Prior to the start of this year's Tour de France there was a lot of speculation about how well the Astana team would perform for defending champion Alberto Contador. The entirety of the 2009 Tour squad, save Contador, was part of a mass exodus to the new RadioShack team of seven-time winner Lance Armstrong, leaving the Spaniard and his team the daunting task of rebuilding. As it turns out, six of the nine Tour riders for the Kazakh formation were on Astana last year, with David de la Fuente, Andriy Grivko and Paolo Tiralongo representing the final third that was brought on board over the off-season.
Thus far, the team has performed impressively during the Tour and, following the first day in the mountains, wore the yellow numbers to represent their lead in the race's best team classification. Astana answered their critics when they put in a brilliant ride during today's eighth stage after taking over the reigns from Team Sky and Saxo Bank on the Col de la Ramaz. They kept the tempo high up to the summit of the climb, and continued to drill the pace up the final ascent to the Avoriaz ski resort to finish off a faltering Armstrong behind. Daniel Navarro did the lion's share of the work up to Morzine, effectively ending Armstrong's bid for Tour number eight and distancing Bradley Wiggins (Team Sky) from his dreams of yellow in the process.
Among the many questions about the team, one of them centered around whether Alexandre Vinokourov would ride in the service of Contador throughout the race. Stage three saw the Kazakh rider pull away from the Spaniard in the final kilometers, but the team explained afterward that it was a communication problem between the two riders. Still, some questioned the incident. Today Vinokourov erased any remaining doubt and rode with his familar tenacious determination, only this time as a domestique. He was dropped on the Col de la Ramaz and pulled himself back once he recovered to help dish out bottles and food and then begin the work of a punishing pace on the final ascent.
Astana currently sits in second place behind Rabobank in the team classification now, but it is because of their concerted effort to make the day difficult for Contador's rivals, not because they rode poorly.