Wondering how the 2010 Tour de France might go this year? You'll want to check out the video of the uphill finish on Stage 4 of Paris-Nice bike race on Thursday.
If the Astana team kit isn't a dead giveaway for the identity of the cyclist in the blurry image at left, consider that he's in the lead on the hilltop finish in Mende and no one is in sight behind him.
Spain's Alberto Contador won Stage 4 and took the overall lead from Saxo Bank's Jens Voigt in the so-called Race to the Sun that ends Sunday.
Final burst
On the final climb of the day up the steep (average 10% gradient) Montée Laurent Jalabert, Contador gained enough time to make up his 20-second gap behind Voigt and jump 6 places to first overall with a 24 second lead over Alejandro Valverde of Caisse d'Epargne. Teammate and defending champion Leon Luis Sanchez of Caisse d'Epargne is in fourth.
RadioShack's Levi Leipheimer fell back to 16th place, 1:23 behind Contador. They'd been locked in a virtual duel for the first couple of stages.
Contador's strong showing certainly shows that he hasn't lost his strong climbing capabilities. Of course, it might be too soon to predict another Tour de France win for Contador, as many of his rivals are in Italy at the Tirreno-Adriatico or just finished the Vuelta de Murcia in Spain.
Tour de France forecast
In fact, Contador is the only winner of the Paris-Nice bike race in the past 10 years who went on to win the Tour de France later in the year. He won both in 2007. (Floyd Landis won both in 2006, but his Tour de France victory was later nullified.)
So maybe it's too soon to predict a Tour de France win for Contador. He hasn't even won the Paris-Nice bike race yet. We don't even know whether Team RadioShack left Astana enough good cyclists to protect Contador's yellow jersey over the coming few days.
But watching him rocket to the top of that Stage 4 climb, you know he'll be a strong contender in July.
Top 10 overall
1. Alberto Contador (Spain) Astana
2. Alejandro Valverde (Spain) Caisse d'Epargne — 24 seconds
3. Roman Kreuziger (Czech) Liquigas-Domino — 25 seconds
4. Luis Leon Sanchez (Spain) Caisse d'Epargne — 28 seconds
5. Samuel Sanchez (Spain) Euskaltel-Euskadi — 29 seconds
6. Jens Voigt (Germany) Saxo Bank — 34 seconds
7. Joaquim Rodriguez (Spain) Team Katusha — 36 seconds
8. Peter Sagan (Slovakia) Liquigas – 54 seconds
9. David Millar (Great Britain) Garmin — 1:03
10. Reine Taaramae (Estonia) Cofidis — 1:06
Tirreno-Adriatico
After Stage 2 at the Tirreno Adriatico in Italy, Linus Gerdemann of Team Milram is listed in 1st place in a virtual tie with Belgium's Tom Boonen of QuickStep.
Boonen won the Stage 2 sprint, his first ever win in Italy. US sprinter Tyler Farrar of Garmin-Transitions finished in 13th place in the mass sprint.
Not to be seen, for a while, was Mark Cavendish of HTC-Columbia. He finished in 165th place, 9:34 behind Boonen.
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