Alexandre Vinokourov Alexandre Vinokourov is looking to win his first ever Tour de France title this year and is widely considered as the clear favourite to do so.
Nicknamed 'Vino', the 36-year-old Kazakh is hailed as an extremely combative rider who has very few weaknesses in his game that could cost him in his pursuit for the maillot jaune this year.
Vinokourov, who won a silver medal in the road race at the 2000 Sydney Olympic Games, largely played a supporting role to Jan Ullrich in the major tours during the majority of his five-year stint as a Team Telekom/T-Mobile rider, although from 2003 he finally began to embark on a rapid ascent in the sport.
Firstly he defended his Paris-Nice title which he'd won the previous year, then went on to win the Amstel Gold Race by just four seconds following a dramatic comeback before adding the Tour de Suisse to a growing list of honours as his confidence and reputation also began to soar ever higher.
And following the 2003 Tour de France, in which he finished third behind champion Lance Armstrong and teammate Ullrich, he could now be viewed as a major contender for future Grand Tours.
Unfortunately a broken shoulder ruled him out of the 2004 edition but the following year, on the back of glory in the Liege-Bastogne-Liege, he stormed back to claim fifth place overall after dramatically winning the final stage at the Champs-Elysees.
Vinokourov couldn't participate in the Tour de France in 2006 because his new team Astana-Wurth withdrew from the event after five of its riders were implicated in the Operacion Puerto doping case.
However last year did end in success as he took first place in the overall standings of the Vuelta a Espana, the final Grand Tour of the season, ahead of Spain's Alejandro
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