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This week's comedy cycling compendium casts an askew glance over the Kazakh government's bailout of Team Astana.

Blazin' Saddles understands the need for decorum in these testing times, but surely the UK and US taxpayers got off lightly when their ruling bodies drew a line at bailing out their ailing financial institutions?

In Kazakhstan - home of nomadic tribes, snow leopards, an ice game called bandy and a plethora of shamed cycling cheats - the government has decided to bailout Team Astana, the de facto Kazakh national cycling team.

Which is all very well if the team is actually representative of your nation - but we all know full well that Team Astana is about as Kazakh as Borat's luminous green mankini.

Come July's Tour de France, there are only two Kazakh riders (Assan Bazayev [pictured] and Maxim Iglinskiy) with an outside chance of donning the famous national colours of their country - from a squad that only contains around 35 per cent of Kazakh blood in the first place.

To recap, the team of Lance Armstrong and leading cycling luminaries Alberto Contador and Levi Leipheimer are in dire financial difficulties stemming from the impact the global financial crisis has had on its sponsors.

Astana is said to need £10.6m funding a year. Quite how is anyone's guess, although rumour has it, the team employed the same accountants used by Newcastle United when sorting out its riders' contracts.

Displaying the most delightful example of a non-sequitur, but a sterling understanding of global affairs, the Kazakh tourism and sports minister said: "Our athletes are extremely fit at the moment. But having said that, the current financial situation is not really good."

President Nursultan Nazarbayev has since pledged the cash and saved Astana from a damaging takeover by foreign investors (presumably Armstrong and Nike).

"The question of financing has been settled as of today," concluded Temirzhan Dosmukhanbetov. "I think we need to help sponsor this team because it represents our country's prestige. It is one of the criteria that helps us attract tourists."

All this reminds BS of the splendid occasion he had, on the eve of the 2007 Tour, to speak to the Kazakh ambassador to London, Erlan Idrissov, and the former Kazakh Prime Minister, Daniyal Alchmetov.

Back then, Team Astana had just been forged by national hero Alexandre Vinokourov. "This is my team and I'm very proud of it," he beamed.

Idrissov himself was very proud of Vino, who was touted amongst the race favourites. "His sense of purpose, self-assertion and ambition are the kinds of quality which belong to many Kazakhstan people," he gushed.

"Many boys and girls will jump into cycling and stay away from drugs. The message is that they can also achieve success like Vinokourov."

Alchmetov added: "Victory of the team will allow Kazakhstan to become the leader in world cycling and will reflect glory on the country."

In this context, it is perhaps understandable why Team Astana are going through so many problems.

Gone are the likes of Vinokourov and Andrey Kashechkin, the shamed figureheads for whom the team was created; gone is the national prestige; seemingly gone are any notions of glory. Heck, even the name of the nation's capital has been erased off the shirts!

The consortium of Kazakh companies couldn't have foreseen the financial crisis, but they did not sign up for the scandals, for the embarrassment or for this watered-down version of a national team.

Still, while Armstrong and his right-hand man Johan Bruyneel may be cast as the bad guys in this Kazakh soap opera, they are arguably Kazakhstan's primary vehicle for salvation. Armstrong is one of the most marketable men in world sport - if only Kazakhstan realised what they could be on to.

HANDBAGS AT DAWN: It looks like Armstrong and old foe Bernard Hinault are at it again, trading below-the-belt blows and one-word insults.

Speaking at a presentation in one of the Tour starting towns, the five-times Tour champ shared his views on the American ace's participation in this year's race.

"I hope he will not be there," said the Badger. "Is he afraid of France? Nobody forced him to come, he only has to stay home. He cannot win the Tour. I hope that Contador gives him a beating."

As usual, Armstrong delivered his riposte on the social networking site Twitter: "What a w*nker. 5 TdF wins doesn't buy you any common sense."

Such an intellectual retort is an excellent example for Armstrong's new baby boy, whom he welcomed with his previous post: "Wassup, world? My name is Max Armstrong and I just arrived. My Mommy is healthy and so am I!"

OUT OF CON-KOHL: Retired blood doper Bernhard Kohl has opened up to l'Equipe about the training methods that saw him rise from obscurity to a podium-placed Tour polka-dot jersey in the space of a year.

"Four bags of blood with half a litre in each - that's all. I did nothing else," Kohl said about his 2008 'triumphs'.

"There are too many random tests. No testosterone patches, nothing except caffeine, pseudoephedrine and pain killers. The EPO, growth hormones and insulin - I took all that before, not during the race."

Explaining his "professional system" of using CERA, the Austrian said: "The world of cycling was convinced that this EPO was not detectable. I got it from another rider. I injected it myself three days before the Tour. In my head, I was tranquil."

Kohl's room-mate during the three-week Tour was double-stage winner Stefan Schumacher.

EVANS ABOVE: At the time of writing, the armchair critic's favourite punch bag Cadel Evans is leading the Dauphine after beating Contador in the opening prologue.

"It's been a productive day," Evans wrote on his website, displaying a picture of the three jerseys he picked up for his 20 minutes in the saddle.

Someone should remind Evans that the three previous victors of the Dauphine were Levi Leipheimer, Christophe Moreau and Alejandro Valverde.

Until the Australian has a team strong enough to nurse him through the mountains, he will remain the Raymond Poulidor of his generation.

MCEWEN DEFIANT: Crocked Australian sprinter Robbie McEwen has refuted claims that he and two team-mates have refused to sign Katusha's anti-doping guidelines, claiming he was merely stalling until the small-print has been written in a "judicially correct" manner.

He added, bizarrely: "I'm confident that this matter will be resolved soon and when my knee is healed I will return to racing and winning with my Katusha team."

BS is under the impression that you have to win in the first place before you can return to winning ways. . .

TAKING THE MICK: Columbia-Highroad have also refuted claims that out-of-form Michael Rogers will sit out this year's Tour.

Showing remarkable logic, the team emailed Cyclingnews to confirm: "The chances that Rogers rides in the Tour are very high. In fact, the chances that Rogers does not ride are extremely low."

QUOTE OF THE WEEK: Bernard Hinault weighs in with his view on earpieces: "I am against them. It is just a 'Game Boy' that has a gigolo attached at the end telling the racer when to take a piss."

Hinault said in his time he preferred old tried-and-tested methods of racing: "With (Cyrille) Guimard (Hinault's former directeur sportif), we studied the map and the winds on the morning of the stage."

Hinault then didn't say: "But I then p*ssed on all the tactics we had planned and went for it myself, forgetting that it was my duty to ride for Greg Lemond and instead tried to unsettle the peloton and my team-mate with my constant attacks, because the Tour is all about me and will be even after I retire."

How much more straight forward Lemond's 1986 win could have been if the Badger had an earpiece is anyone's guess, however.

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Felix Lowe / Eurosport