There has as yet been no confirmation from the rider or his representations, but the deputy president of the Kazakh Cycling Federation has claimed that Alberto Contador will race with the Astana team in 2010.
“We have absolutely no problems with Alberto Contador, and he will compete with Astana next season,” said Nikolai Proskurin, according to the Associated Press agency.
Contador had previously made it clear that he wanted to drop the final year of his contract and find a place with another team. He appeared to have found a mechanism to do so when the Astana team missed the UCI’s initial deadline of October 20th for fulfilling all registration requirements. The UCI confirmed that he was free to leave that point.
Proskurin denied that the rider said he would head elsewhere. “Certain people, it is unclear who, have completely dreamed this up, but there has been no occasion on which he has made an official statement on this issue,” he said, then explained the delays.
“The issue is simply that we need to provide additional documents because we have changed our sponsors.”
At least four other teams have been linked to the double Tour de France winner, namely Caisse d’Epargne, Garmin Slipstream, Quick Step and Liquigas. After the October 20th deadline, Contador indicated that discussions would continue before any decision was made.
Proskurin now states that he will be staying put but, given that he has made such statements before, judgement will be reserved until Contador or his representatives confirm that this is indeed the case.