Spain's Alberto Contador staged a last-ditch attack on the final mountain of the Paris-Nice bicycle race Sunday to win the 8-day Race to the Sun.
The Col d'Eze was the perfect place for the 24-year-old Contador to make his bid to win the race. He won Thursday's mountaintop finish in Mende to put himself within 6 seconds of the overall race leader Davide Rebellin.
Rebellin, a Gerolsteiner rider from Italy, fought hard to catch up to Contador, but finished about 22 seconds behind to fall to second place overall. Contador's Discovery Channel teammates kept the pressure on Rebellin and the Gerolsteiner team to give Contador a chance at the win.
Final stage
The Versus cable network will rebroadcast highlights of the final stage from 5 to 7 p.m. ET on Sunday.
The final stage of the race that started last Sunday was an 80-mile loop into the mountains north of the coastal town of Nice. It featured one category 2 and three category 1 climbs, including the Col d'Eze which tops out about 10 miles from the finish.
CyclingNews and VeloNews report that Contador is the first Spaniard to win Paris-Nice since Miguel Indurain, the winner of 5 consecutive Tours de France.
Promising rider
Contador has shown a lot of promise for such a young rider. He broke into professional cycling on the ONCE team in 2003, and picked up with Liberty Seguros the following year. After that team imploded in the Operacion Puerto affair last summer, Contador signed with Discovery Channel in January.
While his two stage wins and overall win at Paris-Nice is the highlight of his career, he also has won stages of the Tour de Suisse, Tour de Romandie, Setmana Catalana, and Tour Down Under.
In an interview earlier this month, VeloNews reported that Contador almost died when he crashed in a race in 2004.
American finishers in Paris-Nice:
23rd — Bobby Julich, Team CSC, 3:41
24th — Chris Horner, Predictor-Lotto, 4:02
26th — Levi Leipheimer, 5:52
39th — Tom Danielson, 14:22
David Zabriskie (Team CSC) did not finish.
All results at CyclingNews or VeloNews.
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