Tour de France : third Spaniard in a row takes home yellow jersey
July 29, 2008
Spanish cyclists win Tour de France three years running; Sastre keeps the Spanish streak alive
Carlos Sastre became the third Spaniard in a row to win the Tour de France on Sunday. Sastre’s win comes after victories for fellow Spaniards Oscar Pereiro in 2006 and Albert Contador in 2007. Last year’s Spanish winning Astana team was not invited back to the Tour de France this year because of its own doping scandal. Sastre said the three-Spaniard streak was partly due to luck, but also to a national program that encourages young cyclists in Spain.
Cadel Evans of Australia finished second overall, just 58 seconds after Sastre, who unofficially nailed his win Saturday after beating Evans in the time-trial. Austrian Bernhard Kohl was third, one minute 13 seconds behind the lead, also taking the polka dot jersey for the best climber.
Sastre’s win was only a surprise in that he has comes so close so many times without a victory. Despite five finishes in the top 10 of the Tour de France in the last six years, including four victories in mountain stages, Sastre was widely written off as an also-ran who could not attain a big enough lead in the mountains to best other cyclist in the time-trials. In this year’s Tour de France, he proved the naysayers wrong.
It’s been a red-letter year for sports in Spain. In the last seven weeks, Spain has also won the Euro 2008 football tournament and Rafael Nadal clinched a fourth French Open tennis title plus the Wimbledon championship.
Other riders honored in the Tour de France included the German/Austrian winner of the polka-dot jersey, Bernhard Kohl. The polka-dot jersey is awarded for best climber in the Tour de France. Yet another Spaniard, Oscar Freire of the Rabobank team, won the green jersey, called the sprinter’s jersey because it is based on points awarded at stage finishes and intermediate sprints along the Tour de France route. Freire’s victory was something of a vindication for Rabobank, whose Tour hopes ended when the team fired Michael Rasmussen during the final week of the race while he was in the race leader’s yellow jersey. Rasmussen had lied about why he had missed anti-doping tests during training before the Tour de France. The prize for best overall team effort and the white jersey for best young rider under 25 went to CSC-Saxo Bank. Andy Schleck, 23, recorded the best overall time among riders age 25 or under. CSC won the team prize based on finishes of stages of its riders, who hogged the leader’s yellow jersey for 7 out of the 21 days of the Tour de France.
Despite the Spanish winning streak, Spain did not escape the spectre of illegal drug use that has permeated the Tour de France for the past 10 years. An entire Spanish team, Saunier Duval-Scott, withdrew after its Italian team leader and the winner of two stages, Riccardo Riccò, tested positive for a new variant of the blood-boosting drug EPO.
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