XDS ASTANA TEAM

The capital of Kazakhstan, renamed from Astana to Nur-Sultan in 2019 in honour of the former president Nursultan Nazarbayev and back to Astana in 2022, has lent its name to a world-class cycling team ever since the sponsor Liberty Seguros pulled out in May 2006. The team, backed by a consortium of state-owned companies based in this former Soviet republic in Asia, has changed management many times throughout its coloured history. While still registered with the Kazakh federation, in late 2024 it inked a deal with XDS that made the Chinese bicycle manufacturer its new financial backer.

A positive test result for its leader and founder, Alexander Vinokourov, led to the team being booted from the 2007 Tour and spending a while in cycling purgatory before its return. It became the talk of the town in the 2009 Tour as it broke into two factions, one coalescing around the eventual winner, Alberto Contador, and the other around the returning star Lance Armstrong. The Court of Arbitration for Sport stripped Contador of the 2010 Tour de France title at the end of a long-running legal affair. In 2011, Astana's totem rider, Alexander Vinokourov, was racing in what was supposed to be his swansong in the Grande Boucle when he crashed and broke a bone in the Cantal department. Determined to retire on a high note, the Kazakh champion came back to fight another day, claiming the 2012 Olympic road race in London and preparing the future of the team from a country where all these bumps on the road have failed to make a dent in its love for the Tour de France.

Vincenzo Nibali brought the turquoise squad back to the forefront of the cycling scene by winning the Giro in 2013, the Tour in 2014 and another Giro in 2016. The 2015 Vuelta champion, Fabio Aru, came out on top on La Planche des Belles Filles in 2017, matching Nibali's exploit in 2014. At Peyragudes, he became the first and, so far, the only rider who has wrested the yellow jersey from Chris Froome in the mountains, albeit for just two days. Jakob Fuglsang, the Danish winner of Liège–Bastogne–Liège and the Critérium du Dauphiné, crashed out of the Tour and ruined the 2019 edition for Astana.   The time for the Miguel Ángel "Superman" López, who had finished on the podium of the Giro and Vuelta, came in 2020. Before the Colombian's triumph in the queen stage on the Col de la Loze, the Kazakh champion, Alexey Lutsenko, had landed a symbolic win for Astana on Mont Aigoual. It was a turning point for a rider who had come to represent the whole team. In 2021, with internal conflicts in full swing and Vinokourov temporarily ousted from his position as team manager, Lutsenko focused on the general classification to finish seventh in Paris, assuring his status as the squad's sole leader thanks to his eighth place in the 2022 Tour de France despite Nibali and López being back on the team.

  In 2023, after 15 years chasing the top honours in Grand Tours, Astana put their chips on Mark Cavendish, the most famous sprinter of this era, who was hunting for a 35th stage win to break free of Eddy Merckx as the sole record holder for most stage wins. He came tantalisingly close in Bordeaux, where he crossed the finish line in second place, only to crash out of the race in the very next stage. Although he had earlier planned to retire in 2023, he took a leaf out of 2012 Vinokourov's book and decided to come back for one last hurrah. He had a date with destiny in Saint-Vulbas, where he finally got his hands on his 35th victory in 2024. Lutsenko was not his usual self last year, with eighth place in Troyes as his top result. The promising Colombian Harold Tejada, fifth in Bologna and eighth in the time trial from Monaco to Nice, also garnered the squad a bit of attention.