Contador On Paris-Nice 2010
by BTD on Mar 6, 2010 11:57 AM EST
28 comments
Two time Tour de France winner Alberto Contador acknowledged that he arrives in good form for the next edition of Paris-Nice. [. . .] in which he will compete with the Olympic champion, Samuel Sánchez, the last winner of the Vuelta de Espana, Alejandro Valverde, and Luxemburger Franck Schleck, among others. [. . .]
"I am in good form, although I've done little training since the Vuelta al Algarve. I had a chill, a consequence of the rain in Portugal, but despite that I think I am in good form," said Contador.
In last year's Paris-Nice, the cyclist from Pinto (Madrid) suffered a spectacular meltdown, but he say he has no desire to "avenge" last year's result. "That was a valuable experience that taught me that you never be careless about anything and you must be calm and calculating about all aspects of a race." said Contador.
The Astana leader stated that [. . .] his team "intends to fight for the victory and to be in the fight, although it will be difficult to win. There are strong cyclists, like Luis León [Sanchez] or Valverde, who have more days of competition this year. Alejandro already knows what winning feels like this year,in the tour of the Mediterranean and raced in Australia and Almería. At the beginning of the year, recent race competition is very notable. But in a race like París-Nice, the group of favorites is wide.. Here are included Samuel Sánchez, Frank Schleck, Sandy Casar o [Sylvain] Chavanel", said Contador.
In his view, París-Nice 2010 could be decided by a narrow margin and pointed to the climbing finish in Mende as "short and explosive." "We climbed it in 2007 and the differences were minimal. This year the race will be decided by a few seconds and the bonuses will be important. The last 3 days in the mountains will be difficult to control. The podium placements will be a question of seconds," Contador said.
To achieve victory [in Sunday's time trial prologue], Contador will be counting on his new time trial bike, which is being shipped from the US. "I will time trial as well as I can given the course. It has no climbs, it is flat for most of the 8 kms. Despite this, I expect to be among the leaders. Last year I won the time trial but I don't think I can repeat that this year, " Contador said.
(My translation.)
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I'm a lurker
every day.
I do realize that I have little to add except the occasional translation of a Spanish language article.
With Paris-Nice starting tomorrow, and in light of Contador’s collapse last year, i thought what he had to say would be of interest.
by BTD on Mar 6, 2010 3:39 PM EST up reply actions
nothing wrong with lurking....
"Wizard's first rule. People are stupid. They will believe anything they want to be true or fear to be true." -- Terry Goodkind
We need a different expression than
“lurking”. it sounds sinister. There’s nothing wrong with just reading along quietly. Sometimes that would be preferable..(Drew…).
Yes, I want him to get the bike, too.
I don’t care about what/which bike – a very nice Specialized, yes – but I want him to have HIS bike and no more BS!
AC has a bad rep, but outside of the victory salute thing, and/if until he’s c——- d———, I’m not really seeing a bad guy here. I like him.
Every interview he does he is gracious, humble, logical, and to me also quite personable.
Coalescing on the concept that AC looks pretty f-in ready and well able to shovel back a lot of the s shoveled on him by Brunyeel and Lance.
AC is at the peak of his abilities and they really should have given him his TT wheels.
Astana is a good team, Yes.
by rubesANdbabes on Mar 7, 2010 12:54 AM EST up reply actions
My God he isn't even sandbagging this time
this is not the Tour right?
March 14, 2010: The great one returns!
I think Algarve really put an end to that.
You can’t really put on a performance like that and then turn around and say you just hope to do well. Plus, he was saying the same thing at Algarve (about Paris-Nice). He really wants to do well this week. This should be a great race, no matter who wins.
Well we all knew he was sandbagging
and had he said the same here as he did about Algarve we would again all know he is sandbagging, but he actually said he wants to win it.
March 14, 2010: The great one returns!
yep, pn is a fav of his.... he's been doing well in it since 2004, the young whippersnapper
"Wizard's first rule. People are stupid. They will believe anything they want to be true or fear to be true." -- Terry Goodkind
not sure he's ever sandbagged about PN
And i think revenge is just not the right word here. I imagine he’d like to redeem and prove himself more than anything else here – kind of erase what happened last year.
I agree. Bert doesn't even need to be vengeful
but proving that he’s learned from his mistake… maybe
"How strange it was to see men doing something beautiful. Something pointless and elegant." Tim Winton, 'Breath'
http://click.cyclingfever.com/?jump=3/10814/1256994360-73
http://click.cyclingfever.com/?jump=3/10793/1256994360-73
I think he...
didn’t want the jersey that bad today.
Get it when it counts and sit back until then. At this point he’s ahead of any contenders. Unless Jens! is all of a sudden back in rare form after his crash last year. And does Levi really have what it takes to respond to an AC-celaration? I don’t think so.
Racing for Victory and Free Beer!
HA.. You are not serious are you?
It’s not that you can pedal slower in an 8km TT because you don’t want the jersey.. You just go.. There is no reference point.. Boom just beat him..
True that.
Don’t take anything away from Boom’s performance. The silver lining, however, is that Astana doesn’t have to defend, which is good given their overall aspirations. But if he could have pulled out the victory, Alberto would have gladly taken it (he was certainly trying—looks like he wasted some precious seconds fiddling around with his gearing in the home stretch). You can’t win them all.
I love when you start off with that question.
Because then you lower the boom.
"It's a lovely thing, feeling that momentum. If you're lucky, it's also about grace." Tim Winton
AAAH.. If Contador was really that good he had the best intermediate time no?
That was after 1.5 climbing
Unusual pancake below in that profile
And most pancake flat courses aren’t described by riders like this:
“For sure, my background in cyclo-cross helped today, because of the cobbles and full speed uphill from the start,” said Boom
"It's a lovely thing, feeling that momentum. If you're lucky, it's also about grace." Tim Winton
Fine, the profile above.
"It's a lovely thing, feeling that momentum. If you're lucky, it's also about grace." Tim Winton
Is that that ugly Dutch nationalism I keep hearing about rearing it's head???
See you in two weeks, Dutchie!!!
If you dare soar where I do!!!
Racing for Victory and Free Beer!
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