Alberto Contador left them all in the dust on the dreaded Alto de l'Angliru climb at the Vuelta a Espana on Saturday, as he won the mountaintop finish and put himself in the overall leader's gold jersey.
Contador teammate Levi Leipheimer moved up to second place overall at 1:07 behind his Astana team leader.
Carlos Sastre, Team CSC's Tour de France winner, didn't fare as well on the final climb as he did on Alpe d'Huez in this year's Tour. Leipheimer marked him on the climb before driving past him to beat him to the summit by nearly 30 seconds.
The Alto de l'Angliru is made for only the best of the climbers. At places it pitches up at a 23 percent gradient.
Leipheimer's dilemma
With one week left in the Vuelta, the standings are now a pretty good indication about how things may end up at the finish in Madrid on Sept. 21, although Leipheimer might find himself in a dilemma.
The US cyclist rode faithfully for Contador on Saturday's Stage 13. Contador even mentioned him after the race:
“The work by Levi was impressive. He is a great professional.”
Now Leipheimer can ride in support of Contador every day for the remainder of the race, except for Stage 20, the individual time trial.
Leipheimer, with a bronze medal at the Beijing Olympics, is the stronger time trialer of the two. Fortunately for Contador, the Stage 20 ITT is fairly short, 10.6 miles. It might be too short a distance for Leipheimer to make up much ground.
The top 10 are:
1 Alberto Contador (Spa) Astana
2 Levi Leipheimer (USA) Astana, 1.07 behind
3 Carlos Sastre (Spa) Team CSC – Saxo Bank, 3.01
4 Ezequiel Mosquera (Spa) Xacobeo Galicia, 4.19
5 Alejandro Valverde (Spa) Caisse d'Epargne, 4.40
6 Joaquin Rodriguez (Spa) Caisse d'Epargne, 4.51
7 Robert Gesink (Ned) Rabobank, 5.09
8 Egoi Martinez (Spa) Euskaltel – Euskadi, 6.56
9 Davide Rebellin (Ita) Gerolsteiner, 7.39
10 Oliver Zaugg (Swi) Gerolsteiner, 8.41
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