to Operación Puerto and involvement in the 2007 Tour doping scandals. This meant that Contador was unable to defend his Tour crown, because his contract did not have an "escape clause" that covered Astana's current situation. One week before the 2008 Giro d'Italia, the organisers went on to invite the team to the race, a race which Alberto Contador went on to win. In July, Vladimir Gusev was sacked by the team due to "irregular values" highlighted by the team's new, internal, anti-doping system. In 2009, after returning from retirement, Lance Armstrong was accused by the French anti-doping agency of acting improperly by disappearing from the sight of the anti-doping investigator for 20 minutes. In June, Assan Bazayev was given a two-week internal suspension for not correctly reporting his whereabouts properly. In September 2010, Alberto Contador returned a positive doping test for Clenbuterol at the 2010 Tour de France. After a two-year legal procedure, Contador is stripped of his 2010 Tour de France win (and 2011 Giro d'Italia victory). In 2011, Roman Kreuziger finished 5th at the Giro d'Italia as well as winning the best young rider classification. In 2014, the UCI began proceedings against him for biological passport anomalies dated from 2011 and 2012 – the two years he spent at Astana. In 2012, former Astana riders and staff including; Lance Armstrong, Johan Bruyneel, Levi Leipheimer, Dr. Pedro Celaya and Dr. Luis del Moral are heavily implicated in the mass doping scandal which surrounded the U.S. Postal /Discovery Channel team. In September 2014, it emerged that Valentin Iglinskiy has returned a positive test for EPO at the Eneco Tour, he confessed to doping to the team and was immediately sacked, three weeks later Valentin's brother, Maxim Iglinskiy was provisionally suspended by the UCI for an EPO-positive on August 1. It was later announced that Astana withdrew themselves from the Tour of Beijing per the MPCC rules, who state that a team with 2 positives in a short period of time must not participate in the next World Tour event. Subsequently, a sample taken at the Tour de l'Avenir in August from Ilya Davidenok, a rider with the Astana Continental Team and a stagiaire with the Astana Pro Team, tested positive for anabolic steroids. Davidenok was provisionally suspended, and a review into the team's licence was announced following the positive tests for Davidenok and the Iglinskiy brothers. University of Lausanne