According to the magazine Kurviz, Valentin Iglinskiy will rejoin the Astana team next year following a one-year stint at Ag2r. Team manager Alexandre Vinokourov promised his brother Maxim to sign his brother as a reward for his win in Sunday's Tour of Almaty.

The career of Kazakh sprinter Valentin Iglinskiy appears to have been saved by his more famous brother, former Liege-Bastogne-Liege winner Maxim. According to Kerviz, the latter made a deal with Astana team manager Alexandre Vinokourov to sign Valentin if Maxim would win the inaugural edition of their home race Tour of Almaty on Sunday.

Whether it was due to the possible signing of his brother is unknown but Iglinskiy rode a splendid race to take a solo win, 30 seconds ahead of Bardiani sprinter Sonny Colbrelli. That win may now allow Valentin to race another year at the highest level.

For many years, Valentin was a talented sprinter who took numerous sprint wins on the Asia Tour calendar until signing a contract with Astana for the 2014 season. While he failed to make an impact in the European races, he continued his strong showing in Asia and so had plenty of UCI points when his contract expired at the end of last season.

Ag2r was in desperate need of such points to keep their ProTeam license and so they decided to sign the Kazakh sprinter. However, he had a disappointing year and apart from the Kazakh road race championships, he failed to post a single top 10 result.

That led his French employer to take the decision not to renew his contract and his career appeared to be in limbo. If the report is confirmed, that uncertainty may now have been brought to an end by his brother Maxim.