Road: Contador Wins Tour Of The Basque Country

Team Astana’s Alberto Contador raced his Trek Equinox TTX to a second-consecutive overall victory in Spain's Vuelta al País Vasco (Tour of the Basque Country). For Contador, it's his tenth victory in a stage race as a professional rider. These ten victories include the three Grand Tours of the Tour de France, Tour of Italy and Tour of Spain. Earlier this season, Contador was already the best in the the Tour of Algarve.

Contador was the fastest rider in the final stage, a 24km individual time trial in Zalla. Toni Colom finished 22 seconds behind Contador and Olympic Champion Samuel Sánchez finished third at 45 seconds behind. After only 5 kilometers, Contador was already the fastest man. Colom and Vincenzo Nibali had the second and third split times as 12 and 19 seconds respectively. At mid-race, on the top of the Alto de Beci, Contador increased his advantage to 33 seconds. He never weakened and finished strong in 31 minutes and 59 seconds (average speed of 45 km/h).

"It’s incredible how I continue to progress in my time trial work," said a happy overall winner. "Two, three years ago this would have been impossible. I am a typical climber; in theory we are not so strong in time trial work. This gives me confidence for the next goal, the Tour de France. Maybe from now on I must concentrate on longer time trials as well."

For the Team Astana Directors Sean Yates and Alexandr Shefer it was a hard week. “We had to work hard to control all stages,” said Yates. “Because of a crash we lost Chris Horner. Dani Navarro suffered the last days as well, but he was motivated to continue working for this overall victory, together with Zubeldia, Kireyev, Hernández and Rubiera. In theory, we maybe have the best team in the world for stage races, but believe me, the team had to work hard to obtain this result.”

Alberto Contador takes some rest now before preparing for the Tour de France. “With seven victories, I may not complain about my first part of the season. Now I really need some rest. When I take off, I can really forget the bike. My bike will have the time to be covered with some dust. I need that to clear my mind and to begin fresh to part two of the season.”