{"id":389355,"date":"2026-01-05T10:25:08","date_gmt":"2026-01-05T10:25:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/389355\/"},"modified":"2026-01-05T10:25:08","modified_gmt":"2026-01-05T10:25:08","slug":"the-vinokourov-brothers-reflect-on-racing-in-their-fathers-shadow-at-astana","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/389355\/","title":{"rendered":"The Vinokourov brothers reflect on racing in their father\u2019s shadow at Astana"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>\n

\u201cSince I was 8, 9, 10 years old, I\u2019ve always been around the team. I\u2019ve seen how things work: the races, the training camps. In the end, whether it\u2019s my father or not, the whole team feels like a family. I really feel at home and very comfortable, and that allows me to progress in a high-quality environment.\u201d<\/p>\n

His brother Alexandr Vinokurov, on the other hand, acknowledges that carrying such a famous name is never easy. \u201cWhen you\u2019re a rider, it inevitably creates more stress, there\u2019s always that pressure,\u201d he admitted.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it\u2019s the same for all sons of great champions: people wait to see what they will do, even though doing better is impossible. Even reaching half of what they achieved is already incredible. Over time, you get used to it and you try to forget all that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nicolas Vinokourov backed up his progress in 2025 with several notable breakaways at the Vuelta a Espa\u00f1a and his first career top-five overall finish in a ProSeries stage race, specifically at the Tour de Langkawi in Malaysia, in which he finished fourth in the overall GC.<\/p>\n

His older brother, Alexandr Vinokurov Jr., has already moved into a different role. Forced to end his racing career at just 23 after a serious crash in Greece, he has transitioned into life as a sports director<\/a>.\"alexandrevinokourov\"\/<\/p>\n

After a highly successful career, Vinokourov is now the General Manager of Astana<\/p>\n

Towards a new era of data-driven performance<\/p>\n

Beyond the sporting lineage, XDS Astana, as every other squad, has also been evolving behind the scenes. Morgan Saussine, the team\u2019s Data Scientist, offered insight into a role still rare in professional cycling but that will surely become increasingly important in the next years.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think we are still only at the very beginning,\u201d Saussine said. \u201cData has been present in cycling for a long time, but the maturity of data departments remains low, especially because they are often limited to just one person. If you compare this to other sectors like finance, there is far greater role specialisation.\u201d<\/p>\n

Looking ahead, he expects big changes. \u201cThese roles should evolve and become more structured: data engineers, data analysts, data scientists, each with more focused missions. The big teams are already investing heavily in this area, either internally or through external partners. Personally, I really enjoy this very transversal, almost \u2018full-stack\u2019 role that covers the entire data chain. But it\u2019s clear that this profession will continue to evolve and become even more professionalised in the years to come.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \u201cSince I was 8, 9, 10 years old, I\u2019ve always been around the team. I\u2019ve seen how…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":389356,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[445],"tags":[136128,49,48,635,155071,82,165253,130851],"class_list":{"0":"post-389355","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cycling","8":"tag-alexander-vinokourov","9":"tag-ca","10":"tag-canada","11":"tag-cycling","12":"tag-nicolas-vinokurov","13":"tag-sports","14":"tag-tour-de-langkawi","15":"tag-xds-astana-team"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/389355","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=389355"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/389355\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/389356"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=389355"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=389355"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=389355"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}