Management

ASTANA PRO TEAM (AST) - KAZ

Astana have lost one of their best-known and most successful riders, Alexandre Vinokourov, after the Kazakh veteran pulled down the curtain on his career following his gold medal in the Olympic road race. However the arrival of leading Italian stage racer Vincenzo Nibali to the Kazakh line-up will do a great deal to fill the gap.

Third in the 2012 Tour and the winner of the 2010 Vuelta a España, Nibali’s big target for the upcoming season will be the Giro d’Italia. Just like in last year’s Tour, he will have Team Sky’s Bradley Wiggins as his big rival, but racing on home terrain and a more mountainous course are just two factors in Nibali’s favour.

The Italian will also have a strong team, starting with Jani Brajkovic, who showed a return to his 2010 form last season. Ninth in last year’s Tour de France and seventh in the Criterium du Dauphiné after a year that was thankfully free of injuries compared to 2011, the Slovenian will be able to offer Nibali some protection in the mountains, with Kevin Seeldraeyers and Valerio Agnoli also sure to provide solid back-up.

Other high-profile additions to the Astana line-up are Jakob Fuglsang, the former Vuelta a España leader and former mountain bike racer, who has been named as the leader of the Kazakh squad in the Tour.

Yet more boosts for Astana’s chances of success will come in the sprints with the arrival of one of cycling’s most exciting young riders: Andrea Guardini. The winner of 21 races in his first two years as a pro, including a stage in the Giro d’Italia last year, Italian Guardini is now poised for greater challenges with his first UCI WorldTour team.

One area where Astana had no need to up its game is in the Ardennes Classics, with Enrico Gasparotto and Maxim Iglinsky taking top honours in the Amstel Gold Race and Liège-Bastogne-Liège last year. Both riders remain with Astana, with the only difference this April that both are now firm favourites.

Overall Astana have signed more than enough firepower both to shine again in the stage races and in the bunch sprints. Seeing whether Vincenzo Nibali can finally net a second Grand Tour, therefore, will be just one of their many targets in 2013 for the Kazakh squad.