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Contador to debut in Portugal
Alberto Contador will follow a familiar path to the Tour de France and it won’t go through Italy.
The 2008 Giro d’Italia champ reconfirmed that the Tour will be his top priority this season and that he will not defend his Giro crown.
With Astana assured of a place in this year’s Tour, Contador said weeks ago he would not defend his Giro victory and instead focus on July.
Last year, Astana was kept out of the Tour by race organizers and Contador won both the Giro and Vuelta a España to become just the fifth man in cycling history to win all three grand tours.
This year, it’s all about the Tour de France and the Spanish climber is steadily regaining race condition after a busy winter break. He will make his season at the Tour of the Algarve (Feb. 18-22).
“I’ve had less than a month of hard training, I’ve only been doing volume training and progressively I will increase the intensity to arrive a little better prepared for Feb. 1, when the second camp of the year begins in California,” Contador said in a communique. “They’ve spoken well of (the Algarve race) and I’m excited to race there, because I’ve never raced in Portugal. It’s nice this time of year and I believe it will be a good spot to begin 2009, after that, I don’t know if I will race the Vuelta a Valencia.”
After the Algarve, Contador will race Paris-Nice (which he won in 2007) in March and then the Vuelta al Castilla y León and the Vuelta al País Vasco (which he won in 2008).
Following a short break, Contador will likely race the Dauphiné Libéré before a return trip to the Tour in July.
“I will make some training camps to inspect the stages of the Tour and undergo specific training workouts to improve climbing and time trials and then race the Dauphiné Libéré before starting the Tour,” Contador said.
Contador is leaving open the remainder of his 2009 schedule and hasn’t confirmed whether or not he’ll be back to defend his Vuelta crown come September.
Contador’s 2009 racing schedule in the first half of the season looks very familiar to the tried and true blueprint that new Astana teammate Lance Armstrong used during his seven-year Tour reign.
Following Armstrong’s lead, Contador will race a series of smaller stage races to hit a fitness peak in July.
Contador and Armstrong, who’s making his comeback this month at the Tour Down Under in Australia, could cross paths this spring before the Tour come July, most likely at Paris-Nice and Castilla y León.
The pair will be at Astana’s team camp in California next month. Armstrong is set to race the Tour of California while Contador will return to Europe to debut in Portugal.
Contador said it’s too early to draw any conclusions about how he’s feeling at this point of the year.
The winner of the Giro-Vuelta double has had a busy off-season and travels to Venice, Italy, on Monday to film an ad for shoe sponsor Sidi and then to Paris to receive the Velo d’Or award for the second year in a row.
“It’s too early to draw any conclusions about my fitness,” he said. “I’ve cut all my winter commitments and I am concentrating 100 percent on training, but it’s obvious that this year I am a little behind compared to other seasons, even though it’s something I’m not worried about. There’s still a lot of time between now and Castilla y León (in late March), when I might be ready to race to win.”
