Sad
palmerq said:
this wee drug has contador 3 tours possibly, losing out on 2010(although I think it would have been better if they discovered it earlier and removed him from the race), I think he did the giro because he was worried about being banned last year and now he misses this year... Strange, even funnier if it wasnt for bad luck in 2008 how many tours could he have won, could have been 6 in a row by the end of this year and now if cadel or andy wins this tour they have as many tour victories as alberto!
Thank you so much for pointing that out.
[irony on] Incredible how great this Contador dude still is. To put it the other way round: How can a guy who tested positive twice in contention and was massively linked to Fuentes (= a proven cheat) be so popular and another guy who never tested positive but it under suspicion (= an assumed cheat) be so unpopular?
That's just the Contador-magic-spell.
Same goes for the glorious legends surrounding every single one of his many wins (especially the Giro 2010: Best field ever, virtually no team at his side, but he dominated it!). I mean, there have always or almost always (not 2009, no doubt) been stronger time-trialists than him (Evans, Leipheimer), better climbers than him (Rasmussen, Ricco, A. Schleck...), but he is so incredibly popular that it is taken for granted that he still will win any GT he enters. And I fully agree! I assume the theoretical maximum of Tour wins for Contador at this point of his career would be around 28 as he is 28 years of age. Unfortunately, he didn't take part for obscure reasons before 2005 and in his first Tour he looked pretty weak. He could have won 2006, but wasn't there to let others shine (he is a generous guy!). 2008 he would have won for sure but his team got excluded. 2010 he did win (of course he was doped then, but that doesn't touch his win, as he too it on the road, no matter was CAS said! Same logic would apply had he used a motorcycle while driving up Tourmalet- he was first in Paris, so he won). And 2011 he just decided to let Evans take the glory because he had already had won the Giro that year. Unfortunately, he will miss the 2012 edition. But even then- next year, he will be back and of course win. No more gifts. He will take at least 10 more Tours before quitting cycling with 38 or so.
Dear fellow Contador fans: I predict that our idol is going to take an everlasting record of 12 Tour victories! And why? Because he is Alberto Contador!!!
[/irony off]
...
OK, that thread seemed to be more funny when I wrote it down as it turned out to be now. But I just feel sad to read between the lines that it would be some kind of "shame" for a guy like Contador that a guy like Evans could have the same number of Tour wins by the end of the year. Show some respect. Evans was up with the best for the better part of the last about 10 years. World Champion. Several GT podiums. Great Tour win last year. Similar is true for Andy: He at least equaled Contador as a climber in the last two years. Without a certain mechanical, Tour 2010 would have been his on the road.
