KZBlog

An American expat living in Astana, Kazakhstan

Tag archive for ‘Alberto Contador’

  • Rehashing the Contador-Astana Feud

    In researching my last post, I reread a bunch of articles on why Contador left Astana. Although there were issues when Armstrong was riding with them regarding pay and of course, the team almost lost its license at one point, it looks like mens sports equipment was the big issue or the straw that broke […]

    6/23/11 • (Comments Off on Rehashing the Contador-Astana Feud)

  • Team Saxo Astana Bank?

    L’Equipe, a French sports website, has an interesting article up. They claim that the CFO of Team Astana wants to merge with Saxo Bank or Liquigas. What’s interesting about this story is that apparently no one else on Team Astana knew anything about this, although L’Equipe claims that Aidar Makhmetov, newly appointed as chief financial […]

    6/23/11 • (Comments Off on Team Saxo Astana Bank?)

  • Contador Is Leaving. Menchov is Coming?

    On the 29th of July, Contador is leaving Team Astana citing problems with equipment. Can’t find the article now, but his agent claims that among other things the TV in the Astana car was broken on the day Schlek broke his chain, meaning Contador didn’t know what was going on. This might have led him […]

    8/03/10 • (2)

  • Contador crosses the line in Stage 20 of the 2010 Tour de France

    Congratulations Contador and Golubev!

    As everyone knows by now, Alberto Contador won the Tour de France! It was a great race between him and Andy Schleck. And teammate Alexandre Vinokourov won the 13th stage, so it was a great Tour de France for Kazakhstan! Also, for all the talk about how Armstrong was 38 years old and therefore we […]

    7/27/10 • (Comments Off on Congratulations Contador and Golubev!)

  • Finally made it over 100,000

    .001% of the Internet Thinks My Site is Cool

    I finally broke 100,000 on my Alex Rank! Which was a small personal goal, albeit fairly meaningless in the long run. But it was something I was aiming for. Taking this time to look at my most popular posts, I am amazed to see that Fut-Fut-Fut-freestailo is the most popular post of all time on […]

    4/27/10 • (1)

  • Sports.kz

    Just discovered Sports.kz, a website that covers Kazakh sport, both national and international. Unfortunately it’s in Russian. Some other useful links on that page: RSS feed Asian Games category Newsreader a downloadable desktop app And thanks to this site, I just found the national football team site: Sbornaya.kz Sbornaya is the Russian word for team, […]

    3/24/10 • (Comments Off on Sports.kz)

  • Contador Stays; Name Goes

    Contador Stays; Name Goes

    This week some changes were announced regarding Team Astana, the cycling team. Alberto Contador himself finally announced that he is staying with the team. After losing Armstrong and Brunyel and after a long period of doubt over whether the team would keep its UCI license or its funding, this is very good news. Despite mulling […]

    11/22/09 • (8)

  • Astana says, “Stay” and Contador says, “Go, go, go.”

    With talk everywhere that Alberto Contador is thinking of leaving Team Astana (See my post, The Dream Team is Over), the Astana Cycling Team Management released a statement this weekend that the two-time Tour de France winner from Spain has one more year left in his contract: In order to clarify some misunderstandings reported in […]

    8/25/09 • (Comments Off on Astana says, “Stay” and Contador says, “Go, go, go.”)

  • The Dream Team is Over

    The Dream Team is Over

    After Contador’s win at the Tour de France and Lance Armstrong’s third place finish (not to mention Team Astana’s Andres Kloden in sixth place), Team Astana seemed to have demonstrated itself as a cycling power on the world stage. Unfortunately that will all come to an end now. Lance Armstrong has confirmed that he will […]

    8/08/09 • (2)

  • Team Astana in Trouble

    Despite their roster which includes Lance Armstrong, Contador and Leipheimer, Team Astana has been having financial issues. The team is sponsored by a number of state-owned companies including Air Astana, Kazakh Temir Zholi, KazMunaiGas and Kegoc. It also has a number of domestic and international sponsors including Trek, Nike and KazakhMys. However, Nikolai Proskurin, Vice-President […]

    4/15/09 • (2)