Contador, Astana seize control of Tour de France
While Fabian Cancellara crushed the field in the opening time trial and took the first yellow jersey, methinks Alberto Contador and the Astana team seized control of the 2009 Tour de France on Saturday in Monaco.
Contador finished second to Cancellara, 18 seconds behind in the 15 kilometer TT, and he ended the talk about who would be the strongman of the stacked Astana team — him or seven-time TdF winner Lance Armstrong.
Armstrong, an early leader in the stage, ended up 10th, 40 seconds behind Cancellara and 22 behind Contador. But he wasn’t even the second best on the team; Andreas Kloden finished fourth, four seconds behind Contador, and Levi Leipheimer placed sixth, 12 seconds behind A.C.
The Astana team hierarchy has been set, and the big question now will be whether the team will put two or three riders on the final podium. Seriously. The team is stacked, and it should put serious time into the rest of the contenders Tuesday in the team time trial.
Of the pre-race contenders, only Cadel Evans appears to be a serious threat to Contador and the Astana juggernaut for the overall. The two-time second-place finisher is only 5 seconds behind Contador, but his team, Silence-Lotto, could lose a big chunk of time in the TT. Same with Liquigas boys Roman Kreuzinger (14 seconds behind A.C.) and Vincenzo Nibali (19 seconds).
All of the pre-race favourites lost chunks of time to Contador that will be hard to make up, either in the team time trial (Carlos Sastre of Cervelo TestTeam, Denis Menchov of Rabobank) or in the mountains (Christian VandeVelde of Garmin-Slipstream, Mick Rogers of Columbia-HTC).
One rider to watch is Columbia-HTC’s Tony Martin, the runner-up in the Tour du Suisse. Martin finished eighth in the stage, 15 seconds behind Contador, and is on a team that won the TTT at the Giro and could beat Astana on Tuesday.
Until then, Cancellara should stay in yellow as his team, Saxo Bank, defends the race lead, and look for Columbia-HCT’s Mark Cavendish to win at least one and perhaps both of the next two stages, which suit his sprinting ability.
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I thought Andy Schleck showed more in the time trial than I expected, finishing just behind VandeVelde, who seemed OK after breaking 900 back bones in the Giro. Saxo, Columbia and Garmin really will have to hustle in the team time trial on Tuesday, though, to take back some of the time they lost to the Astana boys and get their guys in the conversation before the Pyrenees.
Ok, ok, I know, Contador won - it’s been all over the news. Armstrong…hopefully isn’t turning into sort of a cycling Muhammad Ali and make comeback after comeback when he’s obviously past his prime, but that certainly didn’t stop any smack talking. Evidently Contador doesn’t think much of Lance and Lance doesn’t think much of him - apparently there was feuding among the Astana team because their teams wasn’t acting like one. Granted, I have never understood the “team” concept in the Tour because it’s a race between individuals. There isn’t supposed to be team spirit, it’s every man for himself. Oh well. Apparently Lance is going to be back next year, but maybe he can pull off netting an 8th yellow jersey at his age. Stranger things have happened - George Foreman became heavyweight champion of the world at age 45 - maybe Lance does have a legitimate shot. He did place 3rd, after all.