Could illness impact on his Tour de France defense?
Spanish time trial champion Alberto Contador has decided to not to defend his title this year due to recent illness. The two-time Tour de France champion said he began to suffer from the flu last Saturday, and taking part in the event would not be helpful towards securing his third Tour crown.
“It’s a pity, but I’m not able to attend the Spanish Championship because I have a touch of the flu. I had wanted to defend the jersey, but unfortunately I am not in good condition and I can’t do anything about it,” explained Contador.
Despite illness, Contador is still working on his preparation for his date with the world’s biggest bike race next month. Along with teammates Paolo Tiralongo, Dani Navarro, David de la Fuente, Jesús Hernández, Benjamin Noval and Oscar Pereiro, the two-time Tour de France winner will be training near Madrid for the rest of this week in what will be the final phase of his Tour build-up.
The Astana team will decide the final Tour de France roster following the week-long camp.
Contador took an impressive wins in the prologue and atop the legendary Alpe d’Huez in the recent Critérium du Dauphiné. In between his successes he had a difficult mid-week time trial that raised questions about his form. He answered criticisms by attacking the entire way up the 21-turn test to the French ski resort in an attempt to dislodge eventual race winner Janez Brajkovic (RadioShack) from the podium. He was surprisingly unable to ride away from the Slovenian on the difficult ascent, but with weeks to go before his big objective, would not have been at his best. He finished the race in second place overall, 1 minute and 41 seconds behind Brajkovic.