EKIMOV - The Untouchable

VIATCHESLAV EKIMOV
Cycling continues to purge the old guard but Katusha’s general manager seems impregnable. Procycling assesses the significance of the Russian’s presence in the WorldTour merry-go-round.

WRITER: Herbie Sykes (Procycling 209, November 2015)

During the autumn of 2012, the UCI Licence Commission stated that it was deferring decisions on three WorldTour renewals. The licence applications of Movistar and RadioShack were to be closely scrutinised, and so too was that of Katusha, the team of incumbent WorldTour champion Joaquim Rodríguez.
In December the bombshell duly arrived. Katusha – and Katusha alone – were out, and that was that. Of course, the team cried foul immediately and announced that they would be appealing to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS). The specifics of the decision weren’t forthcoming, so the press began speculating, blaming the Russians’ perceived ethical deficit.
Many cited the proxy war (and long-standing personal enmity) between then UCI president Pat McQuaid and Igor Makarov, the team’s benefactor and head of the Russian Cycling Federation, although the Licence Commission was mandated to work independently of the UCI board and according to the regulations, McQuaid had no say in the matter.

A cursory glance at the team’s staff, however, was instructive. Andrei Mikhailov’s engagement as team doctor had hinted either at a lack of diligence or, more alarming still, just plain wilfulness. Mikhailov had been convicted of heading up the TVM drug procurement programme in 2001 and was regarded by some as a pariah. There was Denis Galimzyanov, later busted in an out-of-competition test for EPO. In a bizarre, handwritten confession, he went out of his way to absolve the team of responsibility, and many speculated that he’d been assisted in writing the confession. Filippo Pozzato admitted having previously collaborated with now-banned doctor Michele Ferrari, while a handful of his team-mates were also implicated in the Padua investigation. The UCI cited the fact that Katusha riders had missed four out-of-competition tests and the team had made eight more filing errors with their riders’ whereabouts between 2009 and 2012.

Worse, Alexandr Kolobnev stood accused by the Corriere della Sera newspaper of having sold a win in Liège-Bastogne-Liège to Alexandre Vinokourov for Euros 150.000 in 2010. Not content with impugning the reputation of one great race, he proceeded to test positive at another, the Tour de France. Kolobnev was a one-man public relations catastrophe, an accident waiting to happen. Meanwhile previous dopers – repentant or, in the case of Danilo Di Luca, otherwise – seemed always to be given a second (or third) chance in the team. The sprint coach Erik Zabel had previous and likewise Christian Henn, his erstwhile sidekick at Telekom. Throw in a series of jaw-dropping book-keeping irregularities and Katusha appeared to be bang to rights. 

And then, of course, there was Eki. Two months previously, Katusha had fired team manager Hans-Michael Holczer. In his stead they’d employed Viatcheslav Ekimov, the Russian pursuiter who had become one of Lance Armstrong’s most loyal workers. He’d served the Texan for the thick end of a decade as a domestique and then, when he hung up his racing wheels, as a DS. Moreover, while Armstrong’s American cadre had either turned informer or caved in under subpoena by USADA, Ekimov and the rest of the European contingent had kept schtum, or hadn’t seen anything. Pavel Padrnos and Chechu Rubiera remained tight-lipped, while Ekimov was defensive almost to the point of appearing belligerent.

Two months prior to his Katusha appointment he’d been awarded his third Olympic title, albeit eight years after the fact. Tyler Hamilton, his former team-mate at US Postal, had won the time trial in Athens, but now found himself stripped of gold. Hamilton confessed to doping and, in gory detail, detailed the full extent of the team’s dependency. Ekimov was never one for soundbites but he placed on record his conviction that none of it was true, that Hamilton was a liar and that he’d never been privy to any doping practices. His assertions seemed inconceivable but the fact that it was he who inherited Hamilton’s gong was simultaneously absurd and entirely consistent with the times. He’d been 38 when he’d finished second in Athens and yet he’d put over a minute into the likes of Jan Ullrich and Vinokourov. Now, at the age of 46, he was being rewarded with arguably one of the grubbiest gold medals in Olympic history.

Regardless, for all that his rearguard action seemed absurd, it was undeniable that it had paid dividends. While all around – Armstrong, Hamilton, George Hincapie, team manager Johan Bruyneel – had lost their heads, Ekimov had survived to tell the tale. He had his gold medal and now he was to head up Makarov’s dream team. Better still, Katusha convinced CAS that they were putting their house in order under Ekimov’s tutelage. By the following September McQuaid, Makarov’s nemesis, was out of office. A vicious UCI leadership contest saw him thumped out of sight by Brian Cookson.

Viatcheslav Ekimov’s early life was not remarkable but his cycling upbringing was. He grew up near Leningrad (now St Petersburg) and took up cycling at Aleksandr Kuznetsov’s legendary sports school of hard knocks. The regime was brutally hard but the upshot was a veritable production line of world and Olympic champions. The competition was ferocious but Ekimov was a sensation from the off. In 1985 he became world pursuit champion aged just 19, defeating the Lithuanian Gintautas Umaras at Bassano di Grappa. He smashed the amateur Hour Record two weeks later and, by the following autumn, had broken the magical 4:30 barrier for the pursuit. By the time the Berlin Wall fell, he’d set new marks at five, 10 and 20 kilometres, won Olympic gold in Seoul, and had lost count of his rainbow jerseys. Evgeni Berzin, four years younger than Ekimov, grew up in the same town. He too began life as a pursuiter under Kuznetsov, and would go on to win the Giro. For his generation, Ekimov was the gold standard.

“He was an example as regards ability but also the way he conducted himself. The communist cycling model was extremely authoritarian and it was all about the collective. Those who were in the sports schools were extremely privileged, because sport offered a better life. The flipside was that you didn’t question the methodology, because if you did you risked being thrown out. Ekimov knew how to keep his mouth shut and that was really important in the Soviet Union,” said Kuznetsov.

The writer Nikolai Razouvaev, another of the class of ’66, won World Championship gold in the team time trial. Razouvaev says: “Kuznetsov was able to Emilia), Ekimov made for the bruising crosswinds of Flanders. He’d been courted by Peter Post, legendary boss of the great Raleigh team. Now bankrolled by Panasonic, Post had more money than Alfa Lum, and his management style – autocratic, hugely successful – mirrored that of Kuznetsov. Ekimov began learning Dutch and English, as planet cycling speculated on which of the eastern riders were most likely to make it. Considered opinion had it that there were four potential superstars. They were Poland’s Joachim Halupczok, the East German sprinter Olaf Ludwig, and the Russians Dmitri Konyshev and Ekimov.

Ekimov started well enough, winning time trials at the Tour of the Mediterranean and the Critérium International. At the Tour he rode in support of Ludwig’s successful green jersey bid but the step up to the pro ranks had come too late. The years as a pursuiter had blunted his speed and the climbing skills which had seen him defeat the Colombians as an amateur failed to develop. Though he won a stage at the 1991 Tour, it quickly became apparent that he didn’t recover well enough to challenge over three weeks. His time trialling was outstanding but in the end Ekimov was a diesel. He could win a handful of races each year but not ride away from the very best.

His biggest win came at the 1992 Championship of Zurich. There he shared a podium with an American stagiaire, a 20-year-old Texan named Lance Armstrong. By then everyone in America knew Armstrong was a huge talent but in finishing second at Zurich he crossed over into the European cycling mainstream. By 1994 Armstrong was world champion and a major star. Meanwhile, Ekimov had evolved into a solid northern Classics rider and grand tour domestique. Sure, he was no champion but he had a reputation as a model pro. He was as hard as nails, did as he was bid, and was possessed of a massive engine. He’d earned the respect of his peers, among them Armstrong.

In June 1998 Armstrong returned to European racing, astounding the sport with a brilliant win at the Tour of Luxembourg. His new employer was the US Postal Service and Ekimov, too, was contracted to the team. Aged 32, however, he was headed for the exit door. He was still relevant as a cyclist but had agreed a one-year contract with Amica Chips for 1999. When, however, he rode two superb weeks in Armstrong’s service at the Vuelta, it was made clear that he’d be welcome back any time. Armstrong won his maiden Tour de France while Ekimov saw out his contract with Amica Chips, then they were rejoined for the 2000 season. At the ripe old age of 34, Ekimov added his horsepower to the commercial and sporting juggernaut which was Armstrong Inc.

That July he joined Hincapie, Bruyneel et al in the inner sanctum, and was rewarded with his first Tour de France win. Tellingly, Armstrong chose him as his partner for the GP Eddy Merckx, a two-up TT, in late August. They destroyed the rest and, when Ekimov eclipsed both his boss and Ullrich to claim time trial gold at the Sydney Olympics, even Lance declared himself delighted: “If you watched the Tour de France, he put it all on the line for me to win. As upset as I am not to win a gold medal, I’m that much happier for him to win one. He’s a true champion and a true gentleman. He’s a special person, someone I know and love well.”

Ekimov would ride five of the Armstrong Tours, and 15 all told. That he finished all of them almost beggars belief, still more so when one considers that he was 40 when he called it a day. Former soigneur Emma O’Reilly bore witness to his stoicism and professionalism: “I can’t pretend I knew him that well and he didn’t say a lot. You could describe him as taciturn but he was always decent and he was always straight with me.”

The great track rider became a great domestique, then, though neither role truly captured the imagination of the wider Russian public. Razouvaev said, “It’s impossible to compare him to the great Soviet road cyclists. They tend to overshadow him because of the impact they had on the history of the sport in USSR.”

Though Ekimov has never displayed much of an ego, to click on his website is to be acquainted with his position as regards the US Postal years. The home page of eki-procycling.com proudly showcases the wins, the Tours and the records but also still, in 2015, Armstrong’s seal of approval. In paying homage to one of the cornerstones of the team, the American concludes that, “My career would not have been the same without him. He is a true living legend.” The site hasn’t been updated for four years but not for nothing does it remain active and not for nothing is Armstrong’s paean still present. While the others, their races run, have penned confessional books, Ekimov has remained true to his creed.

Many see in him the very personification of the sport’s age-old see-no-evil, hear-noevil mentality, the so-called omertà. That partly explains why Armstrong enlisted his services for his ill-fated 2009 comeback and, ultimately, why Ekimov alone among the US Postal foot soldiers is still operating at the top end of the sport. He has been well served by his reticence but also by the accidents of his birth. Had he been American he would have been hung out to dry by USADA. However, it remains a matter of fact and, rightly or wrongly, his stock remains extremely high both in his homeland and among those whom he manages.

In cycling, as in life, what comes around invariably goes around. Ekimov’s innate professionalism and humility, allied to his refusal to spit in the soup, were instrumental in his having ridden out the storm. The qualities that served him so well through the EPO years – discretion, rigour, total fidelity – attracted Makarov just as they would attract any prospective employer. They continue to underpin his place in the cycling milieu because Makarov knows, just as Armstrong knew, that come what may he won’t let him down.

There are dozens of Ekimovs operating behind the scenes and, for now at least, they remain the bedrock of the professional sport. They are former riders, managers, doctors and race organisers, and they are the people who keep the show on the road. And therein, of course, lies the rub. They represent a history the new money doesn’t like to be reminded of but without them the WorldTour, cycling’s latest great project, would simply grind to a halt.

Viatcheslav Ekimov, one of the sport’s survivors, will survive for a good while yet.

PASSPORT DETAILS

Name: Viatcheslav Ekimov
Born: 4 February, 1966,
Vyborg, Russia
Age: 49
Pro career:
1990

CAREER HIGHLIGHTS
1985: Breaks Amateur Hour Record
1988: Wins Olympic Gold (Team Pursuit)
1991: Wins stage 20, Tour de France
1997: Wins National Road Race Championships
2000: Wins Olympic Gold (Time Trial)
2005: Wins ITT, Three Days of De Panne
2006: Completes 15th and