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Kazakh consortium underwrites Saiz's team
Manolo Saiz has found a new sponsor to underwrite his ProTour team, barely a week after insurance giant Liberty Seguros pulled the plug on its $8.5 million-a-year deal.
A consortium of five of Kazakhstan’s largest companies will immediately take over as title sponsor, and the team will ride under the name Astaná-Würth, likely debuting its new colors at the Dauphiné Libéré beginning Sunday in France. Astaná is the name of the Kazakh capital.
The team made a brief announcement Friday, but didn’t provide details of which companies are contributing or how much they will contribute, saying only that the new deal "betters the conditions" of the previous sponsor. The deal is good for three years and could be extended for another three.
The news comes after a week of revelations and speculation over an alleged blood-doping ring centered in Spain. Saiz was among five persons detained last week by Spanish authorities and police later found banned substances, blood transfusion machines and 100 packets of frozen blood in a pair of raids.
In the wake of Saiz’s detention, Liberty Seguros made the unprecedented decision to immediately quit the team. Officials said they had stuck by the team through the Roberto Heras EPO scandal, but the latest allegations were too much for the American insurance giant to stomach.
The departure left the team in the lurch, but riders in the Giro d’Italia rode the final stages wearing the Liberty Seguros-Würth jersey.
Würth – a German tool-maker – decided this week it would honor its co-sponsorship agreement through the end of the 2006 season, when its contract, estimated at 2 million euros per year, was due to expire. Riders lined up Wednesday for the start of the Euskal Bicicleta race in northern Spain riding with only the Würth logo on its jersey.
Speculation began this week that a Kazakh sponsor was ready to step in. The pull of Alexandre Vinokourov – who is a national hero in his native Kazakhstan and personal friends with the president - seems to have helped seal the deal.
