Astana, the winning team at this year’s Tour de France, has secured a much-needed sponsorship deal, which seems to have ensured its future participation in cycling's major races.

The team, which has been funded by the state of Kazakhstan since its inception, has agreed a three-year deal with Samruk-Kazyna, which has a host of interests in oil and gas in the country as well as running its national airline.

Since winning the Tour, with Alberto Contador, in June the team, which also boasted Lance Armstrong amongst its numbers in 2009, has been beset by financial difficulties. The teams’ riders even protested during a stage of this year’s Giro d’Italia, wearing jerseys with non-paying sponsors’ names deliberately faded out.
It led to the UCI, the world cycling governing body, threatening to revoke the team’s professional license, which allows it to compete at major events.

News of the new deal, however, seems to end the team’s woes. The deputy president of the Kazakh Cycling Federation was quoted as saying of Samruk-Kazyna: “They will be the general sponsor and will take all the expenditures upon themselves.”