Discovery believes in mentally tough Contador

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The Spaniard intends to keep it(Image credit: Cyclingnews.com)

News Feature, July 28, 2007

All the pressure on the Discovery Channel team has ended up on the shoulders of young Spaniard Alberto Contador, who's currently leading the general classification. Contador will face off against Predictor Lotto's Cadel Evans, now in second place, in Saturday's final Tour de France time trial. Directeur sportif Dirk Demol reminded us that the yellow jersey does strange things with the riders who wear it.

"Contador found it hard to be suddenly offered that yellow jersey; we were at peace with [being in] second place," Demol reflected on how the team was suddenly in the yellow jersey after the departure of Michael Rassmussen (Rabobank) from the Tour late Wednesday. "He's young, and before the Tour, we didn't know how he would react during the third week. We noticed that he was near the limit in the mountains although the motivation of a yellow jersey can help a lot, of course. We believe we can do it," Demol said.

Bruyneel said it isn't easy to predict the result of the time trial because there wasn't much data to compare the two riders. "Evans is more of a time trialist specialist than Contador, so that's a disadvantage for us, but I don't think the difference can be so big as to lose the yellow jersey. Anyway you never know, if Evans has a super day, and Alberto an off day, than it's all possible; otherwise it should be no problem," Bruyneel claimed.

There's also another time trial where Evans took a few minutes on Contador and that was in the French Dauphiné Libéré HC stage race. "His [Alberto's] time trial in the Dauphiné wasn't good. Alberto had a bad day back then, but he wasn't too well there anyway. He started with a bad prologue, but he was good in the mountains. Now it's different as he starts the time trial with a killer spirit to keep the yellow jersey," Bruyneel said.

Whatever the result will be in Paris, it will be much better than the team's performance in 2006, when they earned only a stage win for Yaroslav Popovych. "It was a year where we came with less expectations than usually, but still high enough with hopes for the podium for Leipheimer, a stage win, and the white jersey for Contador. Now we're in this unexpected position, and now we're at the eve of the battle for the war we are trying to win--the Tour," Bruyneel said, showing the spirit needed to win a war.

"We wanted to get through this stage [18] without problems, and that worked out well," Demol said, although at the time of his remarks, he probably didn't know that Contador and Leipheimer had lost three seconds on Evans. "A group broke away early, which was good for us, and with [Michael] Boogerd [(Rasmussen)] at 27 minutes in the GC, we knew teams would start riding to defend their top-10 position. That's a tactical game."

"We know that the win isn't landed yet, but I'd prefer to be 1'53" [now 1'50"] ahead instead of behind," said Demol. "We are taking Evans in [to] consideration but we believe in Alberto. He's in a class of his own, and those guys tend to perform better under pressure. We hope he can resist Evans in the time trial. That's what we're focusing on from now on." Demol looked forward to Saturday's 55km time trial from Cognac to Angoulême.

Annoyed by the negative media attention, Demol said, "When he had to go to the press room after yesterday's stage, the first question was if he was clean. That's not nice. It's annoying, but he can handle it. He's a very realistic guy from a big family, and he's mentally very strong. I did Paris-Nice with him, and the way he captured that win was phenomenal. When he came there, he said that if the team was strong enough, he could do it. He kept attacking until he had the win in his hands which means he was mentally strong," finished Demol.