Alberto Contador Totally Explained

Everything about Alberto Contador totally explained

Alberto Contador Velasco (born 6 December 1982 in Madrid, Spain) is a professional road bicycle racer for UCI ProTeam Team Astana and winner of the 2007 Tour de France with team Discovery Channel. While he competes for the overall titles, he's considered a climbing specialist.
Contador lives in Pinto, Spain .

Career

An early career highlight is his Stage 5 victory in the 2005 Tour Down Under, his first win after overcoming a massive blood clot in his brain, for which he underwent a risky surgery and a long, painful road to recovery to get back on his bike. The blood clot was discovered after he crashed and went into convulsions during the first stage of the 2004 Vuelta a Asturias. He had suffered headaches for several days beforehand.
   Following the demise the Manolo Saiz–run Liberty Seguros-Würth team, Contador was without a professional contract until mid-January 2007, when he signed with Discovery Channel under a cloud of suspicion due to the Operación Puerto doping case.
   Contador's first major pro victory came with the 2007 Paris-Nice, which he won in dramatic fashion on the race's final stage. Discovery effectively wore down the remnants of the race leader, Davide Rebellin's, Gerolsteiner team, allowing Contador to launch an authoritative attack on the final climb. With Rebellin leading the chase, Contador held off his competitors in the final kilometers, winning him this prestigious race.
   In the 2007 Tour de France, he won the 14th stage at the mountaintop finish of Plateau-de-Beille, and was second in the general classification to Michael Rasmussen. Upon Rasmussen's removal from the race after stage 17, Contador assumed the overall lead and the yellow jersey. In stage 19, a time trial, he managed to keep hold of the yellow jersey by a margin of only twenty-three seconds over challenger Cadel Evans and went on to win his first Tour de France, the first win for the Discovery Channel team since Lance Armstrong's victory in 2005.
   After the announcement of the future termination of team Discovery Channel, Contador announced on October 23 2007 that he'd move to Astana for 2008.
   On February 13, 2008, the organizer of the Tour de France announced that Astana wouldn't be invited to any of their events in 2008. Consequently, Contador was unable to defend his 2007 Paris-Nice and 2007 Tour de France victories. Unable to defend his Paris-Nice victory, he then went on to win his second Vuelta a Castilla y León and the Vuelta al País Vasco by winning the opening stage and the final individual time trial. His next scheduled race and objective was the Dauphiné Libéré but his team received a last time invitation to the Giro d'Italia one week prior to the start of the race. Contador was allegedly on the beach when he was told he was going to ride the Giro. He finished second in the first individual time trial and took the maglia rosa after the 15th stage up to Passo Fedaia.

Doping allegations

Contador was kept out of the 2006 Tour de France due to connections with the Operación Puerto doping case. He and four other members of his team at the time, Astana-Würth, were cleared of all charges on July 26, 2006 by the Union Cycliste Internationale after Judge Antonio Serrano dropped the case against all suspects, when he stated that he wasn't sure Spanish health laws had been breached.
On July 30 2007 German doping expert Werner Franke accused Contador of having taken drugs in the past and being prescribed a doping regimen by Dr. Eufemiano Fuentes, who was connected with Operación Puerto. He passed his evidence on to the German authorities on July 31, 2007. Contador denied the accusations, saying "I was in the wrong team at the wrong time and somehow my name got among the documents."

Major achievements

2003 – ONCE-Eroski ť Stage 8, Tour de Pologne

4th Overall, Vuelta a Castilla y León

2004 – Liberty Seguros ť Mountains Classification, Vuelta a Aragon

5th Overall, Setmana Catalana

2005 – Liberty Seguros-Würth Cycling Team ť Stage 6 (ITT), Points Classification and 3rd Overall, Vuelta al País Vasco

Stage 5, Tour Down Under ť 1st Overall, Combination Classification and Stage 3, Setmana Catalana

Stage 4 and 4th Overall, Tour de Romandie ť 3rd, Youth Classification and 31st Overall, Tour de France

2006 – Astana-Würth Team ť Stage 8, Tour de Suisse

Stage 3 and 2nd Overall, Tour de Romandie ť 5th Overall, Vuelta al País Vasco

2007 – Discovery Channel Pro Cycling Team ť Vuelta a Castilla y León

   : 1st Overall ť : 1st Combination classification

   : 1st Spanish rider classification ť : Winner Stage 4

    Paris-Nice: ť : 1st Overall

   : 1st Young rider classification ť : Winner stages 4 and 7

    Stage 4, Volta a la Comunitat Valenciana ť Tour de France

   :Winner overall classification ť :Winner youth classification

   :Winner stage 14

2008 – Team Astana ť Vuelta a Castilla y León

   : 1st Overall ť : 1st Stage 1

   : 1st Stage 4 ť Vuelta a País Vasco

   : 1st Overall ť : 1st Stage 1

   : 1st Stage 6 ť Giro d'Italia

   : Overall Leader (after stages 15-17)

Further Information

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