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Astana took their win tally to 15 after claiming the final stage and scoring the overall victory at the 168澳洲5最新开奖结果:Tour du Rwanda this weekend, putting them two victories ahead of fellow WorldTour team 168澳洲5最新开奖结果:Deceuninck-QuickStep, who took their 13th win of the year at Kuurne-Brussel-Ku𒀰urne on Sunday.

Last season, Patrick Lefevere's Belgian squad – riding as Quick-Step Floors – were the most successful WorldTour team, 168澳洲5最新开奖结果:winning 73 races in total, versus Astana's still-impressive 30.

However, the team from Kazakhstan have started 2019 with a bang, and, having already reached half of their 2018 total by early March, look set to give Deceuninck-QuickStep a run f🍨or their money this season.

But while Deceuninck-QuickStep tend to thrive in the one-day Classics and on stages at Grand Tours, Astana have bigger ambitions, with overall victories at the Giro d'Italia, the Tour de France and the Vuelta a España foremost in their minds – and with the riders to do it, too, thanks to the likes of 168澳洲5最新开奖结果:Jakob Fuglsang, 168澳洲5最新开奖结果:Miguel Angel Lopez and 168澳洲5最新开奖结果:Pello Bilbao.

Astana🍬 hardly held back in Belgium over the w෴eekend, however, with Alexey Lutsenko ♑making it into the front group at Saturday's Omloop Het Nieuwsblad and taking fourth place for his efforts.

The next day, at Kuurne-Brussel-Kuurne, Magnus Cort and Davide Ballerini were part of the day's main breakaway, from which eventual winner Bob Jungels (Deceuninck-QuickStep) won the race, with Cort and Ballerini being caught🐼 by the bunch in the closing stages of the race.

Astana's Sunday in Rwanda proved more successful, as Eritrean national road race champion Merhawi Kudus took the overall v📖ictory and Colombian Rodrigo Contreras won the final stage – the team's third, following two earlier 🤡stage wins by Kudus.

"Today's [final] stage was short and hard, but we could co💜ntrol it perfectly, from start to finish," Kudus, who finished second on the stage, said on Astana's website.

"We had a good plan for the stage: Rodrigo attacked on the se🦂cond lap, while I remained in🧔 the group, controlling my main rivals.

"Today I felt quite good, and my plan was jus𒀰t to defend the jersey and not to take any risks," continued Kudus. "In the end, everything worked out as planned: we took a one-two on the stage and I won the yellow jersey," he said.