Spain’s David Arroyo won the 19th stage of the Tour of Spain on Friday, the third stage win for Caisse d’Epargne, though Alberto Contador looks set for overall victory.
The 28-year-old Arroyo crossed the line first in the 145.5km stretch from Las Rozas to Segovia, also consolidating Caisse d’Epargne’s lead in the team standings.
Arroyo finished ahead of Vasili Kiryenka of Belarus with whom he had made a breakaway about 50km from the line. Julien Loubet of France was also part of the breakaway group, but was left behind.
PHOTO: AFP
The Caisse d’Epargne team’s success was something of a consolation after team leader and a pre-race favorite Alejandro Valverde put himself out of the reckoning overall after a poor performance in stage 12.
It was Arroyo’s fourth victory since he turned professional in 2002. He has had a tough time in the year’s other two major tours, injuring his elbow just before the start of the Tour of Italy, which he was forced to miss, and then not getting what he deserved for attacks in the Tour de France.
“I had little luck concerning the Giro and the Tour de France, but this third tour has been a good one,” Arroyo said.
Arroyo had refused to take turns riding in front, letting Kiryenka do all the work, in case his team leader Valverde in the peloton had other plans, to beat out an exhausted Belarussian to the line.
The scene is set, however, for last year’s Tour de France winner and this year’s Giro champion Alberto Contador of Spain to ride to victory.
The 17.1km time-trial, from La Granja de San Ildefonso to the summit finish at Navacerrada, will effectively decide the overall title race.
The stage looks tailor made for Contador.
“I’m riding on home soil and I have known the course like the back of my hand since I started riding a bike,” Contador said.
Should Contador win in Madrid today, he will become the first Spaniard and fifth rider in history to have won all three of the sport’s major tours.
Meanwhile, this year’s Tour de France winner Carlos Sastre of Spain has criticized his team manager Bjarne Riis for an alleged lack of support during this year’s Vuelta.
Asked on Friday about his relationship with Riis, the CSC-Saxo Bank rider told Onda Cero radio: “Far from helping me, he has done just the opposite. He’s generated more conflicts than done any good.”
“My teammates have been great, I have no problem with them,” Sastre, who is third overall behind compatriot Contador, said. “But he [Riis] didn’t want to help us.”
Sastre, who is due to leave CSC-Saxo Bank at the end of the season for new team Cervelo, claimed that Denmark’s 1996 Tour de France winner Riis had prevented him telling his teammates he was quitting before starting the Tour of Spain.
“Things could have been a lot calmer if I’d told [them],” he said. “Instead, there was just lots of tension because Riis didn’t want it to be known.”
Sastre revealed his decision to quit CSC-Saxo Bank after seven years with the squad at a news conference on the race’s first rest day.
The 33-year-old said: “I’m leaving the team because I don’t want to create any conflict with the younger riders who are coming up in the team. That is just the opposite of the treatment I’ve received. Today is the first day I’ve been able to enjoy the racing instead of suffering inside.”
CSC-Saxo Bank spokesman Brian Nygaard denied Sastre’s allegations, saying: “Sastre didn’t reveal the new team name before the Tour of Spain because he still hadn’t signed with Cervelo and we were still interested in keeping him.”
“We’re very disappointed because we’d heard he’d said these things before, but when we asked him he told us he’d been misquoted,” Nygaard said. “We helped him win the biggest race on earth, the Tour de France. As for blocking his efforts to win the Tour of Spain, why on earth would a sports director not want their riders to win? That’s crazy. In any case, we wish him the best of luck with his new squad.”
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