Astana Pro Team

Astana Pro Team
Team data
UCI code	AST
nationality	Kazakhstan
License	UCI WorldTeam
operator	Abacanto SA
First season	2007
discipline	Street
Wheel manufacturer	Wilier
staff
General manager	Alexander Vinokurov
Team manager	Dmitri Fofonov
Sportl. ladder	Bruno Cenghialta Giuseppe Martinelli Sergei Jakowlew Alexander Schefer Dmitri Sedoun Gorazd Štangelj Stefano Zanini
Name story
Years	Surname
2007–2010 2011 2012–	Astana Pro Team Astana Astana Pro Team
Team photo
Website
www.astanaproteam.kz

The Astana Pro Team is a Kazakh cycling team with the status of UCI WorldTeam .

history

The team was founded in 2007 when the Spanish ProTeam Liberty Seguros was dissolved. On May 23, 2006, team leader Saiz was arrested in the course of the investigation into the doping scandal Fuentes . The main sponsor Liberty Seguros then withdrew on May 25, 2006, so that the team was temporarily named after the co-sponsor Würth . A consortium of Kazakh companies became the new main sponsor on June 2, 2006 at the initiative of the driver Alexandre Vinokourov , after which the team was named after the Kazakh capital Astana . After five drivers from the 2006 Tour de France line-up were withdrawn because of their involvement in the doping investigation, the team was not allowed to start because they fell short of the minimum number of six drivers.

Vinokurow then wanted, together with the Kazakh consortium Astana, to take over the operating company “Active Bay”, which operates the “Astana” team, from the previous owners Pablo Anton and Manolo Saiz . As team boss from 2007 he wanted to win the former Vuelta-a-España winner Tony Rominger and had already brought the former team boss of T-Mobile, Walter Godefroot , into the team as an advisor to the sports management. Alexander Vinokurov himself then wanted to join the team in 2008 as sports director . On 16 December 2006, the Licensing Committee of the revoked International Cycling Union UCI , the UCI ProTeam license the operating company Active Bay while the Kazakh sponsors consortium itself, new management and largely successfully applied under the same name of the squad for such a license. Later, the main sponsor u. a. the Kazakh state group of companies called Samruk-Kazyna (Russian: Самрук-Казына) and the Astana Presidential Club .

At the Tour de France 2007 Vinokourov was convicted of blood doping and later banned. In September 2007, team manager Biver was replaced by the former Discovery manager and Lance Armstrong confidante Johan Bruyneel , who was later banned for life because of his involvement in the Armstrong doping affair. Under Bruyneel Alberto Contador won the Tour de France 2010 ; however, the success was revoked because of doping.

Bruyneel was replaced by Vinokourov after the 2012 season; Athletic director was Giuseppe Martinelli , formerly Marco Pantani supervised. At the end of 2012, the team applied for membership in the Movement for Credible Cycling MPCC and suspended rider Andrei Grigoryevich Kashechkin for refusing to sign the team's internal anti-doping rules.

Under Martinelli, the team with Vincenzo Nibali won the Giro d'Italia 2013 and the Tour de France 2014 .

After two doping cases by Astana drivers Maxim and Valentin Iglinskiy at the end of the 2014 season, the team suspended itself in accordance with the rules of the MPCC and canceled participation in the final race of the 2014 UCI World Tour , the Tour of Beijing . After another doping case of trainees Ilya Davidenok the UCI announced in October 2014 that the license commission the ProTeam license of the team will investigate further. On December 10, 2014, the WorldTour license for 2015 was granted on probation by the UCI Licensing Commission. The team was required to undergo an audit by the Sports Science Institute of the University of Lausanne and immediately apply the rules for UCI WorldTeams that will come into force in 2017 . The withdrawal of the license in the event of further doping cases or new findings from the investigations of the Padua Public Prosecutor, in which a. A possible collaboration between the team and the controversial sports medicine specialist Michele Ferrari is being investigated, was expressly threatened.

Following the submission of the investigation report by the Sports Science Institute of the University of Lausanne ISSUL, the UCI announced on February 27, 2015 that it would apply to the Licensing Commission to withdraw the license. According to the information available, there were major differences between the proclaimed anti-doping policy and the reality of the team. In addition, the evaluated material of the Public Prosecutor of Padua showed that team members were involved in the allegations there. On April 23, 2015, it was announced that the license commission did not withdraw the license, but set further conditions in cooperation with the ISSUL.

After the team, contrary to the rules of the MPCC, allowed Dutch rider Lars Boom to compete in the 2015 Tour de France , even though he had a test with a cortisol level that was too low, she was excluded from the MPCC the following September.

At the end of the 2015 season, Giuseppe Martinelli was replaced as team manager by Dimitri Fofonow .

In February 2018, team manager Vinokourov announced that the team is currently not paying salaries because the Kazakh state, as the main sponsor, has not made any payments since the beginning of the year. Several drivers and the press secretary contradicted this statement. Accordingly, the salaries are currently paid from the team's reserves, but these would not be enough for the entire year.

The Astana riders Jakob Fuglsang and Alexey Lutsenko was in February 2020, referring to one passed through leaks to the public report of the Cycling Anti-Doping Foundation accused (CADF), although it was forbidden contacts with the disabled in sports because of doping awarding doctors Michele Ferrari to entertain what with a ban of one to two years would be punished. The CADF announced shortly thereafter that there was insufficient evidence to initiate disciplinary proceedings.

2020 season

Success in the UCI WorldTour

date	run	driver
15th of August	Il Lombardia	Jakob Fuglsang

Success in the UCI ProSeries

date	run	driver
14th of February	2nd stage Tour de La Provence	Alexander Vlasov
19th of February	1st stage Tour of Andalusia	Jakob Fuglsang
21st of February	3rd stage Tour of Andalusia	Jakob Fuglsang
February 22	4th stage Algarve tour	Miguel Ángel López
19.-23. February	Overall evaluation of the Tour of Andalusia	Jakob Fuglsang
3rd August	Gran Trittico Lombardo	Gorka Izagirre
18th of August	Giro dell'Emilia	Alexander Vlasov

Success in the UCI Continental Circuits

date	run	Cat.	driver
February 15th	2nd stage Murcia tour	2.1	Luis León Sánchez
6th of August	Mont Ventoux Denivele Challenge	1.1	Alexander Vlasov

National road cycling champions

date	run	driver
August 23	Spanish Championship - Road Race	Luis León Sánchez

team

Team roster
Surname	Date of birth	country	Previous team
Alex Aranburu	September 19, 1995	Spain	Caja Rural-Seguros RGA (2019)
Zhandos Bizhigitov	June 10, 1991	Kazakhstan	Vino 4-ever SKO (2016)
Manuele Boaro	March 12, 1987	Italy	Bahrain-Merida (2018)
Hernando Bohórquez	June 22, 1992	Colombia	Manzana Postobón (2018)
Rodrigo Contreras	June 2, 1994	Colombia	EPM (2018)
Laurens De Vreese	September 29, 1988	Belgium	Wanty-Groupe Gobert (2014)
Fabio Felline	March 29, 1990	Italy	Trek-Segafredo (2019)
Daniil Fominykh	August 28, 1991	Kazakhstan	Astana Continental (2013)
Omar Fraile	17th July 1990	Spain	Dimension Data (2017)
Jakob Fuglsang	March 22, 1985	Denmark	RadioShack Nissan (2012)
Yevgeniy Gidich	May 19, 1996	Kazakhstan	Vino-Astana Motors (2017)
Jonas Gregaard	July 30, 1996	Denmark
Dmitri Grusdew	March 13, 1986	Kazakhstan	Ulan (2008)
Hugo Houle	September 27, 1990	Canada	AG2R La Mondiale (2017)
Gorka Izagirre	October 7, 1987	Spain	Bahrain-Merida (2018)
Ion Izagirre	4th February 1989	Spain	Bahrain-Merida (2018)
Merhawi kudu	January 23, 1994	Eritrea	Dimension Data (2018)
Miguel Ángel López	4th February 1994	Colombia
Alexei Lutsenko	September 7, 1992	Kazakhstan	Astana Continental (2012)
Davide Martinelli	May 31, 1993	Italy	Deceuninck-Quick-Step (2019)
Yuriy Natarov	December 28, 1996	Kazakhstan	Astana City (2018)
Vadim Pronskiy	June 4, 1998	Kazakhstan
Óscar Rodríguez	May 6, 1995	Spain	Euskadi Basque Country-Murias (2019)
Luis León Sánchez	November 24, 1983	Spain	Caja Rural-Seguros RGA (2014)
Nikita Stalnov	September 14, 1991	Kazakhstan	Astana City (2016)
Harold Tejada	April 27, 1997	Colombia	Medellin (2019)
Aleksandr Vlasov	April 23, 1996	Russia	Gazprom-RusVelo (2019)
Artyom Zakharov	October 27, 1991	Kazakhstan
Source: UCI

Placements in UCI rankings

UCI ProTour

season	Team ranking	Driver ranking
2007	12.	Andreas Klöden (31.)
2008	2.	Andreas Klöden (3rd)

UCI World Calendar

season	Team ranking	Driver ranking
2009	1.	Alberto Contador (1st)
2010	3.	Alexander Vinokurov (11th)

UCI World Tour

season	Team ranking	Driver ranking
2011	15th	Alexander Vinokurov (15.)
2012	10.	Roman Kreuziger (20.)
2013	5.	Vincenzo Nibali (5th)
2014	10.	Vincenzo Nibali (5th)
2015	5.	Fabio Aru (5th)
2016	10.	Vincenzo Nibali (12th)
2017	15th	Fabio Aru (26.)
2018	6th	Michael Valgren (12th)

UCI World Ranking

season	Team ranking	Driver ranking
2019	5.	Jakob Fuglsang (3.)

Jersey history

• 

  2007

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  2008

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  2009

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  2010

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  2011

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b} radsport-news.com of November 23, 2012: Will Astana participate in the movement for credible cycling?
2. ↑ cyclingnews.com from June 3, 2006: Sáiz's team becomes Astana-Würth
3. ↑ Vinokourov is not allowed to start. radsport-news.com, June 30, 2006, accessed November 16, 2014 . 
4. ↑ Dominik Jozic: Godefroot returns to cycling. Handelsblatt , July 21, 2006, accessed on November 16, 2014 . 
5. ↑ cyclingnews.com of December 16, 2006: Unibet in, Saiz out, ProTour place still possible for Astana
6. ↑ team. Official website, accessed July 23, 2017 . 
7. ↑ radsport-news.com from September 17, 2007: Astana wants to get rid of Biver
8. ↑ Vinokourov applies for MPCC membership for Astana team. VeloNation Press, December 26, 2012, accessed December 29, 2012 . 
9. ↑ Shane Stokes: Kashechkin suspended over refusal to sign Astana team's internal regulations. velonation.com, December 28, 2012, accessed December 29, 2012 . 
10. ↑ radsport-news.com of October 6, 2014: Astana suspended for eight days - no start on the Beijing tour
11. ↑ radsport-news.com from October 15, 2014: WorldTour license in danger: Third doping case in Team Astana
12. ↑ Astana gets the WorldTour license "on probation". radsport-news.com, December 11, 2014, accessed December 11, 2014 . 
13. ↑ 2015 UCI WorldTour: Decisions of the License Commission. uci.ch, December 10, 2014, accessed on December 11, 2014 (English). 
14. ↑ The UCI shows Vinokurov the red card. radsport-news.com, February 27, 2015, accessed on February 28, 2015 . 
15. ^ The UCI requests withdrawal of Astana Pro Team license. uci.ch, February 27, 2015, accessed on February 28, 2015 (English). 
16. ↑ Astana retains its license. radsportnews.com, April 23, 2015, accessed April 24, 2015 . 
17. ↑ Astana excluded from MPCC, Boaro stays with Tinkoff-Saxo. radsport-news.com, September 4, 2015, accessed September 4, 2015 . 
18. ^ Martinelli to leave post as general manager in Astana. cyclingnews.com, December 13, 2015, accessed December 13, 2015 . 
19. ↑ Astana does not currently pay drivers salaries. In: radsport-news.com. February 24, 2018, accessed February 25, 2018 . 
20. ↑ Astana: Driver salaries are funded by reserves. In: radsport-news.com. February 25, 2018, accessed February 26, 2018 . 
21. ↑ Astana: "No collaboration with Ferrari". In: radsport-news.com. February 3, 2020, accessed February 3, 2020 . 
22. ↑ Vinokourov calls for investigation into "leaked" CADF report. In: radsport-news.com. February 6, 2020, accessed February 7, 2020 . 

Web links

• Official website
• Astana Pro Team in the ProCyclingStats.com database
• Astana Pro Team in the UCI database