Astana Cycling Team

Hello to all our friends from Kazakhstan and professional cycling lovers,

Since my last report our life has changed, and we now live half of the year in Spain, and the other half in France.

My husband Roger and I just returned from a visit to the Astana team at the ENECO Tour, that takes place in Belgium and mainly Holland.
Contrary to races managed by ASO, one does not need special VIP passes to approach the riders and team buses. There is a very relaxed atmosphere compared to the enormous hustle and bustle surrounding the big commercial event that is the Tour de France.

All photos by Kahane

For the final three days of the ENECO, all the teams were accommodated in hotels surrounding the pretty Dutch town of Maastricht, a strategic point for the departures of the various stages.

In the Netherlands people love biking and are very ecologic minded. There are few cars and everybody, from the small children to the elderly, have their own bike which they use all the time.
Also the average Dutchman speaks good English and German, so it’s easy to get around –not like in France or Spain where if you don’t know the language you are lost.

Unfortunately, this year the summer has been very wet and during our three-day stay in the Netherlands the riders had to endure the bad weather.
Every morning we shared with the Astana staff our fears of possible falls on the soaked roads.

Fortunatelly, this did not prevent Sergey Renev to come second from a breakaway, on the penultimate stage, and Tomas Vaitkus to win the peloton sprint the same day.
That very evening we noticed a lot of activity on Facebook, to congratulate those two cyclists.

We had close contact with all the riders: Allan Davis, Maxim Gourov, the two Iglinsky brothers Maxim and Valentin, Tomas Vaitkus, Sergey Renev, and Yevgeniy Nepomnyachshiy who we were meeting for the first time.

As my Russian is rather rusty (although it used to be my mothertonge when I was a small child, I forgot a lot) I communicate better with the riders who speak English like Tomas and Allan, or French like Maxim Gourov. But this does not prevent me from loving them all and want to protect them against anything bad that could happen on the roads.

Although the ENECO has a flavour of an end of season race with not too many “international” spectators, there are neverthelss some very faithful supporters who are always there and who we get to know better from one race to another, like Johanna, Laura and Eva from Germany, and Michele from Belgium.

Singing in the rain for Astana super fans Johanna from Germany and Michele from Belgium

The new Astana outfit by models Laura and Eva from Germany

Sometimes we go on the race circuit and wait for hours at one place to see the peloton pass at a tremendous speed in front of us. From time to time a rider recognizes one of us and waves. That’s a treat!

Double massage by soigneur Dima Borisov

Our next date with you, my friends of Astanafans, will be in ten days, at the Vuelta a España which we’ll attend for three days, when it comes near to our new home in Andalusia, where we take care of our grand-children. Meanwhile, I hope you will enjoy the photos.
So long!