I seem to remember Lance and Alberto talking about having to buy certain cycling equipment when they were abroad because they couldn’t get good quality stuff in Kazakhstan, but I can’t find a source on that. However, well sourced are the frequent radio breakdowns during last year’s Tour de France. More importantly Contador blames the breakdown a TV in the Astana pace car for Chaingate, when Andy Schleck, the leader, had to stop to change his chain. Although it’s bad form to try to beat the leader when he has a pit stop, Contador didn’t know he’d stopped and thus charged on ahead.

So it seems unlikely that Contador would want to return to Astana in any way, shape or form.

Despite mulling over offers from other teams, and having the possibility of breaking his contract without penalty, Contador feels optimistic about Team Astana, especially now that Armstrong and Bruyneel. And the deputy president of the Cycling Federation has promised to look into getting new champion cyclists, naming Bradley Wiggins as one possibility.

Samruk-Kazyna, the state holding company that owns most of the companies that sponsor the team, has agreed to fund the team for 2010 to the tune of $22 million plus $3.7 million that has already been sent to the agency that handles salaries. That’s good enough for the UCI, which is renewing the team’s license.

In other news, Kairat Kelimbetov has been named the new head of the Kazakhstan Cycling Federation. Kelimbetov is the chairman of Samruk-Kazyna and a former head of the Presidential Administration. While the AP News article reads this as “a further symbolic gesture of state support for Astana”, it looks to me like Samruk-Kazyna wants to protect their investment by getting a little more control over the team, which is fair enough.

There are also rumors that the team will change its name to Samruk-Kazyna, presumably a publicity move for the holding company. I have also felt it was strange that Team Astana was really the only team out there named after a city and strongly identified with a nation. Most professional teams are linked to their sponsors. Kazakhstan has a national cycling team that competes in international events such as the Olympics and World Championships. Professional cycling is different and doesn’t really fit in with the nationalism and patriotism, especially when most of the riders on Team Astana are not from Kazakhstan.

Update here

Lance Armstrong has confirmed that he will be riding for a US team next year, sponsored by Radio Shack. The reason Armstrong came to Team Astana for his comeback, manager and coach Johan Bruyneel, is also leaving Astana, most likely for the Radio Shack team. In an interview on July 21st, Bruyneel said it was time for a change, but he also blamed instability in the team, clearly a reference to Team Astana’s sponsorship troubles. He also seemed to feel that Kazakhstan rider and founder of Astana’s team, Alexandre Vinokourov, had acted unprofessionally in dealing with his comeback after two years of suspension due to a doping charge:

Internal trouble has been brewing since Monaco when banned rider Alexandre Vinokourov, who the Astana team was created around, gave a press conference saying either he or Bruyneel must quit the team after the Kazakh’s doping suspension ends on July 24.

“We still had to talk about his possible return, but he gave a press conference in Monaco the day before the race started in our team hotel,” said Bruyneel.

“Then some whispers from the Kazakhstan Cycling Federation reached my ears and things have started to become very clear for me. Astana is finished!”

The New York Times quoted Vinokourov as saying:

I don’t see myself riding for another team. I have no guarantee yet because I expect to negotiate with Bruyneel in the coming days. But it’s not possible that he disagrees. If Johan doesn’t want me, it will be up to him to leave the team.

which is rather aggressive language to use, especially before negotiations had begun.

In fact, Vinokourov is back cycling, racing in the Castillon-la-Bataille and the Tour de l’Ain, but not for Team Astana, which also competed. However, as Vinokourov has the ear of Danyal Akhmetov, head of the Kazakh Cycling Federation and former Prime Minister, and as he is arguably the only native Kazakhstani to win world fame in cycling, most commentators agree that it is only a matter of time before Vino is back on Team Astana.

He had hoped to build the team around now two-time Tour de France champion, Contador, but it appears he is out of luck. The French sports paper L’Equipe reports that Contador rejected a four-year, 16 million Euro c0ntract with Astana, which would have also given him full leadership of the team. His manager explained the rejection saying, “Alberto’s future wasn’t about money only.” It is unclear what will happen to Contador and we can only speculate whether he is leaving because he has a better offer, because of the sponsorship issues, or because of the way he was apparently treated as a second-class citizen in the shadow of Armstrong.

It is a shame that two champions are leaving Team Astana, but Vinokourov is more than just a consolation prize; he is a very good cyclist, although we’ll see what 2 years off the circut did to him and we do need to keep in mind that he is 36 years old now, only one year younger than Armstrong who got a lot of flack in the press as an old geezer who can’t get up the hills anymore. There are other solid riders on the roster including Kloden and Levi Leipiheimer. But in some ways I wish that Team Astana would go all Kazakhstani. Team Astana is essentially a national team, sponsored by the government and state enterprises. And one of the few teams out there (if not the only one) that it is not sponsored by private businesses, one of the few teams that carries the name of the capital of a country on it. It was founded by Vinokourov in order for him to gain control of his own team and bring it home, after his previous team was charged with doping. And let’s face it, the government is trying to use the team to build patriotism and improve the country’s image abroad. So if it is Team Astana, why aren’t there more locals on the team? If you want to build the popularity of cycling in the country (a strategy that is working well, by the way), why not invest in your own riders and show that winning comes from working hard and not from buying champions?

By the way, strangely enough one can buy New York Rangers jerseys here in Kazakhstan, and I even saw a Sacramento basketball jersey (which must be university or minor league), but Team Astana jerseys are impossible to find, even though demand is quite high following the Tour de France win! I see cyclists with the jerseys but I can’t find them anywhere–does anyone know where to get the costumes?

The President of the UCI, Pat Mcquaid is quoted in Cycling Weekly as saying:

The deadline we’ve given them is a bank guarantee deadline and the payments are up to schedule. They’ve paid sums of money in recent weeks, and they may be in order. The bank guarantees I believe have been put back in place,” McQuaid said before the stage 19 of the Giro d’Italia to Mount Vesuvius.

However the UCI has made new requests of Team Astana. As of Friday the Kazakh authorities had not responded. The licensing commission meets in the middle of July so any decision to revoke the team’s license would be taken then. Of course, the question on everyone’s mind is whether the team will be able to ride in the Tour de France, the most famous cycling race and the one that Lance Armstrong has won seven consecutive times (1999-2005). The Tour starts on July 4th. General Manager Johan Bruyneel has said previously that the team will race in the Tour de France, whether as Team Astana or under different sponsorship.

Team Astana is primarily sponsored by a number of state-owned Kazakh companies including Air Astana, KazMunaiGas, KazZinc, and Kazakh Temir Zholi. However many of these companies have been unable to make payments due to the financial crisis and changes in the priority of spending state budget funds. Sponsors pay the Kazakh Cycling Federation who then pay Team Astana.

However despite not receiving salaries and the potential loss of sponsorship at the end of the month, Team Astana is doing very well in the Giro d’Italia! I found a nice article by Chris Horner describing his day riding in Stage 8, published in The Oregonian. He notes his food intake that day:

Yesterday – about 6,500 total calories

Breakfast: 1,100
Bowl of cereal with two yogurts in it, an omelet with 3 eggs and ham, bread with jam, and hot tea with about 6 tsp. sugar.

Before race: 430
PRC (pre-race Coke), candy bar (normally a Snickers).

Race: 2,455
Two race bars (SIS), 6 or 7 mini Cokes (65 calories each), two Clif shot blocs, three small euro sandwiches, 3 to 5 gels, and two Snickers.

After race in bus: 650
Sandwich, two Cokes, candy bar.

At hotel: 450
Bowl of cereal with milk and honey, crackers.

Dinner: 1,300
Salad, pasta sauce, meat and potatoes, dessert

After a while, it gets hard to choke down that much food every day! But at least we have a great staff and a great chef to keep things tasty and interesting.

and after describing the days race, praises his teammates and ends optimistically:

The legs are feeling great, and the team is riding incredibly strong. Levi, Lance Armstrong and I are getting better every day! So now its time for me to go to dinner and patch up the holes, so I’m ready to go again on Sunday.

After Stage 8 on Saturday, Chris Horner is in 8th place overall, and teammate Levi Leipheimer is in fourth.

Team Astana is funded primarily by state-owned companies under the national holding company, Samruk-Kazyna. However recently in reaction to the financial crisis, the holding company has cut staff and salaries both in its own staff and for the companies under it. It seems unlikely that they will be able to fund the cycling team. Or that given that Samruk-Kazyna is spending money to bail-out banks and other financial companies, there are other organizations that need the money more than Team Astana.

Regular staff of the team have not been receiving salaries and the team was sent a letter by the International Cycling Union stating that if they do not meet financial obligations by the end of this month, they will be suspended from the UCI. In other words, the team will not be able to compete in races.

Lance Armstrong has reluctantly spoken to reporters about the issue although he seems to prefer to keep silent since he is not involved in the day-to-day business of the team. The AP article states:

Armstrong indicated last week that he was talking to U.S.-based sponsors about taking over the team himself. That might be his only solution if he wants to go for an eighth Tour de France title in July.
“I’ve already said all I know about Kazakhstan, Astana, Borat. I don’t know anything more,” Armstrong said when last asked about the issue. “It’s not my team, it’s not my sponsor. I’ve got nothing to say about it. I would love to give you an answer, but I don’t have one. I would be speculating.
“It’s difficult to go to any major corporation and say in the middle of the calendar year — the fiscal year — and say, ‘How about we start in 20 or 30 days?’ But we’ll see.”

However the world’s most famous cyclist did seem to have some frustrations, as he told ESPN:

“I don’t know [the Kazakhstani officials], I don’t have a personal relationship with them, but I get frustrated,” said the seven-time Tour de France champion who’s riding for free this season. “These Kazakhs, they don’t return phone calls, and there’s not a lot of clarity about what is going to happen.

Sponsoring a team requires US$14-20 million a year, according to Mr. Armstrong so it is unlikely that another sponsor will be able to jump in by June to save the team. There is speculation that Armstrong’s fund may be able to assist, but as a charitable non-profit it probably could not assume full management of the team. However the team will be able to finish the Giro d’Italia which it is currently racing in.

Kazakhstan news sources seem to be fairly quiet about this preferring to focus on the fact that Team Astana is currently in third place in Italy.

However, Nikolai Proskurin, Vice-President of the Cycling Federation of Kazakhstan says that Air Astana has officially withdrawn its sponsorship and other sponsors have not met their obligations. He believes that with a lack of funding, “The team will drop its name and will compete under the flag of another country.”

In the midst of the financial crisis, it may be that Kazakhstan companies feel they have more urgent uses for their funds than a cycling team of course. And as the population finds itself struggling to get by, there has been some backlash against wealthy state-owned companies. The enormous holding company Samruk-Kazyna, which owns many of Team Astana’s sponsors, has already cut their staff in half and reduced salaries by 30% all around. And employees of many other national companies have received notice that they may be fired or have their salaries lowered.

It would be sad to see the team sacrificed to the crisis, but there is a bright side. Armstrong is donating all his winnings to cancer research and he is not accepting any salary. So maybe they can convince him to stick around even if the rest of the team leaves.

There are already tensions: Contador is leader of the team and according to the Kazakh Cycling Federation, Armstrong and Contador will share leadership next year and Contador is suggesting he might leave if that happens:

“I think I’ve earned the right to be the leader of a team without having to fight for my place,” the Spanish rider said Tuesday in AS newspaper. “And with Armstrong some difficult situations could arise in which the team would put him first and that would hurt me…My intention is to stay (at Astana) because I have a contract until 2010, but I have already received a good number of offers from other teams,” he said.

From AP News

I wonder if Armstrong is upset that he ended up getting scooped by the Deputy President of the Kazakh Cycling Federation, Nikolai Proskurin, who made the announcement earlier? Probably not. That likely had more to do with timezones.

The question now is, why did Team Astana deny that Armstrong was coming? Did they not know? Did they not want to jinx the deal? Did they think someone would try to steal him away if they announced the deal?

I also don’t need to tell you that last night Khabar News ran a story, “Team Astana Gets Glory on the World Stage” about Contador’s win in the Spanish Vuelta and Armstrong’s announcement. While I always find it a bit pathetic that Kazakhstan seems to try to get an ego boost wherever it can, I would much rather hear about the glory of its cycling team than GDP growth. And let’s face it, you’re going to attract more tourists and more fans in the world with Lance Armstrong than with Grigory Marchenko. I would be willing to take on any bets that Google searches for Kazakhstan and Astana have been skyrocketing over the past few weeks.

So overall I think this is an awesome move. What do you think of all this?

If Armstrong is being silent on which team he will join, Team Astana has announced that they are not interested: “He is no part of our team,” Astana team press officer Philippe Maertens said. “Team Astana has no plans with him.” Mark Higgins, Armstrong’s manager, is not commenting on the matter.

Velonews, which first announced that a source close to the cyclist said Armstrong would join the Kazakhstan team, based in Belgium, says that Armstrong will not take a salary or bonuses and that he plans to compete in the Amgen Tour of California, Paris-Nice, the Tour de Georgia, the Dauphiné Libéré and the Tour de France. Not taking a salary does fit with the goal of raising awareness of cancer and, presumably, raising money for cancer research.

Team Astana was started by the Kazakhstani cycling champion Alexander Vinokuorov in 2006 after his teammate Manolo Saiz was arrested for doping. However ironically Vinokourov himself was accused of doping in 2007. He received a one year suspension but subsequently retired from cycling. However the involvement of Team Astana in doping scandals, particularly links between team members and Dr. Eufemiano Fuentes, led to its being banned from the 2008 Tour de France. Since then Bruyneel has introduced a new anti-doping system and even fired Vladimir Gusev for showing “abnormal values” in a blood test. These more stringent measures may win Team Astana a new reputation.

Still as a cyclist who has also been plagued with accusations of doping, Armstrong may be hesitant to join Team Astana. Luckily in 2 more days we should all know if the rumors are true or not.