Spaniard Carlos Sastre was poised to win the Tour de France after surprisingly resisting Australia’s Cadel Evans in Saturday’s 53km time-trial won by German Stefan Schumacher.
Gerolsteiner’s Schumacher, who also won the first time-trial of the race, clocked a best time of one hour three minutes and 50 seconds to beat Swiss Fabian Cancellara by 21 seconds, with Luxembourg’s Kim Kirchen coming home third.
The Silence-Lotto team’s Evans, who had been widely expected to overcome a 1,34 deficit to leapfrog Sastre, cracked and could only finish seventh, beating the Spaniard by just 29 seconds.
”I was calm this morning, I knew it was an opportunity of a lifetime for me. The dream has come true,” said Sastre.
”It’s teamwork. The Schleck brothers [Frank and Andy] sacrificed themselves for me. I was feeling better and better on this Tour. I have a good capacity to recuperate from my efforts.”
Going into Sunday’s parade to the Champs-Élysées Sastre, who took the yellow jersey courtesy of a bold attack in the ascent to l’Alpe d’Huez in Wednesday’s last alpine stage, leads Evans by 1,05.
Austrian climber Bernhard Kohl of the Gerolsteiner team is in third place 1,20 off the pace.
The result is a huge disappointment for Evans, who finished 23 seconds behind Spain’s Alberto Contador in second place in last year’s Tour, and whose team was not strong enough to pull him through the mountain stages.
”I was expecting better. We were quite confident before the start but at the first check point, it was over,” said Evans’s Silence-Lotto’s sports director Marc Sergeant.
”Also, he was not at his best at the Alpe d’Huez and we need to have a better team around him to win the Tour.”
Sastre’s imminent victory also belongs to Bjarne Riis, whose CSC team have dominated throughout the Tour, with Luxembourg’s Andy Schleck claiming the white jersey for the best young rider.
Riis, who did not come on the Tour last year after admitting he had used banned substances during his 1996 Tour de France success, said ”We did what we had planned. On the last 15 km, Sastre was riding as fast as Fabian [Cancellara].”
The 33-year-old Sastre, riding in his eighth Tour de France and his 18th major tour, should become the third Spaniard in a row to win the world’s greatest stage race, after Oscar Pereiro and Contador.
Contador, who won the Giro d’Italia last month, did not take part in the Tour because his Astana team were not invited as a result of their past doping record.
This year’s Tour has also been marred by doping.
Spaniards Manuel Beltran and Moises Duenas Nevado were kicked out after testing positive for the banned blood-booster EPO.
Italian Riccardo Ricco, winner of two stages, was also dismissed following a positive EPO test, with the whole of his Saunier Duval team leaving the race before the 12th stage. – Reuters