Alberto Contador Preparing To Grab Yet Another Championship
Alberto Contador is all prepared to celebrate the third victory of the Tour de France.
As the race reaches its final stages the competition is getting tougher between the Spaniard, Alberto Contador , the title defender and the Luxembourger, Andy Schleck, the runner up for last year. The Saturday’s time trial is to run on a 52-kilometer (32.3-mile) track that marks the 19th stage of the tour starting from Bordeaux to Pauillac. Currently Contador has an eight-second lead over Schleck which is expected to extend in the Saturday’s time trial.
Last year when both the cyclists met in a similar condition, Contador won the stage, as he had always been famous for his talent at time-trials. After his 19th stage’s win Contador was able to win the overall victory quite confidently last year and most of the analysts as well as race lovers expect to see similar results this year as well.
Saturday marks a very crucial stage which can alter the positions dramatically. The final stage is to be held on Sunday, drilling finally into Paris, which is usually considered a sprinters' stage followed by a day-long victory march for the tour’s winner.
However, Contador said that he is happy the way things have turned out so far though the time trial is yet to come and unless that is over his victory is not certain.
Before the cycles move for the next stage, the sprinter talked to the media saying, “This is a hard stage that comes after 20 days in the Tour, and this isn't a race for specialists. Tomorrow I will really have to fight a lot to win the stage and to defeat (Schleck),'' he said.
On the other hand Schleck still seems optimistic and positive. He told that he is confident and looking forward for a great cycling day. He added, ``I feel good. I have nothing to lose,'' he further elaborated, ``He (Contador) is better but I'm not bad, too. We're going to see a battle tomorrow.''
While the arena gets heated for the war of first two positions, third place is being claimed by the Olympic road race champion, Samuel Sanchez of Spain, as he holds a lead of twenty one seconds over Denis Menchov of Russia who had been the proud winner of the 2009 Giro d'Italia.
Among other leading cyclists so far is Fabian Cancellara, the world time-trial champion of Switzerland, who is also hoping to win the stage for Saturday. Cancellara had been Schleck's teammate at Saxo Bank team and was able to do very good at the start ff the race as he held the yellow jersey for a period of six days during the prologue.
On Friday’s race, Mark Cavendish demonstrated once again that, in spite of the fact that he does not have his most important teammate, very few are capable of touching him when it comes to sprinting.
The British rider was successful in grabbing 18th stage from Salies-de-Bearn to Bordeaux in a sprint finish. With this victory he had bagged the fourth win of this year's Tour and the 14th win in his entire career of three years of competing in this mega cycling event.
Cavendish had been able to win this time without his lead-out man as well as a roommate, Mark Renshaw as he was expelled from the race after the 11th stage as he was caught head-butting an opponent. Cavendish dedicated his latest victory to Renshaw exclaiming that the Australian rider by doing such a deed had helped him come to the front thus making his life easy.
``I've missed Mark,'' Cavendish said. ``I missed him in the Pyrenees, I missed somebody suffering more than me.”
Well, the long and most celebrated cycling event is able to wrap up. Only a day to go and the race fans could witness the next champion of Tour de France.
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