PARIS, July 26 (Xinhuanet) -- Alexander Vinokourov will join the Liberty Seguros team next year to pursue his goal of winning the Tour de France, the Kazakh rider told sports daily L'Equipe on Tuesday.

    Vinokourov said he could not ride in the shadow of 1997 Tour deFrance winner Jan Ullrich anymore and he would leave Germany's T-Mobile team.

    "My goal is clear, I want to win the Tour de France," said Vinokourov. "So I chose the team with the best arguments. It's the most organized and the most experienced team."

    "They have the best riders in the mountains and are among the bests in the team time trials. It was almost a natural choice."

    Vinokourov finished fifth overall in this year's Tour and won two stages including the last one on the Champs-Elysees. Enditem