{"id":71812,"date":"2026-08-17T18:53:17","date_gmt":"2026-08-17T18:53:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/71812\/"},"modified":"2026-08-17T18:53:17","modified_gmt":"2026-08-17T18:53:17","slug":"xds-astanas-vuelta-team-has-attacking-ambitions-in-spain","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/71812\/","title":{"rendered":"XDS-Astana’s Vuelta team has attacking ambitions in Spain"},"content":{"rendered":"

XDS-Astana is the sixth team to finalize its roster for the Vuelta a Espa\u00f1a<\/a>, which begins Saturday in Monaco<\/a>. The team from Kazakhstan will start the third Grand Tour of the year with its only local rider\u2014Victor Langelotti\u2014and will field a well-balanced squad that has many ambitions in Spain.In addition to Langelotti and Van Bekkum, riders such as Lorenzo Fortunato<\/a>, Cristian Rodriguez, and Harold Tejada<\/a> stand out for their climbing ability, while Yevgeniy Fedorov and Alessandro Romele occasionally like to get involved in a sprint. Henok Mulubhran rounds out the team.Fortunato and team manager Mario Manzoni spoke with Tuttobici<\/a> about the team\u2019s ambitions. Fortunato won the mountains jersey in last year\u2019s Giro and would like to do the same in this year\u2019s Vuelta. \u201cMy goals are to win at least one stage and to stand on the podium in Granada wearing the mountains jersey,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

He\u2019ll be aiming for that right from the early breakaway, partly because of Tadej Poga\u010dar\u2019s presence. \u201cIf Tadej attacks, I\u2019ll go the other way.\u201d Fortunato, who finished in the top ten at the Tour de Romandie and the Vuelta a Burgos this year, has set his sights on the fourth stage in Andorra, among others.<\/p>\n

“I have my sights set on the fourth stage, which finishes in Andorra-la-Vella. It’s a place that brings me luck: last year, I finished third in Andorra. This year, we’ll be climbing from a different side, but it’s still ideal for me.”<\/p>\n

Read more below the photo!<\/p>\n

\"lorenzo-fortunato\"\/<\/p>\n

Lorenzo Fortunato would love to win the mountains jersey in the Vuelta.<\/p>\n

Rodriguez to be the general classification rider for XDS-Astana<\/p>\n

Team Manager Manzoni discusses the team\u2019s other goals. \u201cIt would be fantastic to win a stage and the mountains classification with Lorenzo. Tejada, riding as a free agent, will be going for stage wins. Our man for the top spots in the general classification is Rodriguez. As for the general classification, we\u2019ll of course assess the situation after the first ten stages to determine our strategy for the decisive days,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

XDS-Astana Roster for the 2026 Vuelta a Espa\u00f1aYevgeniy Fedorov
Lorenzo Fortunato
Victor Langellotti
Henok Mulubrhan
Alessandro Romele
Cristi\u00e1n Rodr\u00edguez<\/a>
Harold Tejada
Darren Van Bekkum<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"XDS-Astana is the sixth team to finalize its roster for the Vuelta a Espa\u00f1a, which begins Saturday in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":71813,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[27901,320,27902,27904,17,27903,27905],"class_list":["post-71812","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-spain","tag-cristian-rodriguez","tag-cycling","tag-harold-tejada","tag-lorenzo-fortunato","tag-spain","tag-vuelta-a-espana","tag-xds-astana"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71812","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=71812"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71812\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/71813"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=71812"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=71812"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=71812"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}