Tag: Alberto Contador
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Chris Froome’s career reaches its peak while Alberto Contador departs at the top of one | the 2017 Vuelta a Espana final week wrap
The Final Week Wrap is an attempt to give an overview of how the Vuelta a Espana was won. As such, it focuses on the general classification – which is the overall race – rather than stage wins. Preview First rest day wrap Second rest day wrap Final week wrap If there was a theme…
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Chris Froome does the early riding | the first 2017 Vuelta a Espana rest day wrap
The Rest Day Wrap is an attempt to give an overview of where things stand in the Vuelta a Espana. It focuses on the general classification – which is the overall race – rather than stage wins. Preview First rest day wrap Second rest day wrap Final week wrap You can hang around for a…
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Team Sky have an absolute bloody nightmare
The peloton is long. Containing getting on for 200 riders, it is a long way from the front to the back. It is even further from the back to the front, particularly when the damn thing’s going flat-out. This normally only happens at the end of sprint stages. It happened right from the off on…
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Peter Sagan’s luxury wardrobe
Peter Sagan is some kind of deluxe onion. Peel back his layers and his appearance will barely diminish. His stage two victory has put him into the yellow jersey, but when someone overhauls his lead and pulls that off his back, he’ll still be wearing the green jersey as he’s also leading the points competition.…
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Yellow jersey contenders in 2016
Who’s going to win the Tour de France? Probably not Bartosz Huzarski or Tsgabo Grmay unless an awfully large number of people abandon the race injured. Maybe one of these guys though. Chris Froome Both times he’s won the Tour, Froome’s ceded ground to Nairo Quintana in the mountains in the final week. He says…
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Alberto Contador gets out of the saddle
There was a period, not so long ago, when every time Alberto Contador raced the Tour de France, he won it. He won in 2007, he won in 2009 and he won in 2010. The last of those was later stripped from him after what with hindsight feels like the first of the modern doping…
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Dan McLay looks like he can sprint
Let’s first deal with the inevitable ‘who?’ Dan McLay is a young British rider. Born in New Zealand and brought up in Leicester, he’s been plugging away in Belgium for the last few years, trying to get a pro contract. Bretagne-Séché Environnement gave him one (a pro contract) and he’s just won Grand Prix de…
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Peter Sagan wins a bike race
It shouldn’t really be headline news. I mean he is the world champion. The Slovak quickly put Friday’s disappointment aside by winning Gent-Wevelgem, the Belgian one-day race that doesn’t visit Gent. The Belgians really aren’t slaves to logic when it comes to naming their races. Perhaps it’s all that 12% beer. Sagan won a crappy…
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Geraint Thomas lasts the week at Paris-Nice
Without wishing to dumb down too much, cycling is to a great extent about tiredness. Tiredness is what makes a three-week Grand Tour different from three one-week races with gaps in between. Geraint Thomas won Paris-Nice by the colossal margin of four seconds. He was 11 seconds faster than second-placed Alberto Contador in the prologue…
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Iljo Keisse delivers one last surprise
With hindsight, it was spectacularly stupid of me to assume there would be a sprint finish. The 2015 Giro has had no time for predictability. As it turned out, two track riders, Iljo Keisse and Luke ‘Durbo the Turbo’ Durbridge held off the peloton. Even on a flat stage, the breakaway has had its say…