Alexandr Shefer will be one of Astana’s sports directors at this year’s Tour de France. The Kazakh, who has been a friend of the team’s big star Alexandre Vinokourov for many years, is confident about the turquoise and yellow team’s chances in the race, but is also emotional about what will be Vinokourov’s last appearance.
"We have made a fairly heterogeneous group around our leader Alexandre Vinokourov,” Shefer explained. “We have different potential to be competitive on all fronts, the time trial, as the plains and mountains. Andriy Grivko, Tomas Vaitkus, Andrey Zeits and Maxim Iglinskiy will work the most during the first week and others will be more useful in the following weeks for the mountain stages."
With the team racing for Vinokourov, a former podium finisher in the race, the objective is clear for the Kazakh team.
"We really want Vino to wear the yellow jersey a few days and hope to win a stage,” said Shefer. “Also, our sponsors rely on us for the best team classification, as we won during the last Giro, we will do our best.”
After some tough racing in the past month, the team has spent the last week at a training camp to finalise preparations for the Tour.
"The goal was rather to recover,” Shefer explained. “Most of them rode the Criterium du Dauphiné, while Paolo Tiralongo and Roman Kreuziger, still had to get back in condition after the Giro d'Italia. The objective of this camp was more to maintain condition than to ramp up.
“They are in good shape,” he added. “I think they will start this Tour in optimal condition. Also, the atmosphere is very good within the group, between the riders as within the staff, there is a real cohesion!"
Both the Giro d’Italia and the Critérium du Dauphiné went well for the team; Vinokourov finished third in the Dauphiné, while at the Giro Kreuziger finished in the white young rider’s jersey and Tiralongo took a stage. Incredibly this was his first ever victory as a professional!
One last fling for two old friends
Shefer and Vinokourov have been friends for many years, with both among the influx of riders joining the professional European peloton from former Eastern Bloc countries.
"We met in 1986 and since then we always stayed in contact,” Shefer explained. “I was one of the first Kazakhs to become a professional, I arrived in Europe in 1993 and a few years after he came for his debut in 1997 in the formation of Vincent Lavenu."
Shefer retired in 2003, at the age of 32 having ridden for some of the biggest teams in the sport, including Saeco, Alessio and Asics. His close friend Vinokourov will soon be joining him in retirement, having declared this to be his final year as a professional.
"On the one hand, I think he made the good decision to stop because he is almost 38 years old, it is the right time,” said Shefer. “But part of me of course will miss him, because it is a really special stimulation to go on races with someone like Vino.
“He is a great champion but he is my friend above all,” he added, “my emotions are dependent on his own, when he is happy, I am too. "
Once again the objective in the Tour is as good as possible a finish for Vinokourov, and the team is very ambitious in that regard.
"It would be to finish on the podium of the Tour de France,” said Shefer. “To be on a podium in the middle of the Champs Elysees to finish his career, I think it's really the best thing ever that could happen!"
While Vino finished third in the 2003 race, putting him on the final podium alongside Lance Armstrong and Jan Ullrich, he showed in 2005 that there is more than one way to reach that Paris podium. As the peloton headed towards the final kilometre of the Champs Elysées circuit, heading for what everyone assumed was the inevitable sprint, Vinokourov attacked and managed to stay away to take the stage victory.
The small time gap and resultant time bonuses were also enough to elevate him to fifth overall, but his stage victory in the Kazakh champion’s jersey is the image that Vinokourov leaves from that Tour de France.
Astana team for the Tour de France:
Alexandre Vinokourov, Rémy Di Gregorio, Dmitriy Fofonov, Andriy Grivko, Maxim Iglinskiy, Roman Kreuziger, Paolo Tiralongo, Tomas Vaitkus and Andrey Zeits