Interview with Team Astana's Sports Director Alexandr Shefer

During the 2011 Tour de France, the sport director Alexandr Shefer will accompany the Astana riders up to the Champs Elysees. He talks about the team, its objectives and his friendship with Alexandre Vinokourov that will run Tour de France this year for the last time in his cycling career.

Last Friday, the selection of the 9 riders * for the next Tour de France was officially announced "We have made a fairly heterogeneous group around our leader Alexandre Vinokourov. 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. "

The Astana will pursue two main objectives, "We really want that Vino wears the yellow jersey a few days and hope to win a stage. Also, our sponsors rely on us for the best team classification, as we won during the last Giro, we will do our best. "

The riders were in training camp last week "The goal was rather to recover. Most of them rode for Criterium du Dauphine, 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, I think they will start this Tour in optimal conditions. Also, the atmosphere is very good within the group, between the riders as within the staff, there is a real cohesion! "

Alexandre Vinokourov and Alexandr Shefer have known each other for 25 years now, "We met in 1986 and since then we always staid in contact. I was one of the first Kazakh 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. "

This will be the final season of “Vino” as a professional cyclist, "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. 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, my emotions are dependent on his own, when he is happy, I am too. "

If we were wishing for something to Alexandre for his last Tour "It would be to finish on the podium of the Tour de France. 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! "

*Tour de France 2011 - Riders List:

Alexandre VINOKOUROV (KAZ) - Rémy DI GREGORIO (FRA) - Dmitriy FOFONOV (KAZ) - Andriy GRIVKO (UKR) - Maxim IGLINSKIY (KAZ) - Roman KREUZIGER (CZE) - Paolo TIRALONGO (ITA) - Tomas VAITKUS  (LTU) - Andrey ZEITS (KAZ)

28-06-2011