News reports are comin' in that nine riders have agreed to terms and re-upped their contracts with Astana. The riders are Andreas Klöden, Chris Horner, Assan Bazayev, Maxim Iglinskiy, Steve Morabito, Dmitriy Muravyev, Daniel Navarro, Gregory Rast and Michael Schär.
Both reports I've read say the Bruyneel has had his phone ringing a lot recently with guys wanting to sign with the team but that he wanted to sign the core group first before filling any empty spots...like... say... Gusev's.
Here's a link to the VeloNews article and one over on Roadcycling. I guess our speculation that Klöden was going to be going over to Love and Rockets or whatever Katinkoff's team name is going to be was just that... speculation.
Pez had the news today in the EuroTrash which is where I picked up on it originally.
Notable 2008 results...
Andreas Klöden -- 1st GC: Tour de Romandie, 2nd GC: Tour de Suisse
Chris Horner -- Gave a dude (plus said dude's bike) a lift uphill to a finish line
Assan Bazayev -- Kazakhstan National Road Race Champion, Points Winner: Tour of Turkey
Maxim Iglinskiy -- 1st Stage 1: Tour de Romandie, 3rd Stage 5: Tour de Romandie, 3rd Points Classification: Tour de Romandie
Steve Morabito -- Bupkus for 2008 notables
Dmitriy Muravyev -- Get's the Massimiliano Mori award for not even rating a Wikipedia entry
Daniel Navarro -- Bupkus for 2008 notables
Gregory Rast -- 1st Prologue Tour of Turkey
Michael Schär -- Bupkus for 2008 notables