Frank Schleck already gives up the Tour de France podium
Frank Schleck of Team RadioShack-Nissan has already admitted that he has no chance of climbing podium at the Tour de France this year.
The Luxembourg cyclist is marking his seventh Tour de France appearance and it is the first time in five years that he is without the support his younger brother, Andy Schleck.
Frank finished fifth during the 2008 and the 2009 versions of the race and occupied the third overall spot during the most recent version of the race.
He fell 2 minute and 30 seconds behind his brother Andy with Cadel Evans of Team BMC grabbing his first overall victory at the race.
Schleck is currently holding the 16th overall position after the stage 10 classifications with a total deficit of 8 minutes and 19 seconds on the race leader.
Bradley Wiggins of Team Sky Procycling is leading the category with a total time of 43:59:02 with Cadel Evans of Team BMC, Christopher Froome of Team Sky and Vincenzo Nibali of Team Liquigas-Cannondale occupying the second, third and fourth positions respectively.
He told Quotidien, "I lost two-and-a-half minutes in the fall on the Metz road again I lost four minutes in the time trial. Achieving the podium is almost impossible".
"There are only two very hard stages for climbers," he said. "In the other stages, we do not know what to do. The organisers wanted to make an exciting tour with earlier attacks but what will happen is the opposite".
“Three years ago we saw [Schleck's brother] Andy and I regularly attack everyone else. We knew last year that would be hard to beat Cadel (Evans), but no one attacked,” he noted.
The 32-year-old is having a dry season and has not bagged any victories in the earlier part of the season.
He finished third during the stage 7 of the Giro d’Italia, second overall at the Tour de Luxembourg and occupies the second overall position at the Tour de Suisse.
Schleck is more than 8 minutes behind the leader and has accepted that that he has very rare chances to find the top podium spot this.
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