Velochimp: Astrochimp on Cycling

AP Photo/Elsbeth Schouten

Alberto Contador gave Discovery Channel and the Tour de France organization A.S.O. a surprise win today. The 24 year old Spaniard also won the white jersey of best young rider to boot. Hopefully he will avoid the same fate as the last man to wear Yellow and White in Paris, Jan Ullrich. Contador is more or less clear of any involvement in Operation Puerto. He had to comeback to racing from a near fatal blood clot in his head and now has a metal pate in his skull. His win could also boost Discovery Channel’s chance of finding a new sponsor for 2008. Not to mention the third place of Levi Leipheimer and the first podium of an Aussie ever. The Tour podium came out just as many fans and organizers had hoped, especially as the top three was oly separated by a slim 31 second margin.

Lance Armstrong even made the trek out to Paris to watch the team that he part owns have its best ever Tour. With two men on the podium and the winners of the overall team competition it is hard to think back to any better preformance by US Postal/Discovery Channel. Usually everyone on Disco would sacrifice their own ambitions to fully support Lance in his quest to win. This year Disco played an open game for a while. The team was not fully supporting Levi who was designated as team leader. Yaroslav Popovych and Alberto Contador were given free reign in some stages to see if they could get stage wins or try to mix things up. Levi at times looked ike he was still riding for Gerolsteiner only difference was that he was wearing a Discovery Channel jersey instead. But as the race neared the Pyrenees, the team realized that both Levi and Alberto had a legit chance to challenge the “Chicken” Michael Rasmussen. On the final Mountain stage Rasmussen outlasted a tiring Contador and a resurgent Leipheimer. One th epodium of Rasmussen’s win more fans were jeering than cheering especially on the road. Rasmussen compared the jeers to what Lance Armstrong received, but I highly doubt there was that much universal venom against Lance.

Meanwhile Daniele Bennati won for the second time, this time from a field sprint. Bennati has been trying to get out of Alessandro Petacchi’s shadow as the next great Italian sprinter. That was a tough task especially when faced with Boonen and Robbie Hunter at the Tour. So Bennati tried his luck in abreak and was successful. This time in Paris he was able to beat the other sprinters to take the most prestigious sprinting stage of the Tour. A tiring Boonen decided not to actually contest the sprint as he was more interested in keeping his first Green Jersey prize. Boonen finally finished the Tour and claimed the jersey that many thought he could dominate for a few years.

As for Contador he has what looks to be a bright future ahead as he won the Tour at the young age of 24. I will be holding my breath in the next few days hoping to not hear about a dreaded non-negative or other doping issues coming out. I’ll exhale when they hopefully report that everything was clean. That is the least I can hope for after all that has happened last year and this year.