Jagshemash? Kazakh dope fiend thrown out of Tour

KAZAKHSTAN'S number one sportsman Alexandre Vinokourov saw his dreams of winning the Tour de France go up in smoke today after failing a drugs test.

Vinokourov's Astana team have withdrawn from the race with immediate effect, even before the pre-race favourite's B-sample had been analysed. "It's a mistake," he protested. "I never doped, that's not the way I see my profession.

"The setting-up of our team made a lot of people jealous and now we're paying the price. It's a shame to leave the Tour this way, but I don't want to waste time in proving my innocence."

"Leaving the Tour is a shock for the team," added boss Marc Biver. "It's catastrophic. Everybody is shocked."

    

The fall from grace of Petropavlovsk's most famous son will come as a bitter blow to his native Kazakhstan, which has for years strived to shed its image as a nation of Azamat Bagatovs.

But the question remains: Where did Vinokourov get his drugs? Were they given to him by government scientist Dr Yamak, famous for his groundbreaking research which concluded that women's brains are the size of squirrels', or did he buy them on the street from Borat?

Jak sie masz, Sasha? The answer, I feel, would be unrepeatable!