Contador's brush with the future

Stage one of the 2010 Paris-Nice and stage three of the 2009 Tour de France may point to a difficult future for Alberto Contador, writes Philip Gomes.

If stage one of Paris-Nice tells us anything, it's that there is no certainty in bike racing and that Alberto Contador may have had a brush with the near future.

Late in a stage marked by strong cross winds, massive splits and a few crashes, Contador went down (with 3km to go) along with Cervelo's Heinrich Haussler, luckily one of the Astana faithful was there to quickly sacrifice his bike for the Astana team leader.

Contador was very impressive in getting back on to the second group (with a little help from the Rabobank team car), but he had missed the decisive split with the front group containing Alejandro Valverde, whose Caisse d'Epargne team set out to shatter the peloton, race leader Lars Boom (who was very impressive in bridging to the Valverde group), Jens Voigt and Roman Kreuziger.

The reason I mention this is that the racing we saw on stage one of Paris-Nice may be similar to what we'll see in the first week of the Tour de France; where the peloton will be travelling through the Netherlands and Belgium and in some cases over cobbles.

Sure it'll be summer in Europe and conditions may not be the same, but Contador has shown in the past that he's vulnerable to aggressive racing in difficult weather, similar to what was seen on the roads to Contres.

Remember stage three in last years Tour de France?

Mark Cavendish won after his HTC-Columbia team opened the taps, splitting the peloton on a day that saw heavy cross winds. Guess who missed the split?

Yep, the eventual Tour de France winner, Contador. And guess who didn't? Yep, Lance Armstrong.

"When you see what the wind is doing and you have a turn coming up, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out you have to go to the front," said Armstrong at the time.

"Every one was worried about Columbia coming through, when you see a team at the front like that you have to pay attention when they are all lined up. It is a bit of experience and good positioning with a little bit of luck."

And quite a few riders blamed Contador for the split, including Francaise des Jeux' Christophe LeMevel who said, "When the split happened I was right on (behind) Contador's wheel, it was him who caused the split."

Now fast forward to the near future and to stage three in the 2010 Tour de France, one which may present similar difficulties for Contador.

"This is unquestionably one of the highlights of the first week of the race, and a major first for this stage start and finish. Cobblestones haven't been negotiated on the Tour since 2004," said race director Christian Prudhomme in describing the 207km stage from Wanze to Arenberg Porte du Hainau.

"There will be 7 cobbled sectors over a total of 13.2 kilometres, including the Haveluy sector, only ten kilometres from the stage finish. The finish line will be located at the entrance to the notorious Arenberg Trench, the legendary backdrop to Paris-Roubaix."

I don't know about you but I smell trouble for Contador if he and his team aren't attentive to the dangerous possibilities that stage presents - it's certain his more adept, experienced and opportunistic opponents will be awake to them.

In fact, an ambush similar to stage three in the 2009 Tour de France may be their only opportunity to put a serious gap between themselves and last years winner.

It's true that no two stages and races are the same, and Contador wasn't the only GC capable guy to miss the HTC-Columbia ambush in 2009, Cadel Evans, Denis Menchov and defending champion Carlos Sastre all failed to respond in time.

But Contador's situation is different to the Evans, Menchov, Sastre troika, he is without question the best stage racer in the world, and quite possibly on his way to being the best ever having already won four Grand Tours.

Everyone is looking for signs of weakness in the seemingly impregnable Contador, and maybe I'm clutching at straws looking for a seriously competitive Tour de France, but hopefully you get my point.

Cobbles plus a local Arenburg finish may not be to Contador's style but he'll have no choice but to be at the front of the 2010 race's third stage conclusion, otherwise, given this history, the entire race may be lost to him before it really started.