PART 2
The fractured tibia suffered in
the 2014 Tour De France is the latest in what has become a long-list of
setbacks that have prevented Alberto Contador from having double digit Grand
Tour victories. When eventually his hip
ceases to hop on the pro bike tour, there is no doubt that Contador will be
looked at as one of the top 5 cyclists of all time, but without the numerous
setbacks El Pistelero may have danced on to be regarded as the best Grand Tour cyclist
ever.
The soft-spoken Spaniard’s
reaction to the variety of knocks he has received throughout his career that
gives us the best answer to the question of what can we expect of El Pistelero
in 2015. Will he bounce back from his
recent setback?
In 2004, prior to dancing his way to any of his Grand Tour
victories, Contador crashed at the Vuelta a Asturias and eventually had to
undergo a risky surgery to remove a blood clot, which has left him with a scar
that runs from one ear to the other over the top of his head. Despite the serious nature of the injury and
surgery, Contador began training again at the end of 2004 and danced his way to
victory eight months later during the 5th stage of the 2005 Tour
Down Under.
In 2006, after winning stages at the Tour de Romandie and Tour de
Suisse, Contador was prevented from starting the Tour de France after he was
implicated along with several teammates in the Operacion Puerto doping
case. He would later be cleared, but
would miss the chance to ride that year’s Tour de France. A year later in 2007, he would comeback from
this setback to dance his way to both the young rider jersey and the Tour de
France general classification yellow jersey, winning his first Grand Tour title.
In 2008, Contador would be denied the opportunity to defend his
Tour de France title after the new team he had joined were banned for previous
doping infractions, not related to Contador in anyway. Not being able to defend his first Grand Tour
title, Contador responded by dancing his way to Grand Tour title numbers 2
& 3, thereby becoming the youngest cyclist ever to have won all three Grand
Tours, by winning both the 2008 Giro d’Italia and Vuelta Espana.
In 2009, Contador was able to ride the Tour de France, but despite
his historic achievements, he began the race with an enemy within his own team,
who appeared not interested in him winning the race. Lance Armstrong and Johan Bruyneel, his
teammate and team manager, appeared as his main rivals during that Tour de
France, with Armstrong riding away and several teammates abandoning Contador
during crosswinds. The team would
totally abandoning him at the final Individual Time Trial by providing no car
to him at the hotel and leaving him to find his own way to the start. During all of the internal shenanigans of the
2009 Tour De France, Contador would leave his dancing on the bike to do the
talking as he moved on to Grand Tour victory number 4.
2010, would see Contador both win Grand Tour title number 5, but
also lose the support of public opinion (during the infamous Chaingate incident)
while also testing controversially testing positive for clenbutoral. The controversy of the positive test lay in
the minuscule level of the positive.
Contador claimed contaminated meat, Internet opinions ventured
contaminated transport of samples. In
the end the, Court of Arbitration for Sport would rule that contaminated
supplements was the most likely cause of the positive test and though Contador
again bounced back to win the 2011 Giro d’Italia in dominating style (Grand
Tour title number 6) he was stripped of numbers 5 & 6 by CAS due to him not
citing that his clenbutoral positive was caused by contaminated supplements.
The Contador positive becomes
placed in further controversy by the fact that no cyclist’s blood level had
ever previously been tested to such minuscule levels and by the fact that only
a handful of labs in the world could find the minuscule positive while the
legalities of the sport places an obligation on athletes to test and know what
they are putting into their bodies.
In 2012, Contador famously got back to his much loved mountain
dancing hall and won the Vuelta Espana in probably the most dramatic fashion
seen in generations. (Grand Tour title
number 7)
 |
| Contador dancing up Alpe D' Huez in 2013 The first year since 2007 that he didn't win a \Grand Tour |
For the first time since his
winning of Grand Tour title number 1, Contador would head to the 2013 Tour de
France without any setbacks other than his own dancing form. The seemingly peaceful and relatively
incident free approach to the 2013 Tour De France ended with Contador not
winning a Grand Tour in calendar year for the only time since 2007.
As with all dancers, Contador
operates best with music.
Up until 2013,
the music of Contador’s career had been that of an individual struggling
against constantly insurmountable and continuous obstacles. When there were no
obstacles, the music which Contador had danced (on his bike) to since the
beginnings of his career changed and he suffered the worst calendar year
performance since 2007.
And so just as with the often
misunderstood artist Eminem whose best music appears to be when he rages out at
personal obstacles placed before him, the similar misunderstood Spaniard biking
champion performances over the years show that knockdowns and obstacles do not
define him. Rather the fact that he
performs, bounces back after being knocked down, spit on and booed off podiums,
illustrate that this particular cycling champion has earned the title of
champion the hard way.
There will be a time, just as
with Eminem and the side-kick in Desperado that Contador will no longer be able
to overcome the most fatal of knockdowns, that of time. But until the sun sets on his illustrious
career, it can be expected for the music to continue along with El Pistelero’s
famous dancing style. Indeed recent Tour
de France crash, though tragic, should perhaps be viewed not as a final
knockout, but rather as a keying of the music to which Contador has ridden his
entire career.
In 2015, he’ll strap in and we’ll
know for sure…
