win in the 2010 Liege-Bastogne-Liege, Vinokourov has issued the following statement to deny the claims.

"The Court chamber of the Liege criminal Court had to decide on this September 11th on the questions to know if the investigation made by the Public Prosecutor and the Investigating Judge may be considered as completed or not, if they are sufficient elements in order to refer the case before a Criminal Court called to decide on the merits or if the charges needed to be dropped for lack of evidence.

"The Chamber has not taken any decision owing to the circumstance that the respective lawyers of the two incriminated cyclists had officially requested additional duties to find out the whole truth of this matter.

"In such a case, the Chamber has the obligation to postpone its decision until the reaction of the Investigating Judge and, in case of refusal from him, by the Court of Appeal, and that is what the Chamber did.

"In the meantime, Mr Vinokurov’s lawyer, Jean-Louis Lodomez, is negatively surprised by comments made in the media attributed to the Public prosecutor and the Investigating Judge."