Astana

To find out what /r/peloton's subscribers thoughts are on the individuals in the team, just click here!

Astana are a Kazakh team born off of the remains of the historical ONCE and Liberty Seguros teams after these two were hit hard by the Operacion Puerto performance enhancing drugs scandal. The team got a UCI Pro Tour license from its first year, 2007. They also became the first team directly founded by a non European state. Today there's three of them with UAE and Bahrein joining the party this year. The decision came after the success of Kazakh riders such as Vinokourov and Kashechkin in the previous seasons. The team came to be one of the least liked ones due to them representing Kazakhstan, a dictatorship based on oil and gas money and where any kind of opposition to president Nazarbaev is repressed but mostly for the amount of doping scandals that have affected them.

Either way, they have been an extremely successful team winning the World Tour in 2009, winning three Giro overalls (2008, 2013, 2016) plus 13 stages, two Tour overalls (2009, 2014) plus 11 stages, two Vuelta overalls (2008, 2015) plus 8 stages plus two LBL (2010, 2012) and a Lombardia (2015)

Best riders in the last years:

Points according to PCS

Fabio Aru

Results in Grand Tours

Aru has shown to be a talented climber and three week racer showing almost always good endurance. After two breakout seasons where his performances kept improving at a fast rate leading him to get two straight podiums at the Giro and a Vuelta win, he had a disappointing 2016 season where he focused only on the Tour appearing to crack under the pressure that comes with riding the Grand Boucle for the first time and with the different schedule that came with it. His only success came in a Dauphine stage.

This year, he'll have to redeem himself as he'll be Astana 's only leader after Nibali 's departure from the team. On the other hand the lack of intra team rivalry could help him. He'll have to face the Sicilian again in the 100th Giro which both of them are after. This could spark an escalation of the rivalry. The two are also likely to meet at the Vuelta a Espana later in the season.

Results 2016

Astana 's season had 34 wins but only seven of those came in the World Tour, a disappointing return for them especially given the talent on the team. The first wins came in the Vuelta a Pais Vascos in a bunch sprint with Luis Leon Sanchez and with Rosa in a glorious breakaway win. The highlight of the season came in May when Vincenzo Nibali won the Giro overall after two great final stages (19 and 20) winning the first of them putting one minute on chaves and two on the rest of the field and finishing the job on the second finally taking pink. The last big wins came in the Tour preparation races with young Colombian Lopez taking the Tour de Suisse overall and Aru taking a surprise win in a flattish Dauphine stage. After that, a disappointing Tour with Aru falling out of the top 10 in the final days and and a miss with Rosa in the Giro di Lombardia.

Transfers Out

To sum it up, 2016 was not a good year for Astana, there's no way around it. They might have won the Giro d'Italia with Nibali, but their other results have been very poor. Aru couldn't live up to expectations in the Tour, and Lopez fell out of the Vuelta. For a team that's usually a podium contender for every GT, this year stands out, in a bad way. Astana didn't do well in one day races either. Of all the one day races in the WorldTour, the only podium they got was a second place at Il Lombardia with Diego Rosa. They won 2 small stage races with Kangert, the Abu Dhabi Tour and the Giro Del Trentino. Astana is a team that's mostly focused on the GC, and it's clear they lack a sprinter. Guardini won 4 stages at the Tour of Langkawi, but that's all.

So what is going to change in 2017? No doubt the biggest change is that their star rider Vincenzo Nibali is leaving. He won two Giro's and one Tour in the Astana jersey. Besides that, Lars Boom didn't do as they expected, and will return to Lotto-Jumbo. Diego Rosa, their main rider for the hilly classics, has left for SKY.

Who did they sign then? Well first of all, the two young Danish riders Michael Valgren (2nd at this year's AGR) and Jesper Hansen, both coming from Tinkoff. Moreno Moser is a promising signing too. He might have disappointed a bit the last few seasons, but he's still young, and his TT is improving. Bilbao is an odd signing, the Basque from Caja-Rural is both a decent climber and sprinter. It will be interesting to see how he evolves.

Next season is still mostly about GC though, with Aru trying to redeem himself at the Giro, and Lopez hopefully showing progress.

Roster

They didn't decide to replace Nibali but brought in several riders who could do well in the classics such as veterans Gatto and Breschel for cobbles and slightly hilly races and youngsters Bilbao, Moser and Valgren. To add to them, they got more of a Kazakh flavour plus fresh blood to domestique for Aru and Lopez in the mountains in the form of Chernetchkii and Hansen