Alberto Contador cast doubt on his participation in the road race at next month’s Rio Olympics after saying on Tuesday that he needed four weeks to recover from injuries sustained on the Tour de France.
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Slightly more than 100 kilometres from the end of Stage 9 from the Spanish town of Vielha to the ski resort of Arcalis in Andorra, the 33-year-old Spaniard stopped at the side of the road, hopped off his bike and got into the passenger seat of his team vehicle.
Sean Yates, Contador’s directeur sportif at Tinkoff, confirmed that the embattled Spaniard had been suffering from a fever since the race entered the mountains on Friday.
Contador was sitting 20th overall at more than three minutes behind at the start of the day.
“I could not keep going”, Contador said. Contador started Stage 9 that would bring the peloton from Vielha val dAran to Andorra Arcalis but the course featuring an uphill finish and five categorized climbs proved to be too much.
“As he had attacked, he obviously wasn’t feeling too bad but I guess he was still suffering from his injuries”.
MADRID (AP) – Spanish cyclist Alberto Contador will miss the Olympics in Rio de Janeiro because of injuries that forced him to abandon the Tour de France.
Four times during the opening 80km of Sunday’s stage, Contador was seen dropping back from the peloton to speak to his team auto. “It would have made the Tour even more exciting than it already is”, said Briton Froome, two years Contador’s junior at 31.
Contador was dropped out of an elite lead group on the final climb of stage eight, the Col de Peyresourde, when Froome, Nairo Quintana, Dan Martin and Romain Bardet all launched attacks. One day later Contador crashed again, this time falling on his right-hand side.
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Contador fell off his bike 60 kilometres into the 183-km ride from Saint Lo, and crossed the finish line 48 seconds behind Sagan.
