After earlier denying media reports which said that he might quit the Tour de France, Alberto Contador has reiterated his intention to stay in the race and said that his sore knee was feeling better during today’s tenth stage.
“I will do everything possible to achieve my goal, which is fighting for victory in Paris,” he vowed afterwards. “I got through the day and that's good for my leg because it was not a very demanding stage.
“At the beginning it is always difficult because the riders went very fast, but as the stage went on, everything got better and it went well.”
The Saxo Bank SunGard rider finished in the main bunch, rolling over the line 31st, and remains sixteenth overall. He is four minutes seven seconds behind race leader Thomas Voeckler (Europcar), with his chief rivals Cadel Evans (BMC Racing Team) and the Schleck brothers Andy and Frank (Leopard Trek) approximately one and a half minutes ahead.
That’s a head start he would rather not have given then, but he knows that if he can reach his best form in the mountains, he should be able to make up a lot of lost time.
At this point in time, the jury is out as to whether the 2009 or 2010 version of Contador is at the Tour. Two years ago he was clearly the most dominant rider and beat Andy Schleck by a cool four minutes 11 seconds. Last year it was a different matter, with the final margin being just 39 seconds. Had Schleck not lost precisely the same amount of time on the stage to Bagnères-de-Luchon when his gears slipped, the race could have had a different winner.
It’s difficult to accurately gauge his form until the high mountains. However unless Contador is stronger than Schleck than he was last year, he may find it difficult to make up the lost time.
The Spaniard is determined to avoid any further losses before the mountains. He was delayed early on today when he was stranded behind a big crash some fourteen kilometres after the start. However the timing of the incident meant that he didn’t panic. “Almost all the favourites were left behind and there was no stress,” he said. “We were practically all there - Schleck, Basso, Klöden ... most of us. There were no nerves.”
There was another gap en route to the finish, and he had to be more careful here. “We had to be attentive at the end of the stage, because there was a split on the last climb,” he explained. “I was a little behind and I had to move back up, but I'm happy because it showed that the legs were working well.”