Andy Schleck and Alberto Contador Take Control of the Tour
Following the first day of rest in the 2010 Tour de France, the ninth stage and second high-mountain route saw two general classification riders take command of the overall standings: Team Saxo Bank’s Andy Schleck and Alberto Contador of Team Astana.
The 204.5km race delivered the riders to Saint-Jean-de-Maurienne after taking them up five climbs, between 2.1 and 25.5km in length and with inclines ranging from 3.9 to 6.7%.
French rider Sandy Casar picked up his second ever stage win, finishing ahead of Caisse d'Epargne’s Luis Leon Sanchez and Italian climber Damiano Cunego, who rides for Team Lampre-Farnese Vini.
Aside from the impressive agility of Schleck and Contador, who were racing each other until apparently agreeing to finish the stage in tandem to keep a safe distance to the riders behind them, Tuesday’s stage was dominated by Australian overall contender Cadel Evans’ demise.
Evans finished 43rd in the stage, causing the BMC Racing Team rider to plummet from 1st to 18th place in the overall standings.
After the conclusion of the stage, his team said that Evans had been riding with an elbow fracture that he sustained in a crash during Sunday’s Stage 8.
Upon crossing the finish line, a devastated Evans collapsed into the arms of a teammate in tears.
Tour veteran Lance Armstrong, whose hopes for an overall victory, took a decisive blow during Sunday’s Stage 8, finished 18th in the stage, 2 minutes and 50 seconds behind Casar.
It was Contador’s charging riding that had left Australian Evans trailing. Schleck, however, decided to join Contador, and attacked him three times during the stage. The Spaniard managed to defend his lead over Schleck all three times, before the pair agreed to team up against the other riders.
It was an unlikely alliance, but also a wise move by Contador and Schleck, who finished 6th and 7th in the stage respectively.
"I actually thought he wasn't very quick today, but I was wrong," Schleck told the press after his duel with Contador.
"He responded to all my attacks, we basically went to the top together,” said Schleck.
"We had a really big gap to the guys behind us without taking overtaking risks, so I told him at the top to take no risks on the downhill," he added.
The pair’s strategic descent saw them climb in the standings, with Schleck taking the overall lead in the Tour, 41 seconds ahead of Contador.
Wednesday’s Stage 10 will be the first Tour stage in which Schleck, who finished in 2nd place overall in last year’s Tour, wears the yellow leader’s jersey.
Schleck’s older brother Frank held the yellow jersey during two stages in 2008’s Tour, meaning the pair are the first set of brothers to have both worn the shirt since 2001. At that time, Francois Simon repeated the feat of his older brother Pascal, who had claimed the jersey in 1983.
It remains to be seen how Andy Schleck, who, like Contador, has been favoured to claim the overall victory in the current Tour, will fare without being supported by his older brother Frank.
After Tuesday’s stage, Schleck said that he would have been better poised to challenge Contador with his brother riding beside him.
"Imagine him and me up there with Contador - it would have been different," he said.
25 year-old Schleck also leads the race for the white jersey, awarded to the best young rider in the Tour.
But rather than defending the white jersey, which Schleck won convincingly in 2009, he will be looking to retain his overall lead until the end of the Tour.
To do so, he will have to stave off the inevitable attacks from Contador just as well as Contador held off Schleck’s challenges on Tuesday.
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