Astana Cycling Team

Season 2009 is over. Year, full of emotions, impressions, worry, joy, tears.
The most important, the most cheerful but and the most complicated victory is Tour de France.
It’s third Grand Tour for Astana Team in two years. Incredible result!
Tour of Algarve, Tour of California, Vuelta al País Vasco – spectacular and difficult races, they are part of our victories.

Our fan community wants to thank the whole crew for such Great Job.

We thank the staff and management who prepared everything for the starts.

All riders: Alberto, Alexander, Lance, Levi, Andreas, Max, Asan, Jani, Valeriy, Alexandr, Jesús, Chris, Roman, Berik, Steve, Dmitriy, Daniel, Benjamín, Sérgio, Yaroslav, Bolat, Gregory, Sergey, José Luis, Tomas, Michael, Andrey and Haimar.

And first of all we thank our Genius General Manager – Johan Bruyneel!
Thanks for all that you made for cycling and good luck with the new project!

Let’s remember this year:

Astana Team 2009: 31 Victories

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 Astana: Just who is Yvon Sanquer?
By VeloNation Press

So just who is this man Yvon Sanquer - the man who is set to fill the shoes of one of cycling's most successful directors Johan Bruyneel - what do the Kazakh's see in the Frenchman?

One thing is for certain, Sanquer is a man that knows the professional peloton, and some hints of his past might be what it takes to turn the embattled Astana team around.

Why, you might ask? A little over a decade ago Sanquer was the directeur sportif of La Mutuelle de Seine et Marne, a team sponsored by a French health insurance company that was run on a modest budget. Under those circumstances, if you intend on success, the character and ability of a leader to inspire riders comes to the fore. Read the rest of this entry →

Have a great party and an even better 2010!

Interview by Josu Garai/MARCA
02/09/09
While packing his bags for traveling to Germany with his brother Fran—namely, to Eurobike, the bicycle trade fair par excellence—Alberto Contador (Pinto, 1982) answered MARCA’s call. His technical sponsors Giro, Look and Sidi demand his presence in cycling’s greatest showroom, and the Madrileño doesn’t hesitate to satisfy them, in thanks for a year of work well done.
How’s it going, watching the Vuelta from the sidelines?
Very well, I feel a little twinge at not being there, but seeing the crash on Tuesday—the one that happened at 3 km from the finish at Liége—dampened my enthusiasm a bit, because I’m almost sure that I would’ve been caught, since it took place near the front where the favorites usually are. When they get to the mountains, I’m sure that it’ll be different, but in these early stages, I thought: I’m not missing anything.
So we see that you’re following the Vuelta in detail.
Yes, I’m watching it, although I’m traveling a little here and there. When I get back from Germany, I’ve got to go to Belgium again, because I’ve got a criterium on Sunday.
You just don’t stop. How many criteriums have you ridden?
Uff, I don’t know for sure. I think it’s six, seven counting this one. And I still have others left: Alcobendas, Cancún, Curaçao…and if the dates square up, also the ACP criterium.
Have you concluded your official race season already?
Yes, practically, because I just spoke with José Luis de Santos, the Spanish national selector, and even though I still train, and I’m going quite fast and there’s nothing bad going on, we agreed that I’m not going to do the time trial at the Worlds. Read the rest of this entry →

Contador a prisoner

by Manuel Martinez, for
September 2, 2009

Despite his wish to leave, the two-time winner of the Tour is tied to Astana. Where he will have to honor the last year of his contract.

Officially, Alberto Contador is resting. He is taking a break after accumulating several criteriums following his Tour de France victory last July. The campaign has gone well and he will start again in Belgium September 6, at Bavikhove.

Following his second triumph on the Champs Elysées, Contador has made sporadic statements about his uneasy relationship with Lance Armstrong during the Tour.

Today, his approach is different. Under contract with team Astana until the end of the 2010 season, the Spanish rider has already voiced his desire for a change of scenery. Read the rest of this entry →

Jonathan Vaughters Interview: Evolution at Garmin, Not Revolution

The Garmin manager dishes on Wiggo and his team’s 2010 roster, what really happened with Alberto Contador, and whether racing is cleaner than in the past.

by Joe Lindsey

Jonathan Vaughters is a busy man these days - as general manager for the Garmin-Slipstream team, he’s rounding out the team’s roster for 2010, setting up sponsorships and chasing more, and dealing with about a bajillion journalist requests. He’s also halfway through a two-year term as the head of the AIGCP, the pro cycling teams association, a job that requires him to not only build consensus among a couple dozen other general managers but also the UCI and race promoters as well.

I got the chance to sit down with him last week for a wide-ranging interview, touching on Garmin’s plans for 2010 and a variety of other subjects.

Q: Finally! You’re a busy guy right now. What’s kept you so tied up?

A: I am a little harder to schedule these days, huh? One of the things I’m doing is we just did our media evaluation with IEG – how much value your team has. And we’re pushing like $90 million in value. We may be the highest total publicity to investment dollar ratio in cycling ever. Read the rest of this entry →

Posted by Chris Horner, Special to The Oregonian August 31, 2009 13:18PM

VENLO, Netherlands -- Today's stage in the Tour of Spain was completely different from Sunday's, aside from the last 30 miles of the race where the action was just as intense as it had been throughout Stage 2.

When our Astana team bus arrived at the start in Zutphen this morning the sun was out and shining, which was a nice change of pace. We arrived with plenty of time to get out and sign some autographs for the masses of fans that had once again come to cheer. I was enjoying the down time before the day started, posing for pictures and shaking hands with the fans, but before I knew it they were calling the riders to the line.

When the race started, three riders attacked and were gone within the first mile. With the break established so quickly, it was going to be a slow day until we kicked things into action for the finale. Since we were experiencing a pretty mellow cruise through the Dutch countryside, I started up a conversation with Tyler Farrar, a fellow Northwest rider (Wenatchee, Wash.). Suddenly, a curb appeared in the middle of the road. Read the rest of this entry →

A DASHED HOPE

September 1 - Why Contador was out of reach for Garmin
In today's Boulder Report, Joe Lindsey and Garmin-Slipstream manager Jonathan Vaughters discuss the team's failed bid to sign Alberto Contador. In respectful terms, a realistic Vaughters reveals that Contador at Garmin was a dream that simply could not come true at this time.

BR: Was there anyone you DID have negotiations with who you didn’t get?

V: Not really. We don’t have megabucks to play around with.

BR: What about Contador specifically? You guys were said to be one of a handful of teams in the real running for him.

V: Contador – there was a lot of speculation there. On the whole thing with getting him for the Tour, a lot of things needed to happen. It’s not like we could just afford that out of our normal budget. Typically what we look for is a guy like Wiggo – a great rider, no one quite believes in him yet, and an incredible talent and you give him an opportunity to explore the depth of that talent. That’s what we’re about. I think Svein (Tuft) is another example of that. Read the rest of this entry →