The organizers of the Giro d’Italia apparently have come to their senses and invited the best team in cycling — Astana — to the Giro, which starts next week.

Better late than never, I reckon.

The Associated Press reports that Astana’s Giro team will include 2007 Tour de France winner Alberto Contador and 2007 third-place finisher Levi Leipheimer. Contador has won two stage races this season: Vuelta a Castilla y Leon in March and the Vuelta Ciclista al Pais Vasco (where he beat ‘07 TdF runner-up Cadel Evans) in April. Leipheimer won the Tour of California in February, placed second behind Contador in the Vuelta a Castilla y Leon in March, and finished third last week in the Tour de Georgia.

Astana wasn’t on the RCS’s original invite list, ostensibly for past doping issues by some of the team’s former riders. This despite the fact that, after last season, the team cleaned house of the dirty riders and the former management, hired former Discovery boss Johan Bruyneel to right the ship, and instituted a state-of-the-art, anti-doping program.

The Amaury Sports Organization — owner of the Tour de France and other races – adopted the same posture, setting off an ugly clash within cycling, among the grand tour organizers, teams, riders, national federations and the international governing body – the Union Cycliste Internationale.  In banning Astana, ASO also degraded this year’s Tour de France, because two of the top three finishers from last year — Contador and Leipheimer — won’t be in the field this year.

Now that the RCS has relented and dis-unvited Astana, it’ll be interesting to see whether the ASO changes its mind too. Last week, Bruyneel told me that there was no chance of Astana getting invited to the TdF and that even if ASO extended the invitation he wouldn’t take it, because he said it was too late in the season, Astana had moved on and “I don’t go to parties where I’m not invited.”

But that was then … before RCS changed its tune and invited his team. If Bruyneel can accept RCS’s Giro invite a week before the race, then it would seem ASO has some time to come to its senses, too.

I think it would be impossible for Astana to turn down a Tour invite now, just as it would seem impossible for ASO to maintain its contentious posture, because suddenly the Giro has become the “It” race this season. With Astana at the Giro and not at the Tour de France, the Tour de France would be relegated to second-string status from its accustomed place as the premier race in cycling. 

With Contador and Leipheimer joining a Giro field that includes Evans of Silence-Lotto and two-time Vuelta a Espana winner Denis Menchov of Rabobank, the Giro stands to be everything the Tour should have been this year — an awesome race with all the top figures in cycling there to compete.

What a shrewd move by the Giro organizers.

Here’s the latest from the Associated Press …

Astana invited into Giro lineup

GENEVA (AP) — Giro d’Italia organizers have invited the Astana team to compete in the race, reversing an earlier decision to ban it because of doping scandals.

Astana officials confirmed Saturday they are hurrying to get elite American rider Levi Leipheimer from California to Palermo, Sicily, for the start of the three-week race next Saturday.

“It is a good moment for us. When we were told in February that we were not invited it was a disaster,” Astana spokesman Philippe Maertens told The Associated Press.

Alberto Contador, winner of the 2007 Tour de France, will also be at the starting line for Astana. The team had been shunned by cycling’s biggest events this year, including the Tour, for involvement in doping scandals. It was asked to leave the 2007 Tour after team leader Alexander Vinokourov tested positive for a blood transfusion.

The Kazakhstan-backed team brought in Johan Bruyneel, the Belgian who guided Lance Armstrong to seven Tour victories, as director to overhaul its image and operations. It also signed Contador.

Astana’s rebuilding work was rewarded late Friday, when Giro organizer RCS Sport called Bruyneel to offer his team a place.

“We are hurrying now to arrange everything. We must have a truck and a bus down to Sicily — it is not the perfect preparation,” Maertens said. “Levi was still in California and Alberto was on holiday in Spain because he had a dental operation two weeks ago. Everybody is happy.”

There is more good news for Astana on the road. German rider Andreas Kloeden had a lead of 35 seconds going into Sunday’s final stage of the six-day Tour of Romandie in Switzerland.

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