Spanish duo Alberto Contador and Joaquim Rodriguez are both prominent on the list of riders who are in contention for taking the overall classification in the Tirreno-Adriatico race, yet both find themselves on the back foot after day one of the competition.
Contador’s Team Saxo Tinkoff finished back in eighth place in today’s team time trial, a 16.9 kilometre race from San Vincenzo to Donoratico. It dropped 29 seconds to the victorious Omega Pharma Quick Step team, which includes GC contender Tony Martin, and also conceded thirteen seconds to Cadel Evans’ BMC Racing Team, ten to Peter Sagan’s Cannondale, nine to Vincenzo Nibali’s Astana and four to Chris Froome’s Sky.
It’s not as good a performance as Contador may have hoped for, but the Spaniard said that he was satisfied with the result. “I felt pretty good and has been a good time trial. The team worked well and although we were left with six riders pretty early, it did great work.
“Others were better than us, but I'm happy with the result. It is true that these races are won or lost by a few seconds but, well, this is just beginning.”
Contador described the differences as ‘important,’ but also stressed that the race must be taken day by day and that there is time enough to get back on terms. “We lost sixteen seconds to BMC [actually thirteen – ed.] and have ceded time to Astana and Sky also, who are direct rivals. But we cannot think that this is definitive. The race has just begun. Now they have more responsibility because they have time in their favour. I have time to recover.”
Rodriguez is another who is tipped as a potential race winner, yet he won’t be happy with the time conceded today. His team was thirteenth, 44 seconds behind Omega Pharma Quick Step and fifteen seconds behind that of Contador.
“Honestly we expected a better result. We had a bad start, not taking the first corners at our best,” said Rodriguez, as quoted on the Katusha twitter page. “A couple of times our group broke up, and we lost two important riders such as Paolini and Kuchynski.
“Anyway, the most important thing was not to fall during this hard day: we'll see what we can do during the next stages".
Contador also said that he emphasised staying upright. “The road was really dangerous and we were very clear we didn’t want to take any risks,” he said. “We thought a little more about the overall. Today was secondary, the main thing was not have falls.”
The Spaniard has lost a little ground, but believes the gaps are minimal and that he will have ample opportunity in the days ahead to get time back.
“In these races the strategy is complicated,” he said. “Above all days have to pass and in the uphill finish stage (on Saturday), we’ll see which team takes the responsibility. The rivals leads us by a handful of seconds…we will have to see how they do, and how I find myself.”