PRESS RELEASE: TEAM ASTANA

Astana Cycling Team’s Levi Leipheimer captured his third consecutive Amgen Tour of California title. The victory comes on the same day that teammate Alberto Contador won the Tour of Algarve, giving Team Astana four total victories in the early part of 2009. Over the 9 days and 1256 km (780 miles) of racing, Levi Leipheimer was 36 seconds faster than Garmin-Slipstream’s Dave Zabriskie and 45 seconds faster than Columbia’s Michael Rogers. Leipheimer laid the foundation for his final victory during the 2nd stage’s Bonny Doon mountain, and in the individual time trial in Solvang, which he won in convincing fashion.

Leipheimer led a strong group of Team Astana riders which won the Overall Team Classification with three riders in the top ten. Making his return to professional road cycling in the United States Lance Armstrong finished 7th overall and Jose Luis Rubiera rounded out the top ten.

“It gets sweeter and sweeter to win”, told the delighted leader of the Astana Cycling Team. Once was awesome, twice was like “wow”, but three times, is an exclamation point. It was an honor to have Lance Armstrong as a domestique for me and I hope to pay him back in future races. Also without my other teammates Brajkovic, Horner, Morabito, Popovych, Rast and Rubiera, I would never have succeeded. They were upfront the whole week, including the first days in the most miserable, horrific weather conditions. I needed them today in that tough last stage over the Palomar, a climb of Tour de France caliber, a kind of hors category.”

“Levi is amazing”, said Team Manager Johan Bruyneel. When he knows that he will be the leader of the Team, he is ready for it. Levi always delivers. Moreover, he works for it. Although he has maybe the most ideal time trial position on the bike, he still went twice to the wind tunnel last winter to improve that position. The people of Trek, Giro and SRAM, as well as aerodynamics specialist Steve Hed did an excellent job.”

Lance Armstrong was delighted with Leipheimer’s and the Team’s victory. He was also pleased with his performance, though recognizes that improvements can be made. “I cannot complain about the results and how I feel on the bike, but I still have to work on my bike position. To improve in the mountains, I surely have to lose weight. I am already strong enough, but I need to get lighter.”

Tour of California winner Levi Leipheimer will head now to Europe to participate in Paris-Nice and the Vueta a Castilla y León.

Photo by: VeloImages.com / Bicycle.net