ASTANA
UCI ProTour team
Aside from the well-publicised comeback of a certain Lance Armstrong, the Astana team is comfortably the strongest Grand Tour team in the peloton, with potential winners of each of the three major Tours on the team?s roster.
Triple Grand Tour-winner Alberto Contador remains with the team for a second successive season and will be hard to beat in the Tour de France.
With the likes of Levi Leipheimer, Andreas Kloden and Haimar Zubeldia likely to act as super-domestiques in the major stage races of the year, the team could take a clean sweep of all the Grand Tours.
11 riders left the squad at the end of 2008, but the addition of Lance Armstrong and Jesus Hernandez means the team is strong in all areas: except one day races, where Gregory Rast is the team?s lone-hoper for the cobbled Classics.
RIDERS
Lance Armstrong (USA)
Assan Bazayev (Kaz)
Janez Brajkovic (Slo)
Alberto Contador (Spa)
Valeriy Dmitriyev (Kaz)
Alexsandr Dyachenko (Kaz)
Jesus Hernandez (Spa)
Chris Horner (USA)
Maxim Iglinskiy (Kaz)
Roman Kireyev (Kaz)
Andreas Klöden (Ger)
Berik Kupeshov (Kaz)
Levi Leipheimer (USA)
Steve Morabito (Swi)
Dmitriy Muravyev (Kaz)
Daniel Navarro (Spa)
Benjamín Noval (Spa)
Sérgio Paulinho (Por)
Yaroslav Popovych (Ukr)
Bolat Raimbekov (Kaz)
Grégory Rast (Swi)
Sergey Renev (Kaz)
José Luis Rubiera (Spa)
Michael Schär (Swi)
Tomas Vaitkus (Ltu)
Andrey Zeits (Kaz)
Haimar Zubeldia (Spa)
MANAGER
Johan Bruyneel
BIKES
Trek
COMPONENTRY
SRAM
LINKS
www.astana-cyclingteam.com
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