The partnership was supposed to last only one year, but Cavendish was beaten by Jasper Philipsen (then Alpecin-Deceuninck) in the sprint at the end of stage 7 of that year’s Tour and then crashed out of the race on stage 8. This meant that Astana had to focus its strategies and resources for another year on Cavendish’s quest, which culminated at last with victory on stage 5 of the 2024 Tour.
Riding for points
As a result of supporting Cavendish for almost two full seasons, the team then known as Astana Qazaqstan had trouble garnering team points. None of its 16 victories in 2023 came in WorldTour-level races and only one of its 12 wins in 2024 was achieved at the top level, Cavendish’s record-breaking Tour de France stage win. So the team came into 2025 in danger of relegation from WorldTour status, which is determined by the amount of points won over a three-year period, which ended in 2025.
Fortunately, Astana came into that decisive year with an important new sponsor, the Chinese bicycle brand XDS. No doubt its new name sponsor helped the team go on a transfer spree in late 2024, picking up top riders like Harold Martín López and Alberto Bettiol. That led to a bumper year for XDS Astana, with 32 victories and 16,716 points, more than twice the amount it won during the two “Cavendish years” and easily enough to remain at the top level.
But it also led to criticism for its points-at-all-costs philosophy, notably from Jayco AlUla’s veteran rider Michael Matthews. “If I’m completely honest, that’s what really destroys cycling for me: those UCI points,” the 35-year-old Australian said earlier this month in the Roadman Podcast. “You now see so many teams that don’t have a favorite to win a certain race, but have the goal of finishing in the top ten with as many riders as possible. I am totally against this. Not only Astana, but many teams set up their selection in such a way that they mainly race against each other.
“How can a team feeling arise there? Cycling is becoming an individual sport, it is no longer a team sport. You try to make it clear to cycling fans that it is a team sport, but then in a sprint finish you see three sprinters from the same team sprinting against each other.”
The new strategy
But this year, flush with resources and confident of its squad, the team is not hunting points. “We’re riding with a completely different mentality than last season,” XDS Astana sports director Dmitry Fofonov told Wielerflits recently. “We’re in a completely different situation than last year. We were in trouble then. We desperately needed the points, so we made a one-time plan, against our nature, just to secure our license. In the 14 years I was on the team before that, the term UCI points was never mentioned once. We’ve always been a team that rides for victories. I still believe the points will come naturally.”
So far, Fofonov has been confirmed by the early results. As of February 19, XDS Astana stood second in the UCI Technical Rankings with 2497 points, including 1,068 points in a single day, trailing only the dominant UAE Team Emirates–XRG (3229 points, though its superstar Tadej Pogačar has yet to ride a race). That one-day haul included one-two finishes by Christian Scaroni and Cristián Rodriguez at the Tour of Oman on stage 5 and the final GC.
“That’s a serious booty, yes,” Fofonov said. “We made wise choices, I think. Here in Oman we came with a team full of climbers, plus Alberto Bettiol for the flat. It’s not our first time winning in Oman. We were also successful here with Vincenzo Nibali and twice with Alexey Lutsenko. Then you know that you have to put everything on the general classification. And that is completely determined on the last day at Green Mountain. That plan also worked out well.”
But he continued to insist that the only goal they had was victory. “We only thought about the victory, Fofonov said. “Believe me, we prefer fighting for victories. Everything that came on top of that was a bonus.”
In any case, it’s early days yet in the year and very early days in the three-year WorldTour promotion/relegation period, which ends on December 31, 2028, which enables XDS Astana to focus on longer-range ambitions. “We are now entering a new three-year cycle that will determine promotion and relegation,” Fofonov noted. “You can afford to lose points again, because a new cycle starts anyway. Suppose we don’t get many points now, then there is still next year to make up for it. If that happens again, you won’t have to start thinking about the points again until 2028. It is a kind of emergency strategy, which you should only apply in that situation.”
And he said that his team is not unique in this strategy. “Most WorldTour teams approach it that way,” he observed. “Last year it might have been different, but now I have the feeling that everyone thinks like us. Young riders want to win races, and not take as many points as possible. That is what we as sports directors want to pass on. I wouldn’t want it any other way.”
For an in-depth account of how Astana saved its WorldTour status, read this fascinating article by Jim Cotton in Velo.
