In his final one last month he made a mark on the race with well-calculated attacks en route to Foix and Serre Chevalier, but never looked as if he would threaten for the podium. It was hard to avoid the slightly poignant sense here was a man bravely but fruitlessly chasing the form that had marked his youth. Clearly, since the Tour, reality has set in. This article includes content provided by Instagram. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies.
To view this content, click 'Allow and continue'. Alberto Contador leaves a legacy of cavalier racing and controversy. The year-old Spaniard, who is to retire after the Vuelta, is one of six riders to have won all three grand tours but he departs as an embodiment of the doubts that still underpin cycling.
Chris Froome aiming to end year wait for Vuelta a Espana and Tour double. This decision is for the well-being of the team and to face the Tour de France in a more united way. Two-time Tour winner Contador lists defending champion Bernal among the favourites along with Tom Dumoulin and Primoz Roglic, with the latter facing a race to be fit for the Tour. And the dark horses? Enric Mas with the quality he has can also be one of the important cyclists of this year without forgetting Miguel Angel Lopez of course.
Julian Alaphilippe is another big name that should always be on the radar. Amid the pandemic teams face the prospect of being removed for the Tour should they record two or more positive coronavirus cases. Contador says this move is not a surprise, and should not really change how teams prepare for the event. Voeckler was at So much had happened, then, yet there was still so much to play for. The long descent from the summit of Galibier, initially speeding over the road paint and graffiti from the previous day's stage but in the opposite direction and then on down the valley to Bourg d'Oisans and the start of the ascent to Alpe d'Huez.
After an hour-long pursuit, Evans' small group of chasers regained contact with Schleck and Contador, and then the Europcar and FDJ-driven peloton swelled the ranks of the favourites' peloton even more. However, for all the French TV commentators trumpeted about Voeckler's apparently revived chances of defending his maillot jaune for an eleventh day, in fact the writing was on the wall. But while Contador had helped forge the GC battle on the Galibier at no advantage to himself, on the Alpe d'Huez, the Spaniard would be the only previous protagonist with the strength left to fight for the stage win.
Nine kilometres from the summit, he darted away up the Alpe, quickly overhauling Rolland and Hesjedal and striking out alone. But once again, the gaps were never huge: 20 seconds on Rolland, 40 or so on a group containing both Schlecks and Evans, and where Voeckler had once again, dropped behind. Surprisingly little actually happened for the next half hour, but the tension was as sharp as a knife. Contador might be sticking to his attitude that he had nothing to lose and was racing accordingly, but elsewhere the sense that anybody and everybody was vulnerable was palpable.
Andy Schleck's conservatism on the Alpe might be partly due to his knowing that if he didn't crack, then he'd automatically inherit the yellow jersey from Voeckler. Evans' tenacity even after such a complicated start to the day made it clear he wouldn't be rolling over that quickly. But Contador's attacks on the Galibier, Voeckler's desperate chase, and Evans' kilometre struggle to regain contact were ample reminders, too, that after three weeks of hard racing, all it took was one all-out attack for a GC hierarchy to disintegrate.
That attack never came. There was one longish surge from Cadel Evans right at the foot of the climb, another some three kilometres from the summit, both of which felt like moves to test his rivals for chinks in their armour without going too deep into the red himself.
It took him the best part of six kilometres to catch Contador, for all he was much less than a minute ahead — yet another sign of how many of the peloton were running on fumes by this stage — and when he did so, he had Pierre Rolland glued to his back wheel. As soon as the duo reached Contador, after a couple hundred metres where Rolland could not shake the Spaniard, the Europcar pro suddenly spurted away, alone towards the summit.
But ultimately, he had to settle for second and a definitive move into the lead of the King of the Mountains' competition, while Contador drifted home in third. I'd been 90 kilometres flat out, but while I was doing well on Alpe d'Huez, what I'd done at the start made me lose a bit at the end of it all.
For Rolland and Europcar, victory on Alpe d'Huez could not act as a full compensation prize for losing the overall lead to Schleck. But it certainly must have taken the edge off the hurt. Yet for all the damage wreaked out in just kilometres and a little more than three hours of racing, the battle for the Tour was still not resolved.
Andy Schleck's advantage of 57 seconds over Cadel Evans might have netted the Luxembourg rider his first maillot jaune on Alpe d'Huez, but the urban myth that whoever wore yellow at the top of the Alpe d'Huez would be riding into Paris in yellow would take yet another hammering.
Perhaps that was the most attractive feature of stage it had been a heart-stopper of a stage from beginning to end, with multiple options for multiple jerseys constantly on the table there were even rumours Mark Cavendish might lose his green jersey until commissaires relented and let those outside the time cut back into the race. But in fact, for all three jerseys had changed hands, the GC battle remained open. Evans was the big favourite for sure, but — as we saw most recently last year in the Tour — a final time trial is never per cent certain to favour the top time triallists.
A single moment of inattention, a sudden loss of strength and the yellow jersey might have stayed in Luxembourg for the second year running post CAS stripping Contador of the win rather than heading to Australia for the first time in history.
But that was the next day's stage to decide. For the man who had engineered it all, Contador paid his one and only visit to the Tour's podium that year, as the most combative rider of the stage. It was richly deserved, but it felt like a scant reward after so much effort.
If marked the start of the Contador years as a rebel with or without a cause, the last mountain stage of that year's Tour was also the end of an era. The time for anarchic attacks, in the Tour de France if not the Vuelta or Giro, ended there and then, as from onwards each July the 'Sky train' took over, grinding out such an effective, constant pace on the climbs for Wiggins and then Froome that, barring accidents like or anomalies like the Vuelta, the Contadors of this world were kept on a much tighter leash.
The French though, had also learned a lesson. But it had been a terrible Tour start for me. So, in a sense I had no choice. I had to go for it.
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