There’s two things bug about about this Let Levi Win argument. First is that Leipheimer has shown his class by the way he’s taken his defeat. On the chin. No whining. No bitching. No trying to rewrite the results. The contrary in fact.

“Alberto performed where he needed to. On the Angliru he showed he was the best. […] Alberto really deserves this win.”

“A big factor was that Alberto was the big favourite and I was pretty relaxed. For him to carry that weight, with all the fans of Spain looking to him and to win his third grand tour in the shortest time in history, he really deserves this. He performed when he needed to – there’s no discussion.”

Then there’s the argument that without bonifications – the Vuelta’s hanging chads – the two would have been tied on time and separated only by decimals of a second. Which fall in Leipheimer’s favour and so therefore he’s the moral victor. Leipheimer is the new Al Gore. All hail the new saviour of cycling.

But let’s look at what actually happened on the road. On stage seven, In the closing klicks of an uphill finish, Contador attacks, takes 5" on the road from Leipheimer and another 8" in bonifications. Without those bonifications though, who’s to say Contador wouldn’t have gone sooner / harder? Let’s remember what Sastre said about him, about him being an ant, taking seconds here and seconds there, a boring number-crunching second-counting little ant.

The next day, similar story. 5" to Contador on the road with an attack on the closing climb, another 8" in bonifications. Another question as to whether he’d have gone harder / sooner wihthout those bonifications waiting for him.

Stage 12, Leipheimer surrenders 3" on the road as the finish kicked uphill.

Stage 13, l’Angliru. Contador drops Leipheimer, putting 1’05" into him, plus another 20" in bonifications. Leipheimer simply couldn’t stay with him when the road went up.

Stage 14, In the closing klicks of an uphill finish, Leipheimer surrenders 2" on the road and another 8" in bonifications. He coulda gone for those bonus seconds himself if he’d had the legs, couldn’t he?

Stage 20. Leipheimer takes 31" out of Contador in the final TT. But Contador knew how much time he could afford to surrender, didn’t he? He was 11" down at km9. At km12, he was holding the deficit at 11". In the final 5 kilcks, he surrenders 20" to his teammate. He could well afford to. Would he have surrendered them if he couldn’t have afforded to?

The whole point is, you take out the bounuses, you create a whole other race. It wouldn’t just affect how Leipheimer and Contador would have played the race. It would affect how everyone would have played the race. Would it have been harder, faster, more breaks, more splintering in the closing kicks, especially the uphill ones, who woulda lost time they didn’t? You don’t know.

Yet some think they know enough to think Contador is the Vuelta’s Dubya and won the race unfairly. Thank God Leipheimer has more class than Al Gore, that’s all I can say.

‘cept of course he wasn’t the marked man contador was, which makes a world of difference.

fact is, when it mattered most, in the mountains, he didn’t have the legs to keep up with contador.

JFS. Your comment saved me from possibly taking the bait. Thanks.