Change is afoot at Astana Qazaqstan. With the short-lived but ultimately successful Mark Cavendish era coming to an end, the team are facing an uphill battle to retain their WorldTour licence – and to do so they’ve been forced into pressing the radical button.
The current cycle of the UCI’s controversial three-season points system that determines which teams will be awarded the 18 WorldTour licences will reach its conclusion at the end of the 2025 season, and currently Astana are the 21st-ranked team, 4,100 points adrift of Cofidis in 18th.
For those who don’t keep regular abreast of what a win or high placing is worth, Cavendish’s 35th stage win at the Tour de France in July earned his team 210 points, while his early-season victory at Tour Colombia netted 14 points. Had an Astana rider won a WorldTour stage race, however – don’t forget, GC racing was what they were about until Cavendish veered them towards sprinting – then they’d have earned 500 points, and more than double that for winning a Grand Tour. Do the basic maths, and for Astana to reduce their seismic deficit to the top 18, they’d need to win around 20 Grand Tour stages next year just to draw parity. That’s five more than UAE Team Emirates, 2024’s dominators, have managed this season. You can see the problem facing Astana.
The team of Alexander Vinokourov is aware that demotion to the second division would not guarantee them selection in the three Grand Tours – only the best two teams from the ProTeams tier are given a wildcard – and thus the Kazakh team have been on a necessary and eye-catching spending spree.
With new Chinese investment arriving from bike manufacturer XDS Carbon-Tech in 2025, and the company promising to finance the team to “the level of leading WorldTour teams”, Astana have already recruited former Tour of Flanders winner Alberto Bettiol (1,528 points this season, and 678 points per season on average over the past five years) in a mid-season transfer, and announced the signings of fellow point-baggers Diego Ulissi (1,423 points this season, and a season average of 1,203), Sergio Higuita (412 points this season, and a season average of 803), and Wout Poels (518 points this season, and a season average of 531) for 2025 and beyond.
If the quartet’s average season point tallies were to be replicated next year, it would provide a combined estimated points total of 3,215. Add in the reliable points accrued by the Italians…