Contador wins the Giro…will the Tour de France come calling for Astana?
Having taken a few weeks off from his vacation, Alberto Contador (Astana) put a stamp on the 2008 Giro de Italia today and wins by 1:57 over Ricardo Ricco’ (Saunier Duval). Prior to today’s final stage, Contador’s lead was only four seconds but he put nearly two minutes on Ricco’ over the 28.5 km time trial. With this win, Contador becomes only the second Spanish rider to win the Giro.
Photo Courtesy of TDWsport.com
Astana Team Manager Johan Bruyneel (former US Postal and Team Discovery Channel manager) is already comparing Contador to Lance Armstrong. “I think we’re seeing a new phenomenon like Lance. I don’t like to compare riders, but from what I’ve seen in him I’ve only seen in Lance, especially in the mountains,” said Bruyneel. “It’s a very unexpected victory. If he can win the Giro at 80 percent, I see a very big future for Alberto.” Personally, I think it’s way too early to make that comparison. Sure, Bruyneel managed Lance for his seven Tour de France victories but to begin comparing another Contador to Lance after one Tour and one Giro victory is a stretch in my book. Especially after his Tour win last year was basically given to him after race leader Michael Rasmussen was booted from the race with only four days to go. Let Contador win a couple more Tours and then I’ll be open to begin drawing comparisons.
Photo Courtesy of TDWsport.com
Aside from Contador coming off vacation to win the Giro, I think the story of this year’s race was the success of Team High Road and Slipstream-Chipotle. In the final stage, Team High Road took first, second, and fourth positions while Slipstream-Chipotle took fifth and sixth. That’s five of the top six positions going to American teams. The first place finish of Marco Pinotti in stage 21 gave Team High Road four stage victories in this years Giro while Slipstream-Chipotle took the opening Team Time Trial victory in stage 1 with Team High Road finishing the Team Time Trial in second place. Team High Road managed to take first and second on stages 17 and 21. Both teams had multiple top ten stage finishes.
I know Contador pulled off the victory but I think the team of the race has to be Team High Road while Mark Cavendish of Team High Road should be considered the rider of the race. Cavendish finished the 2008 Giro with two stage wins, two second place finishes, and two other top tens. Very impressive. As to be expected, though, he struggled on the mountain stages and gave up lots of time there.
Now the big question is, “Will Astana be asked to participate in the Tour de France?” With Contador stating that “This was better than a second tour win” I’m sure this has only added fuel to the already growing fire. Astana was only given about a weeks notice that they could ride the Giro and then pulled off a major upset. That’s proof alone at how strong a team they are. Should they be allowed to ride the Tour? I think yes. This is not the same Astana team as last year that removed itself from the race following Alexander Vinokorouv’s positive drug test. They are under new management and have new riders. They have both the first and third place (Levi Leipheimer) finishers from the 2007 Tour De France and now have the winner of the 2008 Giro de Italia.
Can the Tour afford to not invite them?
I welcome your opinions.
thePig on Tue, 3rd Jun 2008 1:55 pm
Great summary Bryan. I missed the last 1.5 weeks of the race and this has bought me right up to date.
As to whether Astana should be invited to the tour I think NOT. Cycling has been damaged over the last several years and I think banning Astana is sending the right messages.
As for the impact on Contador. He CHOOSES to ride for Astana and I am sure he could very easily ride for another team that has a cleaner record.
Bryan on Tue, 3rd Jun 2008 3:04 pm
@thePig: I see your point. Is the tour sending the right message by not inviting Astana? I think yes and no. They’re trying to stand firm on the doping ban by banning them but are they punishing the team name or the riders that weren’t on that team last year? As for Contador (and Levi for that matter), they likely had no idea that Astana wouldn’t be invited to the tour this year when they signed their contracts. If they had known, I wonder if they would have made the move. Oh well, at least it’s a great topic for discussion.
Glad to hear your trip went well.
jaxgtr on Tue, 3rd Jun 2008 10:39 pm
If they are trying to send a message then they need to drop several other teams as well, then they would have about ….. oh yea, no teams in there. Every team in the last several years has had someone popped for doping except 1 or 2. Notably, US Postal\Discovery is one and it drives them nuts that Lance won Their race 7 times in a row.
It’s really French hypocrisy at it’s finest.
daveydave on Tue, 3rd Jun 2008 10:45 pm
I have so many mixed feelings about who deserves to race in this years TDF.
@Pig: Just about every team going set to ride in the TDF has a rider without a clean record.
@Bryan: Maybe the riders would not have signed with Astana if they knew they would not be able to ride the TDF. However, I think that wasn’t established at the time of new contract signings. Plus, these guys pick the team they want to ride on based on the strengths of the riders around them.
I wish we could see Astana - but without Contador. Maybe that would have been the best way for the race organizers to have handled it. Levi would have been fun to watch with a decent supporting cast.
Bottom line: I blame the race organizers. Case in point… the Giro was arguably harder this year than any of the last few TDF’s. They are encouraging the use of drugs by making cycling an extreme sport rather than an extremely difficult sport. Time trials with 29% grades and 3 ridiculous stages toward the end of 3 weeks? You just have to question if the race organizers of these events really want a clean field.
dave
Bryan on Wed, 4th Jun 2008 7:04 am
@daveydave: You’re right, we would be hard-pressed to find a team without a rider that’s been involved in some kind of doping scandal. The race organization for the Tour has always been defunct in my opinion. I didn’t get to see much of the Giro so I can’t appreciate how hard it really was. I’ve heard from a lot of sources though that it was very difficult. You know next year that the French will up the anty to compete with the Italians on race difficulty. Even with race organizers making the routes harder, I find it hard to fathom that folks will still dope. I know that some will try to circumvent the system and get caught but I just don’t understand. They know the sport is trying to get cleaner and do it anyway. I guess some people will sell their morals and character for a taste of the glory.
jaxgtr on Wed, 4th Jun 2008 9:04 pm
Dave,your right on the difficulty of the last few stages. That TT was unbelievable and the fact that they scraped snow off if it that morning really had to make you wonder what they were thinking.
daveydave on Thu, 5th Jun 2008 5:46 pm
@Jaxgtr - I didn’t realize they had scraped snow off it that morning. That’s insane! Good information!
I did see that Contador had changed his low rear cog to a 30+ because he was spinning out the rear tire when testing his climbing out of the saddle.
Did you guys hear that Cadel Evans may have suffered a knee injury in training this past week?
dave
jaxgtr on Thu, 5th Jun 2008 6:58 pm
Yea, I heard something about that, but did not see anything specific. That is too bad if true.
jaxgtr on Thu, 5th Jun 2008 7:00 pm
Although he can’t be too hurt, he’s riding in the Dauphiné Libéré.
“Belgian squad Silence-Lotto will have Mario Aerts, Christophe Brandt, Dario Cioni, Bart Dockx, Cadel Evans, Matthew Lloyd, Yaroslav Popovych and Roy Sentjens at the start, with a clear focus on the Australian 2007 Tour de France runner-up who will be targeting the victory in July.”
http://www.cyclingnews.com/news.php?id=news/2008/jun08/jun05news2