Wednesday, July 20, 2011
Associated Press
GAP, France
Alberto Contador has finally put the hammer down at the Tour de France — and now, the race is really on.
Minutes behind the race leader, the defending champion surprised key rivals with a brazen attack on a relatively easy climb in the Alpine foothills in Tuesday’s Stage 16, won by Thor Hushovd of Norway in a breakaway.
Contador, baring his teeth as his tires sizzled on the rain-slick roads, surged out of the pack on the mid-grade Col de Magne climb, and held on through a treacherous downhill to the finish of the 101-mile ride from Saint-Paul-Trois-Chateaux to Gap.
“I knew I needed to attack,” Contador said. “I couldn’t care less if someone kept on my wheel — I knew one of them would fail. I’m so happy. It has been a major gap, much bigger than I expected.”
The unexpected surge by the Spaniard shook up the leaderboard at cycling’s greatest race, which ends Sunday in Paris.
Among the contenders, only Cadel Evans kept up. The Australian actually outpaced the Spanish three-time champion by three seconds at the end. But Contador, who lost time with crash trouble earlier in the race — had trimmed 18 seconds off his deficit to overall race leader Thomas Voeckler of France, down to 3 minutes, 42 seconds.
More importantly, the Spaniard recovered more than a minute on his runner-up at the last two Tours, Andy Schleck of Luxembourg, a top climber who almost inexplicably didn’t keep up on the relatively easy final ascent.
Schleck conceded he was “disappointed,” but that “there are other chances to take back time.”
“We were a bit surprised that Contador went on the climb,” Frank Schleck said. “We know that he is a rider that attacks when he has good legs, but we had anticipated he would wait.”