Alberto Contador: Blowing the Tour de France apart

Contador 2011 Tour de France stage 19
Alberto Contador on the attack on stage 19 of the 2011 Tour de France (Image credit: Bettini Photo)

There are many reasons why stage 19 of the 2011 Tour de France, the last in the mountains of that year's race, has lingered so long in the memory. Part of its appeal is that rather than providing a resolution, the results of stage 19 created a fresh crop of possible GC outcomes, crowned by the most important of all: with 48 hours left before Paris's final finish line, there was still no absolute certainty about who would win the 2011 Tour de France.

But the one reason that neatly contains all the rest is that from beginning to end, stage 19's short, fierce, and breathless charge across the Alps was consistently high drama. There was no downtime whatsoever. And stages in the Tour that manage to maintain their internal tension that high for that long are very rare beasts indeed.

Alasdair Fotheringham

Alasdair Fotheringham has been reporting on cycling since 1991. He has covered every Tour de France since 1992 bar one, as well as numerous other bike races of all shapes and sizes, ranging from the Olympic Games in 2008 to the now sadly defunct Subida a Urkiola hill climb in Spain. As well as working for Cyclingnews, he has also written for The IndependentThe GuardianProCycling, The Express and Reuters.