Contador climbs into command

CYCLING TOUR DE FRANCE:AFTER TWO weeks of feinting and parrying, the 2009 Tour de France burst into life yesterday. Finally the favourites came out of hiding, ready to fight each other tooth and nail.

And with half a dozen turns of his pedals on the zigzag ascent to a Swiss ski resort, Alberto Contador not only won himself the yellow jersey but may have shaped the outcome of a race that still has six stages and almost 800km of racing to come.

The day began with the riders swaddled against the driving rain and shivering mid-morning temperatures in Pontarlier and ended, just over five hours later, with sweat-streaked limbs under a blazing Alpine sun.

Contador’s attack, which came shortly after the peloton had caught up with the exhausted remnants of a 12-man break, left his rivals floundering. Lance Armstrong, in particular, had no reply.

Although the Texan is now in second place, the one minute 37 second gap to Contador, his colleague in the Astana squad, looks all but unbridgeable.

Armstrong might even have a job maintaining his nine-second advantage over Britain’s Bradley Marc Wiggins. The Londoner finished fifth in the stage after a scintillating ride, lifting himself to third in the overall standings and raising the possibility that Britain could have a finisher on the podium in Paris for the first time in the Tour’s 106-year history, bettering Robert Millar’s fourth place 25 years ago.

Wiggins, who came into his third Tour hoping to finish in the top-20, has grown in confidence each day. The 29-year-old triple Olympic gold medallist has enjoyed riding among the leaders, and yesterday his Garmin-Slipstream team showed their faith in him by riding down the break in the last 20km, offering him the platform from which to launch his final effort.

Contador’s coruscating attack came with just over 5km to go, about a third of the way up the 15 steepish ramps, linked by hairpin bends, that take the road through 600 metres of vertical ascent from the valley floor to Verbier’s main square. He had planned to go later, but an acceleration by the Saxo Bank team had already reduced the leading group to a handful of survivors, and he knew his moment had come.

There had been a dress rehearsal nine days earlier, on a climb in Andorra, when the 27-year-old Madrileno suddenly switched on legs that are little thicker than the tubes of his bike and covered the last kilometre at a speed that took him to ninth place on the day and clear of his rivals in the overall standings. Yesterday he was riding for a stage victory, and for much more besides.

Principally, it no longer seems possible for Armstrong to win the race for an eighth time. There are plenty of climbs left, but twice Contador has attacked Armstrong in the mountains and twice the American has shown that he cannot live with the younger man in the discipline that matters most. As he crossed the line in ninth place yesterday his face was drained of expression, but he had recovered well enough within an hour to Twitter his congratulations to the new overall leader.

Contador was asked if he was particularly happy to have beaten a man whose arrival in the team this year posed a challenge to his leadership. “Of course I’m happy to have beaten Lance,” he said, “but I’m also happy to have beaten all my other rivals. He was my idol, but dropping him today wasn’t particularly important. He was like any other competitor.”

Now, according to Armstrong’s own pledge before the Tour, the American is obliged to work to preserve Contador’s lead, a function he had not fulfilled since his pre-cancer days. “He’s a great professional and the important thing is for everyone in the team to work for the same goal,” Contador said.

Contador ended the day with his radio ear-piece flapping loose, its messages unheeded – an apt symbol for a good day not just for youth and talent but for individual initiative and a willingness to respond to the imperatives of the moment. A good day, in fact, for the Tour de France.

Guardian Service

* Nicolas Roche had a solid ride, placing 58th, six minutes and 22 seconds back. He was an excellent second on Saturday, (see page 9) having got into a stage-long breakaway group and finishing 16 seconds behind Serguei Ivanov of Katusha.

His goal now will to recover as well as possible on today’s rest day, and then try to get into another break this week. Having come close to a stage win will motivate him to try to do something before the race ends on Sunday.