Denis Menchov Happily Takes Third Place
By the second half of the 2010 Tour de France, Andy Schleck and Alberto Contador has shown themselves to be essentially untouchable. Their skill was so great that they stopped racing against the other general classification contenders and began to focus entirely on beating only each other. The rest of the top-10 were left to fight over third place the last chance to stand on the podium in Paris, a fight which was dominated primarily by Samuel Sanchez and the eventual third-place victor Denis Menchov.
"For me this is a confirmation,” said Menchov. “I was going well and had been improving every year. I finally achieved the third place. It's a great result. I'm very satisfied."
This year, the Tour split into three distinct races. First, we had the battle for the yellow jersey between Schleck and Contador, the same top-2 as in last year’s Tour. The Spaniard was victorious for the second year in a row, but his opponent went from a 4 minute 11 second trail to only 39 seconds. They seemed to be entirely in control of the other contenders throughout the race, never paying too much attention to anyone but each other.
The second race was the fight for the green jersey. Like the yellow jersey, by the second half of the race it seemed to be down to two people – Alessandro Petacchi and the defending champion Thor Hushovd. After the third stage, no other riders took the points lead. Hushovd raced in green for a total of 11 stages, trading it back and forth with Petacchi a number of times. Petacchi took it in Stage 18, after the Pyrenees, and then an unexpected contender joined the fight – Mark Cavendish.
The Brit Cavendish was an early favourite for the points classification but fell off the map in the Alps and seemed to disappear entirely in the Pyrenees. He returned with a passion when the race flattened out and took the last two sprint stage wins, rocketing him up past Hushovd. However, he was unable to catch Petacchi, who had been giving it his all in the sprints as well as putting in a decent performance in the mountains.
The third race was the fight for the third place – the prestigious yellow podium in Paris which had one extra spot left after Schleck and Contador. On the first rest day of the Tour, after Stage 8, the first mountain stage, Menchov stood in 5th place, over a minute ahead of Sanchez in 9th place. The latter, however, proved himself a podium contender in the Tour’s 9th Stage when he leaped from 9th to 3rd, overtaking Menchov by 13 seconds in the stage which established the distinctive two sets of close competition. Schleck and Contador were left to their own devices in the top two after Cadel Evans dropped out in this stage, and the 3rd and 4th place contenders left Jurgen Van den Broeck and Levi Leipheimer well behind.
Menchov’s Rabobank teammate Robert Gesink sat in 7th, behind Leipheimer, who he would eventually overtake. Having such a close ally was what Menchov needed to remain in 4th place, on Sanchez’s tail for 10 consecutive stages, but it was the Russian’s solo bid in the Stage 19 time-trial which won him the podium spot, finishing two minutes ahead of his opponent.
"It was a hard time trial,” said Menchov. “It's always hard but today's wind made it really difficult. I had to fight hard. Looking back it was one of the best time trials of my life."
Gesink finished the Tour in 6th, behind Van den Broeck, after an exhausted Leipheimer fell to 13th place. Menchov finish 1:39 ahead of Sanchez overall, 1:22 behind Schleck, and 2:01 behind Contador.
Contador moved from 4th place to 1st in the UCI World Rankings, where Astana has led in the team classification and Italy has moved up in the national classification due to Contador’s performance. Evans, the previous world leader, has slipped to 3rd place, behind Joaquin Rodriguez in 2nd. Andy Schleck made the enormous jump from 51st to 6th overall, while Menchov and Sanchez stand in 13th and 8th, respectively.
Tags: