Vino (right) and AC … here we go again?!

Alexander Vinokourov has, to use a Liggettism, set the cat among the pigeons. His win in last weekend’s Liege-Bastogne-Liege was straight out of the classic Vino repertoire — attack when nobody’s expecting it, and press home your advantage by continuing the attack all the way to the finish.

Well, so what? He’s a smart rider, a class rider as his palmares clearly shows. He’s also a drug cheat, but quite frankly he’s not the only rider in the peloton to return after suspension. Of the riders who have returned from suspension, Vino is quite possibly the only one who is tasting success at anywhere near the level they had before getting busted.

But the successful return from drug suspension is merely the latest phase in the fascinating career of Alexander Vinokourouv. And he is now a key figure in the drama of the biggest bike race in the world, the Tour de France.

A quick bit of background. Vino comes from Kazakhstan, and races for Astana, a team registered in Kazakhstan. The team was first set up in 2006, built around Vino. At the time, just at the end of the Armstrong era, it seemed a possibility that Vino could win the Tour, perhaps more than one.

But instead he, and several other Astana riders, most notably Andrei Kasechkin, were booted out of the Tour for blood doping.

Since then, the Astana team has continued, and has been successful, especially in the Grand Tours, with riders such Alberto Contador, Levi Leipheimer, and of course Lance Armstrong, for last year’s eventful Tour de France.

Well this year Lance has wrested control back of his team (Radioshack), and his directeur sportif Johan Bruyneel, and his super-domestiques Leipheimer, Chris Horner and Andreas Kloden.

But Alberto Contador, indisputably the best stage racer in the world, has remained with Astana. He’s seen off Lance Armstrong, so he is a strong character. How will he go in the same team as Alexander Vinokourov?

Well, lets have another look back at history to get some perspective on how this might play out. In the first half of the noughties, Vino raced for Team Telekom, the German-registered team whose number one rider was the German hero/anti-hero Jan Ullrich. Ullrich was never able to live up to his super talent, and facing the incredible will of Lance Armstrong, was never able to overcome Armstrong to win the Tour.

And towards the end of his time at Telekom, it seemed to most observers that Vino was tired of being second fiddle to Ullrich, and was racing for himself rather than being part of a co-ordinated effort to beat Armstrong.

And so it seems that we approach the 2010 Tour de France, that Vino is set to replay the role which once stifled him: loyal team-mate, this time for Alberto Contador. After Liege-Bastogne-Liege, he even said as much in his press conference, playing down his own prospects in the Tour and talking up Contador’s.

And yet, Vino just isn’t that sort of rider. Yes, he is a brilliant tactician, but until now always for furthering his own cause. And never forget that Vino is a Kazakh, the most famous Kazakh in the world and a national hero, racing for a Kazakh team. Do you think the people of Kazakhstan want him to play the role of loyal lieutenant to Contador? Not if he has even the remotest chance to win himself.

So for a second year in a row, Contador will go to the Tour as the favourite, but with no certainty about how whether he has the whole-hearted support of his team.

Unlike Lance Armstrong (Radioshack) and Andy Schleck (Saxo Bank), who know that they have the total support of every rider, every staff member in their team.

Of course Armstrong is nowhere near the rider he was when he won seven Tours in a row. Contador has the snap, the jump on climbs that among today’s GC contenders only Andy Schleck can match. And Schleck’s not in the same class as Contador in a time trial.

There’s still a couple of months until the Tour. And the Giro could be exciting as well, especially if Cadel Evans can muster the form and the team support to have a real go at the title.

But after Liege, I can’t help thinking that Alberto will be on the phone back home to Mum & Dad and his brothers back in Spain, saying: “You won’t believe it. It’s just like last year all over again. I’ll have to win the Tour on my own!”

I think he will, by the way. He is just that good.