Alexander Vinokourov, troubled by the doping accusations against him, has been sacked by his team following the confirmation of a positive test case after the B-sample analysis, but this has not affected his popularity in his home country of Kazakhstan. The political party "Nur Otan" (Glooming fatherland) has used his picture on its flyers for the upcoming election.
The doping case is not discussed very much in Kazakhstan, according to radsport-news.com. Instead Vino is the national hero who has brought attention to the country, and even had made people realize what the capital is. The team was named after the city of Astana for that very reason.
Elections are on August 18th.
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