Kazakh rider Valentin Iglinskiy has landed himself in hot water with the news that he was arrested by French police. RTL reported today that the sprinter was arrested yesterday evening on the A8 autoroute near Nice, being stopped as a result of doing 203 km/h. This was almost 100 km/h over the speed limit in that section. Compounding the gravity of the situation is that it has been reported that police performed further analysis and it was determined that he was over the alcohol limit, having .64 miligrammes of alcohol per litre of expired air. His blood alcohol reading was 1.28 grams per litre.
Initial reports said that Iglinskiy had told police that he was travelling from the home of Alexandre Vinokourov, the Astana team leader who crashed out of the Tour de France. However this has since been denied. He is said to have had to pay bail of almost 1,900 euro to the public prosecutor in Nice, and his licence is suspended.
Neither the team nor the rider himself have commented on the matter for now.
Iglinskiy, who is 27 years of age, won stage two of this year’s Presidential Tour of Turkey.