Sunday 21 September. Alberto Contador of the Astana team today won the Vuelta a Espana (Tour of Spain) in emphatic fashion to become one of only five riders to have won all of the three week grand tours: The Tour de France, Giro D’Italia, and the Vuelta. Contador adds his name to a quartet of cycling legends, Frenchmen Jacques Anquetil and Bernard Hinault, Belgian legend Eddy Merckx and Italy’s Felice Gimondi. What makes Contador’s achievement even more notable is that his wins all come in a little over a year, starting with his win in the 2007 Tour de France. He followed that up with victory in this year’s Giro in May, where he beat Riccardo Ricco (subsequently thrown off this year’s Tour de France for doping), before today sealing his triumph in the Vuelta. The win is another emphatic riposte to the Tour de France organisers who controversially “uninvited” Contador and his Astana team from this year’s race – despite, the team, name aside, being virtually a completely different outfit from the one thrown of the 2007 Tour when then team leader Alexander Vinokourov failed a blood test for EPO. The banning of Astana was held in many quarters to have less to do with making an example of Astana for past sins, and more do with with a settling of old scores with the new Astana management lead by Johan Bruyneel for their success in winning the Tour seven times in a row – six with Lance Armstrong (US Postal and then Discovery) then followed up with last year’s victory for Contador. While not exactly welcoming back Astana with open arms the Tour de France organisers have said the “disinvitation” was not a permanent snub to Astana. Either way, it will be very hard to leave the man who currently dominates three week stage racing out of next year’s Tour. Like it or not it seems that ASO, the Tour organisers, will just have to put up with the fact that Contador and Bruyneel are going to be part of the scene for quite some time to come. Finally, assuming Lance resumes his career with his old team this leaves Astana officials with a potentially tricky task – who will be team leader for next year’s Tour de France? Is it conceivable that Contador will give up on the chance to win a second Tour after being denied last year too, particularly since he can lay claim to a legendary cycling feat of his own. Vuelta 2008: Final overall standings 1. Alberto Contador (Spa) Astana, 80hrs 40mins 23secs 2. Levi Leipheimer (US) Astana, +1:01s 3. Carlos Sastre (Spa) CSC +4:31" 4. Ezequiel Mosquera (Spa) Xacobeo, +5:04" 5. Alejandro Valverde (Spa) Caisse d’Epargne, +5:45"
Contador wins Vuelta to seal place in history and give his team a potential problem
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@mdavidford I can see how it confused you when I pointed to the reviewer at the bottom. but hey if you cant read an entire comment before getting all keyboard warrior blah, kind of like you usually do that not my fault. I should have guessed the first person to reply to a comment would be you, you cant help yourself.
@chrisonabike It never ceases to amaze me how drivers consider public land to be their private parking spaces.
Erm - it has - as per the item above: (Technically, a 'budget cap' and a 'team salary cap' aren't quite the same thing, but given how much of the costs are paying riders, it would have a similar effect.)
A lot of pro sports leagues have team salary caps. Curious that hasn't been mooted. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salary_cap
Well your original comment did rather suggest that was your understanding. The bit 'critiquing' the pros and cons was sandwiched in the middle of railing against the makers. And the amount of ill-thought-out tripe that gets posted under some of these reviews, it wouldn't surprise me at all if someone thought the manufacturer provided the pros and cons.
JB may not bé Mr Nice but in this case he's 100% right. I thought when Lappartient was elected he knew sod all about pro cycling and his real ambitions were related to running thé Olympics.
@mdavidford Well duh, is a manufacturer going to put negative comments on their own products? did you really just try to explain that?
Surely Fred Wright's going to win a race in his career that isn't the national champs. He's been close so many times now.
Awful human slags off Machiavellian politician -shock horror.
The pros and cons come from the reviewer, not the manufacturer. And they do explain in the review why they think the lack of MIPS could be viewed as either/both a positive or a negative. Less so with the shape, but it's easy to see how that could be considered a good or a bad thing, depending on whether it suits your head shape. If anything, it's a deficiency of the review template - that it doesn't have a section for something like 'other considerations' that aren't pros or cons.
2 thoughts on “Contador wins Vuelta to seal place in history and give his team a potential problem”
Nicholas Roche
Great ride by Nichlas Roche, 13th place and almost won a stage as well. Chip of the old block!
yeah good effort
Both the reports I’ve read in the Irish press (basically the same story re-cycled) talk about him “coming off age” which must be slightly galling when your 24 (okay a youngster in grand tour terms, but then Contador is only 25) and you’ve already been selected to lead your country’s cycling team at the Worlds.
Top effort though.