Today the maillot jaune had another controversial exchange, this time on the way to the finish of stage fifteen in Bagnères-de-Luchon. On the final climb of the day, the hors category Port de Balès, Andy Schleck (Saxo Bank) had a costly mechanical while he was shifting gears on the attack against defending champion Alberto Contador (Astana). With this exchange, however, the chances that the benefactor will take the golden tunic all the way to Paris are far greater.
Contador wasn't proud of the way the closing kilometers played out, and felt the need to share his thoughts after having some more time to reflect on the day's events.
"Today I climbed onto the podium and I'm happy about that," Contador said in a video released after the stage. "The problem has been the circumstances. Just when I attacked, Andy had a mechanical on the last climb. The race [for the yellow jersey] was in progress, and maybe I made a mistake. I'm sorry."
With a 52 kilometer time trial on the penultimate day of the race, the Port de Balès represented one of the few opportunities Schleck had left to try to put some distance between himself and the Astana captain. Schleck lost a massive 42 seconds to Contador in the short opening test against the clock, which puts a lot of pressure on the Saxo Bank leader over the next couple of days in the mountains.
The Spaniard reflected on the second stage of the race, where he waited for the Schleck brothers when they crashed on an oily section of the Col de Stockeu. Had the peloton not been neutralized, the Saxo Bank rider's Tour de France bid would have ended that day.
"In moments like that all you think about is going as fast as you can. I'm disappointed in the sense that, for me, fair play is very important, as it was to me on the stage to Spa. When Andy and Frank were off the back of the group, I did not hesitate to stop the bunch until they came back."
It didn't take long for the next controversial change in yellow to happen. The following day Frank Schleck crashed hard on the cobblestones, with Contador and the current yellow jersey, Sylvain Chavanel, caught behind the incident. Cancellara, the younger Schleck and World champion Cadel Evans were all part of a front group that poured on the speed since the race for yellow was heated up at the time of the crash. On that day Contador lost more than twice the time that Schleck did today.
"I received a lot of criticism from people for doing that [waiting for them when they crashed on the Col de Stockeu] after the cobblestone stage, when after the fall, the pack split and Andy took advantage of me. I always said that I would do it again [wait]. I don't like what has happened today," he added, saying he hopes that his relationship with Andy will be as good as it was before.