The 2009 Tour De France

The 2009 edition of the Tour the France will come to and end this coming Sunday and it looks like Spaniard Alberto Contador will be the winner. He won the race in 2007 and he is one of only few riders in history to have won all three of the grand races. That is the tour of Italy, the tour of Spain and the tour de France. This will be his second tour the France victory and he is just 24 years of age. There is enough time for him to reach the magical number of winning five tours the France races that would put him in the legend category.

Contador had to content with teammate Lance Armstrong of the US who early in the race had a two seconds lead over him. That was before the race got into the mountain stages. The mountains are where the tour is won and Alberto showed his strength by winner the crucial stage 15 mountain stages in the Alps. He followed that victory with an individual time trial victory on stage 18 yesterday that all but sealed the victory for him. So barring any catastrophic injury in the rest of the stages, he should keep the yellow jersey that he is wearing come Sunday when the race ends in Paris France.

Alberto Contador rides for team Astana and there was talk of a possible friction when last summer Lance Armstrong decided to come out of retirement and set as one of his goals, winning the tour de France. So going into the event Armstrong and Contador were almost like co-leaders of the team. After Contador made that great breakaway move on the 15^th stage and won the stage, he had a comfortable enough lead over Armstrong for the later to concede that Contador is indeed the better rider.

If you have been watching past tour de France races like I have, there is always a stage when the winner takes total command of the race and that moment occurred on stage 15. Contador made his move on the last of the mountain climbs and finish close to two minutes ahead of the other race contenders.