Tour de France:Seven-time champion Lance Armstrong and race favourite Alberto Contador are certain to start the Tour de France on July 4th with Astana after the International Cycling Union suspended investigations into the team's financial troubles.
Astana’s racing licence was under threat, with their Tour participation in doubt, after the Kazakhstan-backed squad went without wages for a number of weeks due to the failure of sponsors to meet financial obligations.
Awareness of the issue was heightened at the Giro d’Italia last month when the team erased sponsors’ names from their race jerseys.
However, the financial struggles appear to have been resolved and the investigations into Astana have been halted “with immediate effect and for an unspecified length of time”.
A UCI statement read: “Following a request by the UCI ProTour Council (CUPT) on June 17th, the Licences Commission announces that the procedure opened against Astana to withdraw its licence has been provisionally suspended, with immediate effect and for an unspecified length of time.
“This suspension will be lifted either at the request of the CUPT if it wishes to reactivate the procedure in question, or if the procedure is permanently dropped.”