NEW YORK (AP) -- Lance Armstrong won his first seven Tour de France titles with Johan Bruyneel as his team director. No way would the Austin cycling great try for No. 8 without him.

The Kazakh Cycling Federation announced today that Armstrong will ride for Bruyneel's Astana team as he seeks to win the 2009 Tour. Federation deputy chief Nikolai Proskurin tells The Associated Press that Armstrong agreed to ride for the Kazakhstan-based team for free the first year. He's also signed up to take part in five races, including the Tour de France.

Armstrong is set to announce details of his comeback later Wednesday at a New York news conference today during the Clinton Global Initiative. That's where the cancer activist also will speak to world leaders.

He has dedicated his comeback to raising global awareness for the fight against cancer. It also offers him an opportunity to try to prove that he is clean to skeptics who doubted that he could have achieved his feats without using performance-enhancing drugs.

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