Astana Cycling Team

Hello once more my friends from Astanafans and cycling lovers,

Last night we had dinner with the team, which took place in a very friendly atmosphere. The food was good except that in practically all the dishes there was some “unannounced” pork meat which, for those islamic Kazakh riders or staff, was very unpleasant, especially for those who respect the Ramadan .  Even the fish dish contained a piece of ham!

We were introduced by Aidar to famous Uzbekh rider Djamolidine Abdoujaparov and we had a souvenir photo taken with him.  Although he apparently was known as the “Tashkent Terror”, we found him very gentle and sweet.

At dinner with Tashkent Terror

The team is very pleased with the results of Fredrik Kessiakov who finished very close to stage winner, Joaquin Rodriguez, and had gained 4 places in the general classification, and stood in 6^th position.

What always strikes me is the way all the riders look skinny and young when they are wearing their regular clothes.  I can hardly believe that some of those boyish men are already married and have families.

As among the riders and staff, who were sitting at the dinner table last night, there were at least seven nationalities, I was wondering what the common language would be between Swedish, Italian, Estonian, Croatian, Russian, Kazakh, and Spanish.  I still have no answer to that since everybody seems to speak a few words of all the languages.

During the cycling season most Kazakh riders live on the French riviera, around Nice or Monaco, where there are good places to train and the weather is mild.

Today’s stage departure was set 30 kilometers from our hotel, in the historial center of the beautiful fortified town of Ubeda, classified as Unesco World Heritage.

Ubeda UNESCO world heritage city

Spain was occupied by the Moors during 8 centuries and many places in Andalusia still have an arabic-islamic architecture.

Beautiful Ubeda UNESCO world heritage city

At the Ubeda signature podium, which was located between the cathedral and the parador (an ancien  palace converted into a luxury old-fashioned looking hotel), it was very easy to appraoch the riders and we could take photos just before they joined the departure line set in front of the historic townhall.   The crowd was very enthusiastic and the heat was still suffocating.  Everybody was looking for a patch of shade and I learned that in this kind of weather, every rider drinks about 15 to 20 bidons during the stage in order to remain sufficiently hydrated.

Here they come

Podium girls dancing in the Vuelta Village

Alexandr Dyachenko and Evgeny Petrov

Kazakhstan road champion Andrey Mizurov

Andrey Kashechkin

Soigneur Sergey Lavrenenko

Evgueny Petrov

Tanel Kangert

Interview of Enrico Garparotto

That was a very nice ending to our visit to Astana team.

Good bye dear friends of Astanafans, till next time!