Contador puts it up to Armstrong

CYCLING TOUR DE FRANCE:ARCALIS ALBERTO Contador made his move yesterday, climbing the final kilometre of an Andorran peak like a man on a perfectly maintained moving staircase while Lance Armstrong, his team-mate and rival, was left grinding away in his wake. But it was two relative unknowns, at opposite ends of their careers yet each competing in his first Tour de France, who stole the headlines from under the noses of the warring superstars.

Brice Feillu, a 23-year-old French rider in his first year as a professional, had spent most of the day in a small breakaway, before waving goodbye to his companions six kilometres before the finish line on the 2,240 metre summit of Arcalis. A tall, slender figure in the jersey of the Agritubel team, he rode briskly away from the small group and had eased up by the time he crossed the line five seconds ahead of another French rider, Christophe Kern, with Johannes Frohlinger of Germany third, a further 20 seconds back.

Feillu gave France a second stage win in the 2009 Tour to follow Thomas Voeckler’s success on Wednesday. He comes from Chateaudun, between Chartres and Orleans, and his team leader is his older brother, Romain, who won the Tour of Britain two years ago and wore the yellow jersey for a day last year.

Now Brice has taken the polka dot jersey for the best climber and his goal is to wear it all the way to the final stage in Paris on July 26th, his 24th birthday.

Fourth place in yesterday’s stage was enough to give the overall lead to Rinaldo Nocentini, a 31-year-old Italian with the AG2R-La Mondiale team. It was vacated by Fabian Cancellara, whose afternoon of struggle – including two punctures and a hair-raising 55mph solo descent – saw him finish nine minutes 16 seconds down on the winner.

Nocentini, who started the day three minutes 13 seconds behind Cancellara, now has a six-second advantage over Contador and a further two seconds over Armstrong.

Nocentini, who comes from Montevarchi, a town in Tuscany specialising in the manufacture of felt hats, will today become the first Italian to start a stage in the yellow jersey since veteran Alberto Elli wore it for four days in 2000.

He had begun the day, he said, thinking about a stage win as he joined a nine-man breakaway soon after the race left Barcelona, but when the little group still had a lead of five minutes as they set off up the final ascent he became aware of the possibility of taking the overall lead.

He was grateful for the help of his French team-mate, Christophe Riblon, who finished sixth in the stage but won the day’s combativity prize after leading the way over all the four categorised climbs – one of them the first-category Col de Serra-Seca – that preceded the climax on Arcalis. Of the nine escapees, only Aleksandr Kuschinsky of Belarus fell back into the peloton’s clutches.

On a day of brilliant blues and greens, with patches of snow still visible on the upper slopes of the surrounding Pyrenees, the 224km stage from Barcelona to Arcalis moved slowly to its unpredictable conclusion.

One of the finest performances came from Bradley Wiggins, Britain’s triple Olympic gold medal winner on the track, who stayed close to the leaders of the peloton as it splintered in the final stages and was able to finish 12th, towards the front of an elite group including Cadel Evans, Andy Schleck, Levi Leipheimer, Armstrong, Tony Martin, Denis Menchov, Carlos Sastre, Vladimir Karpets and Christian Vandevelde.

As a result, he moved up from sixth to fifth in the general classification and is learning more about his capacities as the Tour goes on.

“It’s about time I got my a**e in gear,” he said. “I’m 29 now and I’ve been going at this for eight years and I’ve never really given it a good shot. I’ve got a great team behind me this year and physically, I always knew I was strong enough.

I think I was annoying some riders today. Frank and Andy Schleck kept getting the hump with me, because they’ve never seen me in that position before. They were thinking, ‘Will you just p*** off and let us get on with our job?’ I felt great on the climb but I was trying not to get too excited as it’s only the first day in the mountains.”

Having ridden in close quarters with Armstrong and Contador through much of the stage, he saw enough to conclude both are in contention. After the Astana squad had spent most of the day maintaining an uninspiringly steady rhythm at the front of the peloton, however, the American was clearly unprepared for the Spaniard’s late attack.

“It wasn’t in our plan,” he said, “but I didn’t expect him to go with the plan, so I wasn’t surprised. I said all along my obligation is to the team. There are plenty of days at the end of the Tour.”