Team Astana has decided not to race the Rund um den Henninger Turm on May 1, race organizer Bernd Moss-Achenbach has announced.
"At the Ronde van Vlaanderen, I spoke with Walter Godefroot and Mario Kummer about Astana's possible participation," he said in an interview with Radsport-aktiv.de. "After thinking about it, Astana decided against it based on the fact that especially Andreas Klöden wanted to concentrate on the Tour de France and so didn't want to ride a difficult one-day race."
Astana's decision to sit out the event comes as a blow just one day after the German race declared it wants ProTour status. Moss-Achenbach said yesterday that if the Züri Metzgete in Switzerland doesn't proceed as a result of reported financial issues, he would be willing to pick up the event's slot on the ProTour calendar.
"I told Godefroot and Kummer at the time that I would very much like to have some good riders like Klöden, Kessler or Ivanov at the race, but at least one of the two Germans," he added. "Unfortunately it didn't work out."
