Andy Schleck: “I only see one of us on the podium, but in yellow”

Fränk and Andy Schleck (Leopard Trek) have confirmed that, if necessary, one of them will sacrifice himself for the other if that’s what it takes to win the Tour de France, according to lequotidien.lu. While both riders are currently well placed to make the podium in Paris on Sunday, with Fränk in second place and Andy in fourth, they are only interested in the top step.

“We know that we can’t both win the Tour, not in the same year,” said Andy Schleck on the race’s second rest day. "I don’t see us both on the podium, I see only one of us on the podium, but in yellow."

Both brothers have been riding at a similar level in the race so far, although Fränk has been the one to have made the bigger break. The elder brother escaped in the closing kilometres of the climb to Luz-Ardiden, taking twenty seconds out of the rest, while Andy only managed to gain two seconds in his defiant final kilometre jump on the Plateau de Beille.

Although Fränk is currently the better placed, some 26 seconds ahead of Andy, it is the younger brother who has finished in second place in the previous two editions of the race. It has not, therefore, been decided which of the brothers will be the one to sacrifice himself for which.

"We'll see how it is in the mountains," said Andy. “I don’t like to make my decisions in advance, but on the way in which I feel in the situation, the race. Of course we discussed it in advance, the ideal scenario, but sometimes it is the rider who makes the decisions. If I feel something, I will take a decision: perhaps it will be me, perhaps it will be him.

“I said before the Tour that we wanted to be on the podium, but we don’t want to be on the podium in second and third. We’d prefer to have one on the top step and the other 20th, which means he will sacrifice himself.”

In both Pyrénéen stages the Schlecks’ Leopard Trek team was the one to take control, winding up the pace until the base of the final climb in a similar way to Lance Armstrong’s teams during his seven-year winning streak. Unlike Armstrong though, neither has been able to deliver the decisive blow and, when the attacks have come, the brothers have appeared to be looking for one another.

The Alps, they say will be different, as elder brother Fränk confirmed.

“Me and Andy understand very, very well,” said Fränk. “If the day comes when one will sacrifice the other then we will, without hesitation. There will never be a war or anything.”