Tag: Alberto Contador

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Contador Wins Vuelta

In taking top spot at the Vuelta a España today in a total time of 84:59:49 Alberto Contador has won his first Grand Tour since serving his largely back-dated ban for doping offences, which saw him stripped of both his 2010 Tour de France and 2011 Giro d’Italia titles. In actual fact the Saxo Bank star had more or less won the Vuelta by the end of yesterday’s penultimate stage (170.7km to Bola del Mundo) and only injury or catastrophic mech failure could have prevented victory in his home city of Madrid today. Never afraid of displaying a little arrogance Contador was happy to trumpet the win a day ahead of schedule, saying, ‘Maybe I’ve won the race through bravery, refusing to conform and because of the way I approach racing, too.’ Fellow Spaniards Alejandro Valverde (Movistar) took second on + 1:16 and Joaquin Rodriguez (Katusha Team) third on + 1:37; GB’s Chris Froome finished the 21-stage race off the podium in fourth place despite a hard fought battle throughout.

 

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Is The Vuelta Over for Froome?

The brutal Stage 16 of the Vuelta a España looks to have all but ended Chris Froome’s podium ambitions. The punishing 183.5km leg, which contained two Cat. 1 climbs and an unforgiving 19km uphill finish with a 7% average gradient was really the last opportunity for those with high ambitions to set out their stalls and in Froome’s case ending five minutes and 11 seconds behind stage winner Dario Cataldo of Omega Pharma-Quickstep did nothing to help. He now sits in a respectable (but almost certainly unimprovable) fourth behind an all-Spanish top three: Alejandro Valverde (Movistar, third), Alberto Contador (Saxo Banks, second) and leader Joaquim Rodriguez (Katusha).

 

Speaking after the stage, Contador said, ‘I’m thrilled with the way we’re doing this race. Today, we tried hard once again but regardless of the result and the fact that Joaquin showed immense power, I’m very happy with the race we’re doing. I think we are really adding the colors and excitement to this race so far but sure, to be dropping Joaquin would have been the icing on the cake. Today, I was feeling better than yesterday and I put in all my power in every attempt to get away. Thanks to all the people who have come here today to support me. They truly move me when we are parting the sea of people going uphill. It was a real spectacle.’

 

The Vuelta continues after today’s rest day with Stage 17, 187.3km Santander to Fuente Dé and concludes in Madrid on September 9.

 

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(Almost) Too Close to Call

Stage 3 of the Vuelta a España yesterday saw the most thrilling of conclusions with a sprint finish atop the category 1 Alto de Arrate climb that virtually redefined the term ‘photo finish’. Ultimately though it was Movistar’s Alejandro Valverde who claimed victory over fellow Spaniard Joaquim Rodriguez (Katusha), with race favourites Chris Froome (Team Sky) and Alberto Contador (Saxo Bank) crossing the line (in the same time) for third and fourth at the end of the 155km hilly stage through the Basque region of northern Spain.

 

Rodriguez was clearly infuriated by his failure, saying afterwards, ‘I lost a stage I was virtually holding in my hands. I knew the profile of the stage, especially I knew in the end I had to stay ahead because of two difficult downhill corners. In fact I was perfect: but in the last 5 meters I stopped to pedal and Valverde passed me for a bunch of millimetres. I expected today the favourite riders to be at the same standard and I have very good feelings about my shape, but in this moment I’m so pissed against myself that I don’t really care. I can only think I lost a stage not because I was weaker, but because I was stupid.’

 

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Mixed Results for Team Sky at Vuelta

Day two of the Vuelta a España has seen mixed results for Team Sky; Chris Froome, runner-up last year, only managed a 29th placing, saying: ‘Coming so soon after the start, this climb won’t decide who’s going to win the race but we’ll start to see who could lose it.’

 

Better news though for team-mate Ben Swift who finished third in the second stage in a sprint finish won by John Degenkolb of Argos-Shimano. Clearly delighted with what he regards as a breakthrough win in his first major tour the the young German commented, ‘A finish like that called for pure power, which is what suits my kind of racing, not just speed, and after team-mate Koen De Kort had dropped me off with 200 metres to go there was just me, Davis and Swift up there for the sprint… It’s great to get a win so soon for the team. We came here looking for just one victory and now we’ve got that in the bag the pressure is off. Maybe more will come after these next two mountainous stages.’

 

On the hilly second stage from Pamplona to Viana, which was run in temperatures soaring into the high 30s Celsius, the Spaniards Javier Aramendi and Javier Chacon and the Russian Mikhail Ignatyev went clear in the first hour. After Chacon dropped back with 30km to go, the overall contender Alberto Contador of Spain made a surprise dash at an intermediate sprint to snatch a two-second time bonus. ‘I thought I might as well try for it. It wasn’t too much effort and I was in a good position anyway,’ the leading Vuelta favourite said.

 

Spain’s Jonathan Castroviejo of the Movistar team remained the overall leader. Monday’s third stage will be the first summit finish of the race, on Mount Arrate in the Basque Country.

 

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Saxo Banks on Contador (Again)

Danish-based Team Saxo Bank have officially announced that disgraced Spanish cyclist Alberto Contador will rejoin them on August 5, following the serving out of his suspension for doping offences which dated back to the 2010 TdF. Following a tortuously protracted period which saw the 29-year-old initially cleared by the Spanish Cycling Federation – who believed the story that he had accidentally ingested the performance-enhancer Clenbuterol via contaminated meat – the Saxo Bank star was finally found guilty by the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) following appeals by both the UCI and The World Anti-Doping Agency (Wada). The verdict saw Contador banned from the sport for a two year period, but much of it retrospectively meaning he is free to rejoin his former team later this summer.

 

The new deal with Saxo Bank ties Contador to the team until the end of the 2015 season. Commenting on his return, team owner Bjarne Riis says: ‘A lot of speculations and rumors have surrounded Alberto Contador and his future in the past months, but both our sponsors, the team and Alberto have shared the same wish to continue and built on our relationship. All along throughout these last two tough years we have stood by Alberto, so to be able to announce his return to the team is something I have been really looking forward to.’

 

Unsurprisingly Contador seems more than happy with the situation, commenting: ‘The support I have experienced from (Bjarne Riis and the team) in a very difficult situation is extraordinaire. I’m really looking forward to getting back on the bike, and my aim is to repay that support, hopefully with some great results…’

 

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Race Back on for Saxo Bank

What must have been an agonizing wait for Team Saxo Bank is finally over with the announcement yesterday (April 2) that they would be allowed to retain their World Tour license through 2012. Problems arose after Alberto Contador was given a retrospective two-year ban by the Court of Arbitration for Sport in February for doping violations and stripped of his 2010 TdF title; with the Spaniard’s points accounting for around 68 percent of the team’s total this would have left Saxon Bank outside of the qualifying criteria.

 

However, after considering the ‘extraordinaire and unprecedented situation’ the License Commission have declaired that a withdrawal of the license would not be justified. The team’s owner Bjarne Riis issued a statement declaring: ‘We respect the decision made by the License Commission, and we are of course both relieved and happy about the result. We very much think this is the right decision given the whole situation that caused the re-evaluation of our license. Now we very much look forward to putting all our energy, effort and focus back on running the team and racing again, and for the first time in more than one and a half year we are actually able to do so 100 percent.’

 

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Riis Support Contador

Despite being handed a two year ban by The Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) for doping offences dating back to the 2010 TdF, Alberto Contador continues to enjoy the full support of his team, Saxo Bank-SunGard and its owners Riis Cycling. In an official statement the team were at pains to point out that the CAS ruling stated that: ‘…the presence of clenbuterol was unlikely to have been caused by conscious cheating’, clearly enough of grey area for the team to feel he was not to be distanced or ejected.

 

Team owner, Bjarne Riis, has made his position perfectly clear in backing the 29-year-old Spaniard: ‘After having the time to study the ruling we continue to support Alberto Contador based on the CAS verdict. We can only respect the ruling, and this means that Alberto Contador now has to serve a ban. But the conclusion of the ruling is vital for the team, as the ruling focuses on the likely cause being ingestion of a contaminated supplement and at the same time states that this is unlikely to have been a case of conscious cheating…We have asked ourselves many times during this case, could we as a team have done things any differently? I really don’t think we could have done things differently than what we have done trying to support every one of our riders.’

 

Although there has been considerable press rumblings about Contador appealing the CAS ruling it seems unlikely that he would not join, however reluctantly, his team in wishing to see a line drawn under the entire matter. With the official line clearly stating, ‘…Riis Cycling welcomes the fact that the case finally reached a decision… putting an end to this case is something we have been looking forward to’, surely Contador would be ill-advised to continue rocking the boat.

 

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Contador Guilty and Banned

After an unbelievably protracted sequence of events, Spanish rider Alberto Contador has been found guilty of doping offences by the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) and banned for two years. The decision also sees him stripped of his 2010 Tour de France title and Andy Schleck (whom he beat by just 39 seconds) retrospectively awarded the title. The Saxo Bank-SunGard star was initially cleared by the Spanish Cycling Federation – who believed the story the that he had accidentally ingested the performance-enhancer, Clenbuterol, via contaminated meat – but both the UCI and The World Anti-Doping Agency (Wada) sought to overturn the finding, leading to the hearing, and much delayed decision, at CAS. The verdict means that Contador will not ride in the 2012 TdF as his ban will remain in place until August 6.

 

In a statement the ICU president, Pat McQuaid has said: ‘This is a sad day for our sport. Some may think of it as a victory but that is not at all the case. There are no winners when it comes to the issue of doping: every case, irrespective of its characteristics, is always a case too many.’