No one will ever accuse ol’ 10 Speed of forgetting to eat … but forgetting to eat and drink is what three-time Grand Tour winner Alberto Contador said did him in Saturday in the seventh stage of Paris-Nice.

Alberto Contador said he forgot to do enough of this — drinking, as well as eating — Saturday before bonking in Stage 7 of Paris-Nice. (PASCAL PAVANI/AFP/Getty Images)

In the short term, the lack of sustenance cost him the stage and took the yellow jersey off his back. In the long term, it may end up costing him not only the overall race win but perhaps a podium finish Sunday after Stage 8.

“The break did not go until kilometre 65, and before then it was just chaos, which made me work from the start; that’s where I was hurt,” cyclingnews.com quoted Contador as saying. “The race was very fast, and I forgot to eat and drink enough. At 40 km to go I was alone and though I was answering all the attacks well, at 15 km to my body was completely empty. I was left without any strength. From this moment the goal was just to get to the finish.”

This development depleted him of the energy necessary to sustain his defense of the attacks, challenge for the stage win and keep the yellow jersey. In fact, he barely had enough gas in the tank to finish the stage, ending up 2 minutes 53 minutes behind stage leader Luis León Sánchez of Caisse d’Epargne.

Sanchez took over the leader’s jersey, soloing to victory ahead of an elite group with Antonio Colom of Katusha, Frank Schleck of Saxo Bank and Sylvain Chavanel of Quick Step at 50 seconds back and Big Jens Voight of Saxo Bank 56 seconds in arrears. Now Sanchez has an overall lead of 1:09 over Chavanel and 1:21 over Schleck. Contador is off the podium at 1:50 in arrears, 9 seconds ahead of Big Jens.

After bonking Saturday, Contador limped in in the 33rd position, with nary an Astana teammate in sight.

And although Contador was being sporting in saying he forgot to eat and drink enough, the failure truly belonged to the usually strong Astana team, which was scattered throughout the peloton as a result of nine climbs in the stage. The peloton ended in basically six groups — the breakaway and the elite chasers (with individuals scattered about) and four grupettos that finished at various times behind the leaders — 7:20, 11:13, 19:57 and 21:33.

The nearest Astana teammate to Contador was Yaroslav Popovich, who finished in the 7:20 group. Pops seems to be unmotivated if a certain Lance Armstrong isn’t cajoling him to stay up front. (Happened throughout the latter years of Armstrong’s seven-year run of Tour de France wins and resumed this year at the tour of California.) Without Armstrong’s steely leadership, Pops on Saturday looked like he did last year when he was supposed to be shepherding Cadel Evans of Silence-Lotto up the mountains at the Tour de France. Not good.

The failure to stay with Contador, defend attacks for him and keep him fed, is a major gaffe for Astana, one of the strongest teams in professional cycling and known for its attention to detail. But then again, Johan Bruyneel didn’t exactly send a Tour de France-type team to ride for Contador at Paris-Nice: Pops, Daniel Navarro, Haimar Zubeldia, Michael Schär, Alexandr Dyachenko, Benjamin Noval and Sergio Paulinho. Of those, Zubeldia and Pops might be the only ones with a legit chance to ride in July.

Still, failing to stay with Contador and keep him supplie is a monumental failure, especially with the race seemingly in the bag after Contador’s dominant and impressive win Friday in Stage 6. And now the intrigue is whether the domestiques’ lack of service will end up being a reflection on them or on Contador’s leadership.

If it’s a reflection on them, they’ll have a hard time cracking the TdF team. If it’s the latter, Armstrong will be poised to take over and go for No. 8.

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