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Kazakhstan's cycling chief said he was optimistic of signing former Tour de France champion Lance Armstrong to compete for Astana next season.

"He (Armstrong) is a great cyclist and he is also a great humanitarian and that makes him a perfect fit for our team," Kazakhstan defence minister Danial Akhmetov, who is also president of the country's cycling federation, said.

Armstrong said this month he would to return to competitive cycling and ride in the 2009 Tour, four years after winning the world's most prestigious bike race for a record seventh time.

Although the American, who turned 37 last week, did not say which team he would ride for, several sources have said he would race for Astana. He would receive no salary or bonuses.

Armstrong's former team manager, Johan Bruyneel, who is now in charge of Astana, has said he could not see his former protege competing for any team other than the Kazakh outfit.

"I just can't imagine that happening," Bruyneel, who guided the American in the Discovery Channel team from 1999 until his retirement in 2005, said this month when news of Armstrong's comeback was first reported.

A survivor of testicular cancer, Armstrong said his main reason for returning to the sport was to raise awareness about cancer.

Akhmetov said that vision echoed Astana's strategy for turning Kazakhstan into a more environment-friendly country.

"Together we can certainly do a lot of good things in the fight against cancer," he said.

Astana, the Kazakh sponsored outfit that competes under a Luxembourg licence, already has one of the strongest squads in cycling, including Spaniard Alberto Contador and Armstrong's former team mate and fellow American Levi Leipheimer.

Contador won the Tour of Spain on Sunday to complete the so-called 'grand slam' of cycling after winning the 2007 Tour de France and this year's Giro d'Italia.

Leipheimer finished second in this year's Vuelta.

"Astana has a very strong team but with Armstrong will be twice as strong," Akhmetov said.

Reuters