eliteloser

their relationship is incestuous. I want to see a more darwinian competition. contador does not have the charisma to ever be a champion no matter how much pity he hands out to losers like Andy. contador should have raced up the road and demolished andy today.

OrionKhan

Pretty poor effort for a first post. Come back when you actually have a quantifiable reason for not liking the guy.

DLBroox

You do know this is a professional cycling forum and not a bigoted hatred of people forum right?

str8jakett

You just joined up to get a rise out of people today. Are you banned yet, troll?

DiabloScott

Qué te jodas.

USAZorro

Problem solved...

with a little help from my friends.

elitel

i have nothing against people who stay in their own countries. if you like immigrants, let them stay in your house.
dont forget what happened when rats were introduced to australia. they wiped out 80 percent of the indigenous species.

gear

Wow, those are great insights on pro cycling.

merlinextraligh

Contador clearly tried to win the stage. He attacked with sevral kilometers to go and couldn't make it stick.

He tired to accelerate past Schleck at least twice in the last 200 meters, and couldn't.

It looked like Contador capitulated with about 5 meters to go when he knew he wasn't going to win.

It did not look to me that he "gave" the stage to Schleck, and I think Phil Ligget's commentary that Contador wouldn't dare sprint was totally off base. He'd already tried and failed.

Schleck won Stage 17 outright.

hurley.girl

Did anyone else notice the OP was banned and appears to have created another ID to continue posting to this thread?

USAZorro

Should be permanently taken care of.

Nachoman

I agree. I didn't think the stage was gifted.

USAZorro

I only agree with the first sentence here. Contador's actions at/after the line are much more consistent with him not contesting the stage at the very end.

gsteinb

agreed. he tried to win the stage by dropping schleck and when he couldn't he didn't contest the sprint to the line.

merlinextraligh

In the last 25- 50 meters maybe. But Contador did try to pass Schleck inside the barriors around 200 meters to go, and couldn't come around.

I'll grant you, Contador didn't make a final effort at the line, but he'd already made several unsuccesful ones. Electing not to give it a final try isn't exactly giving the stage away.

whitemax

We'll prolly never know. It would have looked pretty tacky for AC to go around him right at the very end for the win after sitting on his wheel for over 6 miles. I wouldn't have faulted AC for making an attack at some point earlier had he been able to, in order to get a little more time on him. AC could have a bad day on the time trial, Andy could have a good one, throw a flat in there and it's possible he could come away enough time to take it. Not likely but it is possible.

Racer Ex 

I'll go with my wife's comment that he didn't have the gas to come around. He only had the gas to attack once and Schleck jumped right on him then came around and kept drilling it. But I'm sure after sitting on the most vicious sustained tempo riding I've seen in a long time, that laid waste to the "other" best climbers in the world, the OP would have had plenty of gas to come around.

Interesting too that Armstrong is now saying he never gifted anyone anything in the Tour, which I believe.

USAZorro

I think that was a trick of the telephoto lens.

San Rensho 

The wink at the end of the stage that Contador gave to Schleck says it all. As they are congratulating each other, he practically has to grab Schlecks cheek so that Schleck faces him and then gives a very obvious wink and a smile to Schleck.

Contador gave him the stage as a way of saying sorry for the attack after Schleck's chain came off in stage 15.

Racer Ex 

You and Phil need to set up one of those fortune telling stands.

Hot Potato

I remember LA and Floyd racing down to a finish together where it seemed pretty obvious that LA was telling Floyd to take the win. Then another guy had the nerve to pass Floyd going for the win himself , so LA sprinted by near the end to deprive the other team of the win he promised to Floyd on the way down. So yes, technically he didn't gift that stage, but only because Floyd couldn't hold off the opposition long enough to unwrap the gift.

Mr_Christopher

I think Roger Staubach gifted a few Super Bowls to Terry Bradshaw back in the 70s. You could tell by the way he shook Bradshaw's hand after the game.

merlinextraligh

The other guy was Kloden. Floyd had done all the work on the stage for his teammate Armstrong. Giving your teammate the freedom to contest the stage win isn't a gift.

The "gift " issue around Armstrong was when he allegedly gave Pantani the stage win on Ventoux.

And while there may be no gifts in the TDF, that aren't paid for, there certainly are deals cut to foster 2 or more riders objectives all the time, i.e. pull me the top, and you get the stage.

Keith99

I do recall one Gift, sort of. One year in the Giro Perez looked like he was going to becone the first Mexican rider to win a stage in the Giro. It was exciting as there was a group chasing him up the climb, but he looked to make it to the top. But his lead was reduced to about 50 seconds and they had pulled the support cars out from between him and the group. Then he had a chain issue. No help until the group passed him.

2 or 3 stages later Perez and the Pink Jersey wearer were off the front, a deal like you described had been worked out and was working well
the 2 were taking turns taking the lead and working well, until Perez finished a stint in front just as they hit a really short steep turn and he could not hold the wheel. The Pink Jersey did not speed up when this happened. It was just that Perez was spent. The Pink Jersey backed off and towed Perez most of the last couple of Kms.

Pure gift? No. More like debts are paid. They had put significant time into the rest.

Also smart and forward looking. I know Perez remembered and I assume most of the rest of the Peloton learned that someoen kept his deals, even perhaps a bit beyond when he could.

Bobsled

Yeah he did. He kept slapping him until he finally HAD to turn around and see what the hell AC wanted.