Astana Qazaqstan Team is a team that would have gladdened the hearts of the people behind the UCI’s original globalisation project: a Kazakh squad, led by an Italian and a Dane.
Since appearing on the scene in 2007, the squad has become a mainstay of the top-flight, with a host of wins in the world's biggest races.
The team also successfully nurtured a new Grand Tour talent in the shape of Fabio Aru, who won the 2015 Vuelta a España after placing second in the Giro behind Alberto Contador (Tinkoff) earlier in the year.
However, with Nibali moving to Bahrain-Merida in 2017 and Aru to UAE Team Emirates in 2018, the squad lacked a Grand Tour leader. Nibali is back for the 2022 season though, with four-time 2021 race winner Miguel Ángel López also joining him to make the squad considerably stronger.
Alexey Lutsenko, who was already with the team before this year, and Gianni Moscom, joining from Ineos Grenadiers, will act as team leaders alongside the aforementioned Nibali and López for the 2022 season.
Astana are hoping these additions to the team will help rediscover the form that saw them climb to such meteoric heights some years ago now, after the team finished an underwhelming twelfth in the UCI World team ranking for 2021.
Just three top-ten finishes in the Classics and Monuments last year highlights the team's lack of strength at fighting for podiums at cycling's most prestigious races, but Aleksandr Vlasov's fourth-place finish in the Giro d'Italia GC did provide reason for optimism within the team, but the Russian has since departed for Bora-Hansgrohe.
Sponsored by the Samruk-Kazyna, a coalition of Kazakhstani state-owned companies, and named its capital city Astana (now renamed Nur-Sultan), Premier Tech left the team at the end of 2021 due to financial reasons. They have now been renamed as Astana Qazaqstan Team.
