Spanish rider Alberto Contador is well-positioned to win his third major Tour within 14 months when the Tour of Spain resumes following Friday’s rest day.
Contador’s hopes were considerably increased after his compatriot Alejandro Valverde dropped out of the top 10 on Thursday. Tour de France champion Carlos Sastre appears to be the only rider who can prevent the 25-year-old winner of last year’s Tour de France and this year’s Giro d’Italia from becoming the first since Frenchman Bernard Hinault to win all three major Tours.
“I haven’t seen anything extraordinary considering that everyone says he’s [Contador] the strongest rider in the race. He’s been collecting seconds here and there like a little ant,” Sastre told Spanish sports daily AS. “I’m like a hunter, waiting patiently for the right moment to strike. I don’t make stupid moves or get nervous. But I am attentive and if the opportunity arrives, I will take it. Just like I did in the Tour.”
PHOTO: AP
Contador headed into the rest day in third place in the overall standings after a rainy 186.4km 12th stage from Burgos to Suances, 29 seconds behind the leader, Spain’s Egoi Martinez of Euskaltel Euskadi. US rider Levi Leipheimer, who belongs to Contador’s Astana, is in second place, 11 seconds behind the leader, while Sastre of CSC-Saxo Bank is in fourth, 1 minute, 38 seconds behind.
Valverde, who had been a favorite to win the Vuelta along with Contador and Sastre, dropped out of contention, falling from fourth to 11th place. He did not follow the rapid pace on the descent of a mountain pass around 60km from the finish line after he dropped back to pick up rain gear from his team’s car and never caught up.
“Its my fault, I lost too much time in general and now it is almost impossible to catch up,” the Caisse d’Epargne rider said.
Yesterday’s stage was a grueling 209km ride between San Vicente de la Barquera and a mountain called L’Angliru on the northern coastal Asturias region that includes three other first category climbs. It will be followed by another mountain day today with a 158.4km ride between Oviedo and the Fuentes de Invierno Ski Resort that includes three third category climbs right at the start.
The 3,133km Vuelta finishes in Madrid next Sunday. Last year’s champion, Russia’s Denis Menchov, is not participating.
Revelations of positive doping tests for nearly two dozen Chinese swimmers that went unpunished sparked an intense flurry of accusations and legal threats between the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the head of the US drug-fighting organization, who has long been one of WADA’s fiercest critics. WADA on Saturday said it was turning to legal counsel to address a statement released by US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) CEO Travis Tygart, who said WADA and anti-doping authorities in China swept positive tests “under the carpet by failing to fairly and evenly follow the global rules that apply to everyone else in the world.” The
Taiwanese judoka Yang Yung-wei on Saturday won silver in the men’s under-60kg category at the Asian Judo Championships in Hong Kong. Nicknamed the “judo heartthrob” in Taiwan, the Olympic silver-medalist missed out on his first Asian Championships gold when he lost to Japanese judoka Taiki Nakamura in the finals. Yang defeated three opponents on Saturday to reach the final after receiving a bye through the round of 32. He first topped Laotian Soukphaxay Sithisane in the round of 16 with two seoi nage (over-the-shoulder throws), then ousted Indian Vijay Kumar Yadav in the quarter-finals with his signature ude hishigi sankaku gatame (triangular armlock). He
RALLY: It was only the second time the Taiwanese has partnered with Kudermetova, and the match seemed tight until they won seven points in a row to take the last set 10-2 Taiwan’s Chan Hao-ching and Russia’s Veronika Kudermetova on Sunday won the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix women’s doubles final in Stuttgart, Germany. The pair defeated Norway’s Ulrikke Eikeri and Estonia’s Ingrid Neel 4-6, 6-3, 10-2 in a tightly contested match at the WTA 500 tournament. Chan and Kudermetova fell 4-6 in the first set after having their serve broken three times, although they played increasingly well. They fought back in the second set and managed to break their opponents’ serve in the eighth game to triumph 6-3. In the tiebreaker, Chan and Kudermetova took a 3-0 lead before their opponents clawed back two points, but
Taiwanese gymnast Lee Chih-kai failed to secure an Olympic berth in the pommel horse following a second-place finish at the last qualifier in Doha on Friday, a performance that Lee and his coach called “unconvincing.” The Tokyo Olympics silver medalist finished runner-up in the final after scoring 6.6 for degree of difficulty and 8.800 for execution for a combined score of 15.400. That was just 0.100 short of Jordan’s Ahmad Abu Al Soud, who had qualified for the event in Paris before the Apparatus World Cup series in Qatar’s capital. After missing the final rounds in the first two of four qualifier