Astana Cycling Team

Photo: (c) Blandine Roquelet

The riders climbed the Col de la Ramaz which is the first pass of the first class of the Tour de France 2010. At kilometre 38 before arrival in the rise of this pass the riders of the Astana team, Daniel Navarro, Paolo Tiralongo, Alberto Contador and Alexander Vinonokourov were placed ahead of the bunch and took control of the race. In this ascent, we saw the Kazakh rider to let go for two kilometres, then head back to his companions, he says "It was a hard moment for me so I just let go, but when I saw that Lance Amstrong had been dropped by the bunch, I decided to come back strongly with my team mates and I knew that few time after there was the descent." In that descend, Alexander went ahead when he realized that his team mates were a little behind him, then "of course I waited, he said, no interest if I go without them was at full speed but I took the opportunity to recover a little ". With the pace set by the four riders of Astana team half of the bunch hasn’t been able to follow and were dropped by the bunch "The team did a fantastic job, Tiralongo and Navarro were impressive running beside Alberto, said Alexander, it’s too bad that he didn’t win the stage but I think it might be an arrival with a profile that suited me better, but I had already been dropped a bit before and today I gave as much as I could for Alberto and the general ranking team.”
Astana Cycling Team
Communication Department