Alberto Contador, by adding consecutive victories in the 2008 Giro d’Italia and Vuelta a España to his triumph in the 2007 Tour de France, became in 2008 the fifth cyclist in history to list in his palmarés all three grand tours on cycling’s international calendar. In this way, the climber from Pinto wrote his name beside the mythic Felice Gimondi, Jacques Anquetil, Eddy Merckx and Bernard Hinault, who had walked the path before him to the highest podium in the grand tours. Alberto was, in addition, the first Spaniard to earn this distinction, after having previously become the youngest Spaniard and the seventh-youngest rider in history to win the Tour de France.
At only 25 years old, Alberto Contador was thus confirmed as the most important emerging figure in the peloton. With this status he began to acquire a special stature that has been reaffirmed for the 2010 season by an incontestible repeat of his victory in the Tour de France, being his fourth victory in a grand tour and, perhaps even more important, his fourth consecutive triumph in the grand tours, a medium in which his participation has translated into victory since 2007.
Alberto was launched along this spectacular trajectory in 2007, when he signed with Discovery Channel. The lift-off point of international recognition, occuring several months before the Tour, was a sensational victory in Paris-Nice, a race that previously had been won by only one other Spaniard, Miguel Indurain. As of that moment, the name of Contador began to be known in the international arena. He took the start in the Tour de France, which he had only ridden once before, in 2005, aspiring to fight for the white jersey, a classification reserved for riders under the age of 25.
During the race, some riders were implicated in doping issues, until at last, the leader of the general classification, Michael Rasmussen, was named and subsequently forced by his team, Rabobank, to leave the race. Four days from the end, Alberto Contador found himself wearing yellow, even though for fans the most important thing was his memorable victory at the summit of Plateau de Beille in the Pyrenees and, apart from that, his splendid battle with Rasmussen in the Alps, which had earned him second place in the general.
Alberto was already the indisputible leader of the young riders’ classification and now faced a much bigger challenge, defense of the maillot jaune against more accomplished rivals who were, mainly, much stronger against the clock, when all that remained was the penultimate stage, Cognac to Angoulême, no less than 55 nearly flat kilometers. That day many discovered that the flyweight climber from Pinto was also a force of nature in the time trial. He didn’t win—that stage went to his teammate Levi Leipheimer, who was faster by 2:18—but he succeeded in fending off the threat imposed by Australian Cadel Evans, who only bested him by 1:27, leaving a difference of 23 seconds that would shape the results on the Champs Élysées. In this way, Alberto Contador became one of the youngest winners in the history of the Tour and, of course, the youngest among his fellow Spaniards in the record books: Bahamontes, Ocaña, Delgado, Indurain, Pereiro and Sastre. Although few could intuit it then, that was just the beginning of the story of Alberto Contador in the grand tours.
The Giro of Destiny
One year later, Contador’s team, with the sponsorship of Discovery terminated, had ended up becoming Astana. The squad, as a result, inherited the sponsor of the controversial team that a year before had been expelled from the Tour due to positives by the two Kazakh stars, Vinokourov and Kashechkin. Consequently, race organizers banned the team from participating in the Tour, and by doing so penalized Alberto Contador with a sanction that was in no way aimed at him.
That controversial decision ended up becoming a hidden call to destiny during a year, 2008, characterized by controversial decisions. The first was the ban from participating in the Tour. The second, paradoxically, was the invitation to the Giro, which, only ten days before the departure, decided to admit Astana under one condition: that the leader be Alberto Contador.
Alberto was on vacation at the time, on an Andalucian beach at Chiclana, where he had gone with his fiancée, Macarena, after riding the first races of the season and winning the Vuelta a Castilla y León and the Vuelta al País Vasco. He needed to rest after that first peak of form in order to start preparing the second part of the season with its focus on the Vuelta a España, where he was anticipating the summit of the Angliru as the greatest difficulty. By order of Astana, who threatened to abandon sponsorship, Alberto was forced to take the start at the Giro, even though he had done no preparation whatsoever. It would have been logical, after the first week of action and the first encounter with the high mountains, for him to be taxed to the point of abandoning. But there was a factor that no one had considered: his fascination with the great Italian stage race.
Fascination wasn’t the only question, but also class, naturally. Despite not being in condition, Contador was gaining form little by little throughout a first week during which no rival gauged the danger that he would put them in later and, midway through the race, he began to feel comfortable, delighted with the warm reception from the tifosi and eager to test himself on the mythic peaks of the Dolomites. Each day, withdrawal began to look farther away. Alberto began to meter his physical resources with the precision of a watchmaker, since he knew he was outmatched by the illustrious group of Italian climbers at peak form. With the aggressive Ricardo Riccò in the lead, Contador fought against Di Luca, Rebellin, Savoldelli, Piepoli and Sella, who went on to win a total of no fewer than three stages. Faced with these aces, he could only rely on consistency and his proverbial capacity for recuperation.
That was the key to an edition plagued with mythic peaks like the Plan de Corones, Fedaia, Mortirolo, Stelvio, Alpe de Pampeago and the Marmolada. The ascent of the Marmolada marked the point at which he took control of a maglia rosa that nobody was able to snatch away from him. Alberto Contador was a meticulous administrator of his physical resources—a defensive battle strategy. And so he reached Milan, without winning a stage, but by being the most consistent of all contenders. This includes his performance in the final time trial, which he finished with only four seconds advantage over his most stubborn rival, Riccò, who stopped looking daggers in that final duel, just as forecast. Contador had won the Giro because he was, beyond any doubt, the best time trialist among all the great climbers.
The Vuelta of Acclaim
The supposed punishment of not riding the Tour de France proved to be a quintessential blessing in disguise with the magnificent victory in the 2008 Vuelta a España. Some might consider the race to be the easiest of the three, but it was fraught with a series of obstacles that made it much more complicated than it would seem at first glance.
It was a Vuelta a España marked by the climb of the Angliru, but over all by the strategy put in play by Alberto Contador’s team, Astana, in which the harsh rivalry between their own leaders was occuring for the first time, encouraged by the technical direction. And that was without even knowing at the outset about the media bombshell that was going to explode in mid-race, with the gold jersey in play: the comeback of Lance Armstrong.
If the Giro had been an exceptional challenge owing to the lack of specific preparation, the demands of the route and the competitiveness of his rivals, the Vuelta was as well, but in the non-sporting sense. It was a psychological battle in which Contador confronted for the first time the difficulties that a year later he would encounter, improved and augmented, in the Tour de France, with Armstrong as the main player.
The Vuelta was a titanic fight against pressure, which for Contador had never hit so close to home. Before then he had won the Tour buoyed also by some favorable circumstances, without being a main favorite from the start, and in the Giro, too, where he was not expected to win and so had no obligation to live up to predictions. Nevertheless, in the Vuelta he was the main candidate for the win from the first day. The majority assumed he would get the victory even before the race began.
Alberto had to bring into play his incipient knowledge of how to act, his calm in the face of the commotion around him and, once more, his growing feeling for strategy. This was necessary as much to manage the race as to avoid external noise and internal difficulties, in this case in the presence of Leipheimer, a rider whose race paralleled Contador’s from beginning to end, supported by the argument that it’s better to have two leaders… even though that meant always having one teammate fewer to lean on and to share the workload.
The Angliru was the judge that put an end to all speculation, the arbiter that pointed to the strongest in the race and the one that pronounced judgment on the general classification, which until that moment had been in the hands of circumstantial leaders. Contador won with absolute clarity. He left Valverde behind by 42 seconds, Joaquim Rodríguez by 58, Leipheimer by 1:05 and Sastre by 1:32. On the following day, at Fuentes de Invierno, Alberto again leveraged the occasion to deal the definitive blow, leaving Leipheimer at 1:17 in the general. His margin was supported by bonifications that, although unapparent at first, had far-reaching impact on the final victory.
In fact, in the decisive uphill race against the clock at Navacerrada, Alberto gambled for the general in a tough round with his teammate, who again prevailed against him in a time trial. This time, however, the margin was only 31 seconds—not nearly enough to endanger his triumph in Madrid. Contador’s victory was saved by virtue of bonus seconds that he had accumulated throughout the competition, and in particular, thanks to his win over Ezequiel Mosquera at Fuentes de Invierno. Not even the poorly-timed announcement of Armstrong’s comeback, which Contador knew nothing about until it was made public, could destabilize him. A year later, once more in the Tour de France, the true consequences of that comeback became apparent, but that’s another story.
Threesomes
2008 will also be remembered for the clean sweep of all three grand tours by Spanish riders, thanks to Alberto Contador’s victories in the Giro d’Italia and the Vuelta a España and Carlos Sastre’s in the Tour de France. What’s more, Samuel Sánchez earned the gold medal in the road race in the Olympic Games in Beijing. The importance of this achievement lies in the fact that only once in history has anything similar taken place. In 1964 France managed to win the three grand tours in the same season. On this occasion Raymond Poulidor won the Vuelta and Jacques Anquetil won the Giro and the Tour.
Triple Crown winners
Jacques Anquetil (FRA)
- Tour en 1957, 1961, 1962, 1963 y 1964
- Giro en 1960 y 1964
- Vuelta en 1963
Felice Gimondi (ITA)
- Tour en 1965
- Giro en 1967, 1969 y 1976
- Vuelta en 1968
Eddy Merckx (BEL)
- Tour en 1969, 1970, 1971, 1972 y 1974
- Giro en 1968, 1970, 1972, 1973, 1974
- Vuelta en 1973
Bernard Hinault (FRA)
- Tour en 1978, 1979, 1981, 1982 y 1985
- Giro en 1980, 1982 y 1985
- Vuelta en 1978 y 1983
Alberto Contador (ESP)
- Tour en 2007 y 2009
- Giro en 2008
- Vuelta en 2008
Triples
Francia: 1 (1964)
España: 1 (2008)
Doubles
Bélgica: 8 (1935-1936-1970-1971-1972-1973-1974-1977)
Francia: 7 (1955-1963-1978-1981-1983-1984-1985)
Italia: 5 (1948-1965-1981-1990-1998)
España 4 (1959-1991-1992-1993)
Suiza: 1 (1950)
Irlanda: 1 (1987)
Tour 2007
1. Alberto Contador (DSC) 91:00:26
2. Cadel Evans (PRL) a 00:00:23
3. Levi Leipheimer (DSC) a 00:00:31
4. Carlos Sastre (CSC) a 00:07:08
5. Haimar Zubeldia (EUS) a 00:08:17
6. Alejandro Valverde (GCE) a 00:11:37
7. Kim Kirchen (TMO) a 00:12:18
8. Yaroslav Popovich (SIL) a 00:12:25
9. Mikel Astarloza (EUS) a 00:14:14
10. Oscar Pereiro (GCE) a 00:14:25 Tour 2007
Giro 2008
1. Alberto Contador (Astana) 89h.56:49
2. Riccardo Ricco (Saunier Duval) a 1:57
3. Marzio Bruseghin (Lampre) a 2:54
4. Franco Pellizotti (ITA/Liquigas) a 2:56
5. Denis Menchov (RUS/Rabobank) a 3:37
6. Emanuele Sella (ITA/CSF) a 4:31
7. Jurgen van den Broeck (BEL/S. Lotto) a 6:30
8. Danilo di Luca (ITA/LPR) a 7:15
9. Domenico Pozzovivo (ITA/CSF) a 7:53
10. Gilberto Simoni (ITA/SDA) a 11:03
Vuelta 2008
1. Alberto Contador (AST), 080:40:08
2. Levi Leipheimer (AST), a 00:00:46
3. Carlos Sastre (CSC), a 00:04:12
4. Ezequiel Mosquera (XAG), a 00:05:19
5. Alejandro Valverde (GCE), a 00:06:00
6. Joaquin Rodriguez (GCE), a 00:06:50
7. Robert Gesink (RAB), a 00:06:55
8. David Moncoutie (COF), a 00:10:10
9. Egoi Martinez (EUS), a 00:10:57
10. Marzio Bruseghin (LAM), a 00:11:56
