Astana gets Vuelta nod

Astana at the recent Tour de Georgia

Astana at the recent Tour de Georgia (Image credit: Jon Devich)

The Astana team will be allowed to contest this year's Vuelta a España, the organiser Unipublic announced Tuesday. After being refused entry to the Tour de France and Giro d'Italia, the team of the 2007 Tour de France winner Alberto Contador was expecting to target the Vuelta in the latter part of the season. The team had received a word of support from the Spanish Tour director Victor Cordero in February, but had to wait for today's official invitation to be certain.