Levi Leipheimer gave his first steps in cycling back in 1985 when he was 12-years-old as a competitive skier; in 1987 he started to train for downhill ski racing; later on to become a professional cyclist in 1997. In 1998 started as a road cyclist sponsored by Saturn and was able to win the U.S. National Time Trial Championship in 1999, after this success he joined the U.S. Postal Service cycling team.
His first international experience was in the Vuelta a Espana in 2001 finishing in third place, he was invited to join the Dutch team Rabobank as the leader and during his appearance in the Tour de France he became 8th in the overall classification. This year he re-signed from the Discovery Channel team (old U.S. Postal) and finished third in the last Tour de France.
Due to the doping scandals in the cycling discipline the Discovery Channel team that was the main sponsor stop subsidizing them. The fact of finding a new sponsor became very hard not to say impossible for such a big team therefore it was decided to dissolve the team by the end of this year... Due to the situation all the members have had to find new teams.
Several Discovery Channel team members have being recruited by Astana; among them the Portuguese Sergio Paulihno, the Spaniard Benjamin Noval, Janez Brajikovic from Slovenia, last Tour de France winner Spaniard Alberto Contador and Discovery's team previous manager Johan Bruyneel who assisted Lance Arsmtrong to his seven consecutive yellow jersey triumphs in the biggest cycling event of the world the Tour de France.
Bruyneel is without a doubt is a strong leader with a great background and this may be the main reason so many members from the "old" team moved to Astana. Leipheimer admitted it is one of his main reasons as he stated "A lot of that has to do with Johan and the staff and how comfortable I am with them," (...) "It's not the exact same riders, but there will be the same philosophy and understanding there."
Astana road bicycle racing team sponsored by the Astana group and owned by companies from Kazakhstan has been involved in a lot of controversy due to many cases of doping from some of its members. It is probably the team will face skepticism from the cycling authorities, the public and media. "I'm certainly not going to give up because of what's happened," Leipheimer said. "The sport is changing for the better, going in the right direction, and I'm excited to see that."
