2007 Tour de France winner Alberto Contador won the opening stage prologue Sunday at Paris-Nice, putting his stamp on the race he is favoured to win.

The victory, along with another TT win a few weeks ago, indicates the vast improvement Contador has made in his TT in the past two years … when his  overall victories in the 07 Tour and the 2008 Vuelta a Espana were endangered by teammate Levi Leipheimer’s superior TT skills.

But Sunday, Contador was the best by 2 seconds over Bradley Wiggins of Garmin-Slipstream. Although some of the big studs of time trialing — former World Champs Fabian Cancellara and Michael Rogers, and multiple U.S. champ David Zabriskie — aren’t in the race, Contador did beat former world champ David Millar of Garmin-Slipstream by 14 seconds.

Methinks Contador is showing not only his challengers but his Texan teammate, Mr. Lance Armstrong, that he is indeed the man on Team Astana. Although Armstrong has toned down his rhetoric about his personal goals, saying he would ride in support if Contador is stronger at the Tour, Armstrong’s initial message upon announcing his comeback was that his goal was to win his eight TdF title.

But having watched Armstrong at the Tour of California, I don’t seriously think he will contend this year, for the Tour title or for the Giro d’Italia title in May. The time trial was a big part of his success in his string of unprecidented TdF victories, but at the Tour of California he didn’t look nearly as smooth in the TT as he did in his heyday.

Armstrong’s body size and shape also is noticably different. In his Tour days, he was thin and wiry. Now he looks blocky, with more weight in the upperbody. In fact, he looks like he did when he emerged as a world-class cyclist from a background in triathlons.

In fact, in my view, Contador reminds me more of Armstrong in his heyday than Armstrong does today. Really.

All that said, I’d never Armstrong short, tho. He has made a career/life of proving people wrong and overcoming long odds. Perhaps he can do so again, but Contador’s victory Sunday and his astonishing improvement in the TT seem to put the odds in Alberto’s favor.

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