Italian daily La Gazzetta dello Sport has reported that Alberto Contador will be staying with Astana for the 2010 season – but he’ll be swapping this season’s Trek bicycle for machines made by Specialized after signing a personal contract with the California-based manufacturer.
Contador’s deal with the American firm means that the Astana team is likely to ride Specialized bikes next year, and a change of frame supplier had seemed on the cards as soon as long-time Trek spokesperson Lance Armstrong announced the formation of his new Team RadioShack earlier this year.
The contract, reportedly worth 700,000 euro a year, is said to have been signed on Friday at the offices, near Madrid, of
Specialized’s Spanish distributor and only covers the bicycles themselves, with the two-time Tour de France winner continuing other sponsorship deals such as Giro for his helmet and sunglasses and Sidi for shoes.
The newspaper added that negotiations are under way for a two-year extension to Contador’s current deal with Astana when it expires next year, with an annual salary in the region of 5 million euro being bandied about. But that comes with strings attached from the Kazakh squad’s point of view, with Contador said to be demanding “technical guarantees.”
Those include a stipulation that Astana employ Contador’s own backroom staff, plus a shopping list headed by none other than Ivan Basso, the 2006 Giro d’Italia winner who was banned for the following two seasons following an investigation CONI, the Italian Olympic Committee, into his links with Dr Eufemiano Fuentes and Operacion Puerto.
Basso’s potential signing, which the Gazzetta says would be for the 2011 season given he is currently under contract to Liquigas, would be sure to raise eyebrows, especially in light of Astana’s exclusion from the 2008 Tour de France as a result of Alexander Vinokourov’s failed drugs test the previous year, which denied Contador the chance to defend his title. And Basso himself had been excluded by the Tour’s organisers in 2006 as one of the riders under suspicion through Operacion Puerto.
The paper reported that Specialized have identified Basso as the ideal rider to promote its brand in Italy, which it says gives added credence to the prospect of his moving to Astana in a year’s time, assuming that Contador extends his contract.
And with Vinokourov also potentially still racing in the Kazakh squad’s colours come 2011, Tour de France organisers ASO would presumably have some head-scratching to do about which of the Astana team’s riders it would welcome to the race that year.
At the given time of day on that date (8:15 am August 22nd) in that location the sun would be at 53° north, so you'd have to be driving at least...
I said it appears to on the basis of the graph you shared, I was at pains to point out that I hadn't read the article. Thanks for sharing the blog,...
7 October was just a bit of harmless fun until the "msm" ramped it up.
It's not censored if you just pirate it
an example of Kesgraves "best cycling infrastructure in the country" https://maps.app.goo.gl/GsCMbzDUTPdq59qS9
It turns out that that is national police policy. We found out from this process that there is national 'secured by design' policy which causes...
Been available for quite a while, full GRX mechanical 12 speed. Probably around the same time as 105 mechanical 12 speed if I were to guess.
Less harmful citrus degreaser is easy to find at £8 or less for 5 litres. Works ok for me, even diluted up to 4:1. Both paraffin and white spirit...
Nope, it's to keep your straps down and quieter. Plus most sunglasses are polycarbonate and aren't going to shatter like glass anyway
And, more seriously, where's the coverage of the closure of the cycle lane which forces you to cycle on the Totton bypass.