Astana demote one of it's leaders to development team and sign Chinese rider on two-year deal

Astana Qazaqstan Team are soon to become XDS Astana Team, as a new Chinese sponsor came along to bring in much needed extra budget. This has led the team to demote three of it's riders to the development team, today this is the case with Russian sprinter Gleb Syritsa.

This comes after Santiago Umba and Daniil Marukhin to the development team a few weeks back, as the team goes through a complete overall. Leaders Alexey Lutsenko and Mark Cavendish have departed the team, with new leaders such as Diego Ulissi, Sergio Higuita and Wout Poels.

In this case it is very clear that the complex move was in order to get a Chinese rider in the World Tour team. Haoyu Su moves into the team after two years with the China Glory Continental Team, where he has shown quality in some mountainous races.

However the surprising decision from the Kazakh team is that of sending Russian sprinter Gleb Syritsa to the continental team. Now, it will not be a dramatic decision as he can continue to compete with the elite team in all non-World Tour events, but it comes as a surprise as Syritsa has shown quality at elite level.

A pure heavyweight sprinter, a rare type of rider in the current peloton, the 24-year old has consolidated himself as one of the team's sprinters and occasional leadout men, having four stages of the Tour of Langkawi in his palmarès.