Mathieu Warnier, Media365: published on Saturday October 19, 2024 at 8:30 p.m.
While the name of the Astana Qazaqstan team does not appear in the list of teams having taken the necessary steps for the 2025 season recently published by the UCI, its boss Alexandre Vinokourov assured that an administrative concern is behind this absence. .
What’s going on with the Astana Qazaqstan team? While it allowed Mark Cavendish to break the record for stage victories in the Tour de France last July, the Kazakh team is largely absent from the teams registered for the 2025 season. Indeed, the International Cycling Union (UCI) communicated this Friday the list of teams having “submitted the essential documents with a view to registration in 2025”. However, in the list of teams entered in the World Tour, the name of Astana Qazaqstan is notably missing. And this while it announced on the sidelines of the last Tour de France a partnership with the Chinese brand XDS, a company specializing in carbon and which has a branch in charge of manufacturing bicycles, which should allow it to increase its budget and compete with its biggest rivals. In comments collected by the specialized site CyclingnewsAlexandre Vinokourov assured that the problem is essentially administrative.
Vinokourov: “Our team does not encounter any difficulties”
“A question arose regarding the wording of the bank guarantee document,” declared the former Olympic champion, who returned to head the team in 2022, a few months after being dismissed before the start of the 2021 edition. of the Tour de France. Indeed, during the process of submitting documents for confirmation of our WorldTour license, a question arose regarding the wording of the bank guarantee document, and clarification was requested, which the team provided. » To justify this delay, Alexandre Vinokourov highlighted “the additional coordination between the banks” which “required a certain time”. If the Astana Qazaqstan team missed the first deadline set by the UCI for the 2025 season, its boss wants to be reassuring. “In any case, the registration and license confirmation process with the UCI is taking place in accordance with the requirements and our team is not experiencing any difficulties,” he said. We will have to wait a few weeks to find out for sure.
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