Astana Cycling Team

Giro d'Italia, pre-invitation: 22 teams
RCS Sport invites 22 teams to Giro d’Italia 2010, from 8 to 30 may:

ACQUA & SAPONE (ITA)
AG2R LA MONDIALE (FRA)
ANDRONI GIOCATTOLI-DIQUIGIOVANNI (ITA)
ASTANA (KAZ);-) Read the rest of this entry →

German rider Paul Voss of Team Milram became the first leader of the Volta a Catalunya after a short race against the clock today.

.

One hundred and seventy-one riders took the start for an exhibition-length time trial on pavements that were wet after a solid morning of rain. Voss, the 143rd man to leave the gate, completed the course in just under 5 minutes. He managed to keep the top spot in spite of an intimidating list of specialists and general threats on his heels that included Kreuziger, Leipheimer, Menchov, Zabriskie, Voigt and Luis León Sánchez.

.

Levi Leipheimer and Andreas Klöden followed at 1 and 2 seconds. Voss has the leader jersey as a souvenir, but with a week of racing to come, today's ride will have little to no effect on the overall hopes of most contenders.

.

The best-placed riders for Astana after today are Pereiro at 10 seconds, Jufré at 13, and Tiralongo at 16.

.

Volta a Catalunya, Stage One Results

.

Top three:
1. Paul Voss (MILRAM) 0:04:57
2. Levi Leipheimer (RS) 0:01
3 Andreas Klöden (RS) 0:02

.

Astana riders:
27. Óscar Pereiro 0:10
35. Josep Jufré 0:13
60. Paolo Tiralongo 0:16
110. Alexsandr Dyanchenko 0:23
122. Sergey Renev 0:25
152. Andrey Zeits 0:33
163. Jesús Hernández 0:39
166. Gorazd Stangelj 0:39

.

Highlights:

.

.

See Josep Jufré at 6:47

.

.

See Óscar Pereiro at 5:09

The Volta a Catalunya begins today with a 3.6 km individual time trial from Lloret de Mat to Lloret de Mar.

See the start order, live report and results at Biciclismo

Official race website

.

La Volta is the home tour of Astana's Josep Jufré.

.

Riding for Astana:.
11 PEREIRO SIO Oscar ESP
12 JUFRE POU Josep ESP
13 ZEITS Andrey KAZ
14 DYACHENKO Alexsandr KAZ
15 HERNANDEZ BLAZQUEZ Jesus ESP
16 STANGELJ Gorazd SLO
17 RENEV Sergey KAZ
18 TIRALONGO Paolo ITA

Photo: © Roberto Bettini

Salute! Felicità! Vittorie!

The Astana Cycling Team's squad for Milan-San Remo will be led by directeur sportif Guido Bontempi.

.

"This is a difficult race to control, but Astana’s riders for tomorrow form a versatile team," says Bontempi. "Following up on the last results at Strade Bianche and Tirrenno-Adriatico, the two main assets are Maxim Iglinskiy and Enrico Gasparotto. There's also the sprinter Allan Davis and Valeriy Dmitriev who can play their cards. There won’t be a real leader, after 40 or 50 km we will develop a strategy, according to events in the race"

Astana Cycling Team
Communication Department

Live coverage on Universal Sports tv

A Caisse rider took out Baza at 2km to go. It looked bad.

Live coverage on Universal Sports tv

Okay, so things unraveled for all the teams in the final km and Astana's results weren't quite so stellar.

There's still plenty to applaud.

Baza was in the 12-man break and stayed ahead with 5 others when it split in half.