Spaniard vows to fight to Paris, says knee injury is improving
Alberto Contador has denied suggestions in today’s l’Equipe newspaper that he could quit the Tour de France due to a knee problem and low morale, saying that he has no intention of giving up on his bid to win a fourth edition.
“The idea did not even cross my mind,” he told reporters prior to Tuesday’s stage 10 start, according to Reuters. “Go home? Yes, but not before the end of the Tour. I will do everything I can to reach Paris as the winner. I feel actually better.”
Contador crashed earlier in the Tour and then fell again on Sunday’s stage to Saint-Flour. He came out worse in a clash with Vladimir Karpets (Katusha), hitting the ground early in the stage. Some speculated that TV footage showed Karpets deliberately pushing him, but Contador later said that his brake hoods became briefly stuck under the Russian’s saddle and, in disentangling, that he fell.
He said afterwards that his knee was inflamed. He has been using ice and acupuncture to try to get over the problem, and received treatment during yesterday’s rest day.
The Spaniard lost ground early on when he was caught behind crashes on stage one. His Saxo Bank SunGard team also gave up time in the team time trial. He is currently sixteenth in the general classification, four minutes and seven seconds behind the yellow jersey of Thomas Voeckler (Europcar).
Contador is under additional stress in this year’s race due to his positive test during the 2010 edition for Clenbuterol. He was cleared by the Spanish cycling federation RFEC, although this will face a CAS appeal in early August. That appeal had originally been scheduled for June, providing an outcome before the Tour, but one of Contador’s lawyers said that he wasn’t able to make the hearing date.
In what has been a source of frustration to many within the sport, the UCI and WADA agreed that the hearing could be deferred. It meant that there was no resolution, either in terms of determining innocence or guilt, prior to the start of this year’s Tour.
Contador maintains that he didn’t intentionally use Clenbuterol. He is expected to ride aggressively in the upcoming Pyrenean stages in order to try to close the gap to those ahead of him.