Defending Tour de France champion Alberto Contador (Astana) surprised his doubters on the pavé in stage three today, with only Andy Schleck (Saxo Bank), Cadel Evans (BMC Racing) and Bradley Wiggins (Team Sky) gaining time on the Spaniard on the crucial stage. Contador suffered from mechanical problems during the final 30 kilometers of the race, but chose to stay ride through the difficulty rather than risk a bike change on the chaotic day.
"I rode the last 30 kilometers with the rear wheel completely braked, so by the end I had fallen back, the result is not so bad.”
He arrived at the final kilometer trailing 20 seconds off the back of the chase group containing Wiggins and teammate Alexandre Vinokourov. The Kazakh delivered a brutal pace in service of Contador to keep him within reach of the general classification rivals ahead but, interestingly was driving the pace at the front in the final meters and effectively handed a few seconds to the British rider. Nothing was mentioned of the obvious miscommunication between the riders, but the Spaniard said that his team had been "extraordinary" and Vinokourov, "impressive".
"I knew that if I changed the bike it would be much worse," he explained, "so I preferred to continue with the wheel braking. I couldn't stand up, but hey, we saved the day.”
Contador said he went from feeling bad to awful over the first half of the 213 kilometer stage, but the tension of the day saw his legs come around and he ended up feeling "very, very comfortable".
When asked about coming in ahead of former teammate Lance Armstrong (RadioShack) he was coy, deflecting the question by replying, "I want to take advantage of all of my rivals." He trailed the American in the opening prologue by 5 seconds, but more than made up for that deficit when the seven-time winner suffered a puncture. Before the race RadioShack looked at the cobblestones as an opportunity to put time into the superior climber, but instead Contador finishes the day leading Armstrong by 50 seconds.
Contador enlisted the services of Belgian Classics legend Peter Van Petegem for lessons on the pavé earlier this year, and his attention to detail seems to have paid off. "I didn't know who was ahead and who was behind," he admitted about the stressful stage, adding that the time gaps were "not so big", conceding that this Tour de France is far from over.