Astana

The Astana Qazaqstan cycling team has been a professional cycling team under Kazakh license since 2009. It was...

The Astana Qazaqstan cycling team has been a professional cycling team under Kazakh license since 2009. It was created in 2007 under Swiss license and became Luxembourgish in 2008. The sponsor, Samrouk-Kazyna, is a conglomerate of Kazakh companies united around the name of the capital of Kazakhstan, Astana. When it was created, it partly took over the workforce of the former Liberty Seguros team, which disappeared in 2006 following the Puerto1 doping affair. It has been racing with a World Tour team license since its inception. Its managing director is the former cyclist Alexandre Vinokourov. During its existence, the team has notably won two Tours de France (Alberto Contador in 2009 and Vincenzo Nibali in 2014), three Tours of Italy (Alberto Contador in 2008 and Vicenzo Nibali in 2013 and 2016) and two Tours d Spain (Alberto Contador in 2008 and Fabio Aru in 2015). The Kazakh team also has many successes in one-week stage races and has distinguished itself in certain classics with three victories over Liège-Bastogne-Liège (Alexandre Vinokourov in 2010, Maxim Iglinskiy in 2012 and Jakob Fuglsang in 2019) , two in the Amstel Gold Race (Enrico Gasparotto in 2012 and Michael Valgren in 2018) and the Tour of Lombardy (Vincenzo Nibali in 2015 and Fuglsang in 2020). Since its creation, the team and its members have been implicated in several doping cases, notably Alexandre Vinokourov when he was a rider in 2007, Johan Bruyneel, Lance Armstrong, or Alberto Contador who was stripped of his Tour victory. of France 2010.