News: Albert Contador Abandons Tour

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Albert Contador gave up the struggle for the Tour win when he departed the Tour de France on stage 9

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News: Albert Contador Abandons Tour

Team Press Release
After a hard first week of the race battling against injuries sustained in the first two days and suffering from fever in the morning, Alberto Contador was forced to withdraw from the Tour de France after one of the toughest challenges of his career so far.

After a week spent fighting his GC rivals – who had suffered none of the misfortunes he had – and holding his own against them, the strain became too much and the Spanish rider climbed off the bike on the second climb of the day.

With the stage starting on a first category climb with no lead-in, this was going to be a tough day in the saddle. Spending much of the day in the Spanish Pyrenees before crossing into Andorra for the final 55km, the 184.5km stage saw the race ascend five categorised climbs – with the final climb into Andorre Arcalis a 10.1km, 7.2% Hors Catégorie leg killer. Combined with the heat of the mountains, nobody was going to escape the suffering.

There were attacks from the start, first with King of the Mountains, Rafal Majka – for the second successive day – going up ahead with teammate Peter Sagan as part of a large group, before team leader, Alberto Contador also went on the attack. In spite of his best efforts, and after staying with the escape as they built up a 1’30” advantage on the peloton, the Spanish rider dropped back to the bunch.

Alberto had started the day suffering from a fever after working hard on the previous stages to recover following crashes in the first two days of the race. Dropping back to the team car after the descent of the Port de la Bonaigua, it was clear that the Tinkoff leader wasn’t feeling comfortable, having tested his legs attacking on the first climb of the day. Climbing off his bike, Alberto and the team made the difficult decision to abandon before the ascent of the Port del Cantò made his sickness worse.

He spoke about his decision after the race. “I did my best today. I tried to attack earlier on in the race but it was impossible – my legs simply couldn’t go after the two earlier crashes. Earlier this morning I had a little fever as well as throat pain, but nonetheless I decided to give it a shot”.

“After I tried to attack my legs were really empty, so I dropped back to team car and talk to the Sport Directors. We agreed that the best decision was to abandon the race in order to rest and carry out further medical examinations, and we’ll assess my racing calendar now until the end of the season.”

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