{"id":767667,"date":"2026-06-29T11:28:12","date_gmt":"2026-06-29T11:28:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/767667\/"},"modified":"2026-06-29T11:28:12","modified_gmt":"2026-06-29T11:28:12","slug":"xds-astana-names-a-versatile-8for-the-2026-tour-de-france","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/767667\/","title":{"rendered":"XDS Astana names a versatile 8for the 2026 Tour de France"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.idlprocycling.com\/xds-astana\" title=\"XDS Astana\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">XDS Astana<\/a> has also announced its roster for the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.idlprocycling.com\/cycling\/2026-tour-de-france-start-list-pogacars-support-squad-for-project-5-is-out\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">2026 Tour de France<\/a>. The Kazakhstani team is heading to the start in Barcelona with several strong riders. The eight-man squad once again includes <a href=\"https:\/\/www.idlprocycling.com\/mike-teunissen\" title=\"Mike Teunissen\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Mike Teunissen<\/a>, who recently spoke at length about this <a href=\"https:\/\/www.idlprocycling.com\/cycling\/mike-teunissen-faces-his-7th-tour-de-france-with-mixed-feelings-it-has-really-changed-in-recent-years\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">in an interview with this site<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It\u2019s a bit of a mixed bag,&#8221; Teunissen told us in the run-up to the Tour de France. &#8220;Especially if I\u2019m actually selected, it\u2019ll be really cool to be there. It\u2019s also great to be part of a team that has a shot at winning a stage.&#8221; So what was the downside? \u201cIn my opinion, the Tour de France has really changed in recent years.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The Dutchman explained, \u201cThese days, there are very few stages that end in a bunch sprint; everything has become so tough. But on the other hand, it\u2019s also a great challenge to go for those stages and hopefully achieve a good result.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Read more below the photo!<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" width=\"720\" height=\"405\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/mike-teunissen-2-6a423586c7b24.jpg@webp.webp\" class=\"w-auto h-auto\" alt=\"mike-teunissen-2\"\/>Teunissen to play key role for Kanter at the 2026 Tour de FranceTeunissen will play a key role in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.idlprocycling.com\/max-kanter\" title=\"Max Kanter\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Max Kanter<\/a>\u2019s sprint train; following his <a href=\"https:\/\/www.idlprocycling.com\/cycling\/max-kanter-emotional-after-parisnice-stage-win-as-mike-teunissen-powers-xds-astana-to-big-result\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">stage victory in Paris-Nice<\/a>, Kanter will be hoping to make his mark in the Tour de France as well. \u201cIn the Tour, they sometimes say you can grow into the race, but with the way racing is done these days, you have to be ready right from day one. You have to make sure you don\u2019t lose any time\u2014especially with that team time trial coming up.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>After all, as the Dutchman already knew back then: \u201cWe have riders like Harold Tejada, who\u2019s going for the general classification, so as a team we just have to be on our toes right from the start.\u201d In addition to Tejada, XDS Astana has even more strong contenders for the mountain stages in Aaron Gate and Sergio Higuita.<\/p>\n<p>Also on the team: the Italian duo Davide Ballerini and Simone Velasco, while Kazakh rider Nicolas Vinokourov is the eighth and final rider on the roster. A versatile group of eight, then!<\/p>\n<p>XDS Astana Roster &#8211; 2026 Tour de France<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"XDS Astana has also announced its roster for the 2026 Tour de France. The Kazakhstani team is heading&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":767668,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[569],"tags":[64,63,784,365380,274751,85,346968,325671],"class_list":["post-767667","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cycling","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-cycling","tag-max-kanter","tag-mike-teunissen","tag-sports","tag-tour-de-france-2026","tag-xds-astana"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/767667","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=767667"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/767667\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/767668"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=767667"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=767667"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=767667"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}