Carlos Sastre will be one to watch in Tour de France 2010
A consistent contender in the general classification in all the Grand Tours of the past decade, veteran rider Carlos Sastre will be one to watch in this year’s Tour de France. Known as a spectacular climbing specialist, Sastre has persistenly improved his overall technique to earn him some great wins in professional cycling, most notably the Tour de France’s general classification title in 2008.
Sastre raced for Team CSC-Saxo Bank between 2003 and 2008. On the 2008 Tour, Sastre was long rivaled by his Luxembourgian teammate Frank Schleck. Sartre’s unconvincing displays in the early time trials had allowed his rivals to catch up, and he was in need of something special to take charge of the race again.
It was during Stage 17, a high-mountain climb up Alpe d’Huez outside of Grenoble, that Sastre turned in the race-winning performance. At the bottom of the last climb of the stage, Sastre decided to attack, and raced spectacularly well, finishing 2 minutes and 15 seconds ahead of Asutralian Cadel Evans. The climbing finish helped Sastre win the mountains classification of the Tour.
It was thought that Evans would be able to make up the time difference during the time trial stages, but this was when Sastre showed his versatility as a cyclist. Starting the time trial 1 minute and 34 seconds ahead of Evans, Sastre managed to keep a sizeable lead of 58 seconds by the end of the race. Sastre’s overall victory capped off a spectacular Tour for Team CSC-Saxo Bank, who besides Sastre’s two titles, also claimed the young riders classification, won by Andy Schleck, and the overall team classification.
Sastre’s win came as the ultimate triumph for a rider who, despite lining up five top-10 overall finishes in the Tour de France since 2000, had never finished on the podium. "It's very moving," he said to the press after the final stage. "I've dreamt of this since I was a child. I'm beyond words, to be here with my family is really special." Only two days after the win, the 33-year-old was contacted by BLA, who was scouting for riders to join his new team. Sastre verbally agreed to join, and by the 2009 season, Sastre was presented as a Cervelo TestTeam rider.
The team, coached by Dutchman Joob Alberda, who has never before led a professional cycling team, seeks to apply the best practices from other sports to the world of cycling. Judging by their four stage wins in the 2009 Giro d’Italia, and by Cervelo rider Thos Hushovd’s claiming of the points classification in the Tour the same year, they are doing something right.
Norwegian Hushovd will be looking to defend the green jersey in this year’s Tour, but it is Sastre who gives Cervelo realistic hopes of claiming the general classification. Having sustained a herniated disk by crashing twice in this year’s Giro, Sastre was declared fit to start the Tour in late June.
It was then that Sartre, knowing the difficulties the riders will encounter during the cobbled sections of Stage 3, set off for France to practice on the infamous surface. The training proved the ultimate fitness test for the Spaniard.
“I haven't felt any discomfort or pain,” he said before the prologue to the Tour in Rotterdam. “That spurs me on to give it my all and to take on the time trial feeling ready to do well.”
Expressing confidence in his form and relief in riding without pain, Sastre is set to lead his Cervelo TestTeam to an inspiring performance in the coming weeks.
Led by sprinter Hushovd and veteran Sastre, who is starting his tenth Tour, the stated ambition to compete for two classifications is one to be taken seriously.
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