Astana riders welcome Armstrong's long shadow

WASHNIGTON. January 26. KAZINFORM For much of the previous hour, Steve Morabito and five of his six Astana teammates had been sitting comfortably in deck chairs, quietly conserving energy as they waited for the start of the third stage of the Tour Down Under.

But that was before Morabito's sixth teammate appeared. Suddenly, the tranquility was shattered, as reporters and cameras and digital recorders squeezed into the tight space between Morabito's chair and the Astana van. Lance Armstrong had arrived. "It's O.K.; I like the shade," said Morabito, a Swiss rider, as he peeked playfully through the forest of bodies in front of Armstrong in an attempt to get a look at the man with whom he would soon be racing. Armstrong's comeback in Australia after more than three years away from cycling is a game-changing event for the sport he once ruled by winning seven consecutive Tours de France. But it has had the biggest day-to-day impact on the men of Astana. The Spanish veteran Josй Luis Rubiera even decided to postpone retirement in order to spend one more season with Armstrong. "When I first heard about him coming back last year at the Tour of Spain, we thought it was a joke, or if not a joke, just another rumor," said Rubiera, a renowned climber who also raced with and for Armstrong from 2001 to 2005. Johan Bruyneel, Astana's general manager, also did not take Armstrong seriously at first. "He sent me a message about the comeback, and I said, 'Are you at a party and are you sober?"' Bruyneel recalled. "Because I thought he was drunk. I asked him. But then we started to talk more and more and then I finally said I have to go over there and spend some time with him and see what's really in his mind." After four days with Armstrong in Austin, Texas, in August, Bruyneel was convinced that Armstrong was serious. "I saw and felt the desire," said Bruyneel, who was also Armstrong's team director during his seven Tour de France victories with U.S. Postal and then Discovery Channel. "And since then I have no doubt he really cares about it and wants to do all the work and wants to train very hard, and, especially, that he likes to train very hard." Now they find themselves in something resembling a time warp, with Armstrong back to mobilizing attention, signing copies of his autobiography and racing amid a backdrop of yellow banners and bracelets. The big difference is that Armstrong, now 37, is not yet a dominant rider and hardly guaranteed to be the dominant rider on his own team, with Alberto Contador and Levi Leipheimer both set to start their seasons next month. As for the Tour Down Under, after four stages in this six-stage race, Armstrong finds himself sitting 39 seconds off the lead held by Allan Davis, an Australian with the Quick Step team. Davis won the bunched sprint at the finish of the picturesque stage Friday from Burnside Village in Adelaide to Angaston in the Barossa Valley wine country. Another big difference is that Armstrong, a quintessentially American figure with his Texas accent and Texas-sized ambition, is now racing for a team from the central Asian country of Kazakhstan, which he has never visited. "Lance was actually supposed to go in December just after our training camp in Tenerife," said Philippe Maertens, Astana's public relations manager. "But Lance had a meeting with Bill Clinton so he could not make it." The Astana team, named for the capital of Kazakhstan, was created to be the star vehicle for the Kazakh cyclist Aleksandr Vinokourov. But that was before Vinokourov was banned for doping from the 2007 Tour de France and later dismissed from the team. Enter Bruyneel, who had just retired from the sport after his Discovery Channel team had been dissolved. "It was only a three-week retirement," said Bruyneel, who said an excellent financial offer was one of the reasons he put a quick end to it. "It was a little bit of everything, really." Above all, Bruyneel, a former Belgian rider who now lives in Madrid, was brought in to rehabilitate Astana's image. It is an intriguing choice considering the allegations of doping - never supported or sanctioned by cycling authorities - that Armstrong had to contend with during his dominant years. Astana was barred from the 2008 Tour de France, with organizers citing Vinokourov's suspension as a primary reason. Contador, initially distraught over the snub, went on to win the Tours of Italy and Spain. Astana plans to return to the world's biggest race this year, and it is still sponsored by a consortium of state-owned companies in Kazakhstan. Ten of the 27 riders on its rosters are Kazakhs, and two of them are here: Maxim Iglinskiy and Assan Bazayev. But the linguas francas of the team are English, French and Spanish, none of which Iglinskiy and Bazayev speak fluently. Though the team will bring a translator to the bigger tours this season, no translators made the trip here. "There is not, of course, much communication with them," Morabito said. "But during the race, it's all pretty basic stuff anyway, so it's no problem." Clearly, though, the stars of this Kazakh-backed team are not the Kazakhs, not with Contador and Armstrong preparing to coexist this season. "The reason why Lance is on this team is because of our relationship," Bruyneel said. "When we started to talk together, I told him, there's no way you're going to be on another team, and for him it was the same." "It's different than an American team, but before it was an American team, an American base, but an international team, too," Bruyneel added. "Now circumstances have decided it's a team from Kazakhstan. But it could have been Rabobank or Saxo Bank, and it would have been the same. What's the relation between Lance and Holland, or Lance and Denmark? There is none." Although Morabito joked that Astana was "U.S. Postal with a new color," only five of Astana's team members have been on Armstrong's previous teams, and only the Spaniard Benjamin Noval, the Ukrainian Yaroslav Popovych and, above all, Rubiera have played significant roles on Armstrong's Tour de France teams. "It is like a time warp in some ways, but there are a lot of new faces out here," said Rubiera, 36. "Lance seems the same to me. Still as motivated, and though it's a big circus out here, it's a big circus that is good for the sport. We're at a time economically where sponsors are difficult to find, and Lance brings in the media and the interest at a moment when cycling really needs it." He will get no argument from Morabito, 25, who has enjoyed the opportunity (as well as the shade). "Look, let's face it, you wouldn't be talking to me if Lance weren't here," he said. The Spanish rider Jesъs Hernбndez, new to Astana this year, took a look around on Friday at the pre-start interest in Armstrong and then shook his head and chuckled. "If it's this crazy for the Tour Down Under, I can't imagine what it's going to be like for the Tour de France," he said, Kazinform refers to the Kazakh Embassy in the USA.