Contador: “Tomorrow will be one of the hardest days of the Vuelta”
Tinkoff’s GC leader at the Vuelta a España, Alberto Contador, sat down with the press on the second rest day of the race to discuss the past days’ racing, along with other goals.
“I can see there are possibilities and at certain times I could try something.”, said Contador. “On the other hand, it is true there are many interests, probably common, that can come together and make your bet very complicated to realise. I’ll take it day-by-day, trying it. The goal I have isn’t the podium. Obviously, winning is very difficult because Nairo Quintana has a very strong team, he’s very strong himself and has an enormous difference over me.”
“In addition, there are two more riders ahead of me. I’ll keep giving all I have in the race and see how we end up in Madrid. It’s true that every day there is a different story and a thousand things can happen, so, in that sense, sometimes you can come out disadvantaged while at others you can be advantaged.”
“I don’t form alliances with any rider or team. In the end, I do my own race and once you see the composition of the group in which you are, you can see what common interests could exist. Probably, the one pondering about doing something right now is Froome. Unless he invents something, it will be complicated to overturn Quintana, despite the fact we still have two summit finishes and a time trial. Last time it was with Quintana, next time, if there is a next time, it could be with somebody else.”
Contador also spoke about stage 17: “I know the [final] climb and recently rode it. I think the differences will be bigger than Peña Cabarga. Tomorrow’s stage is extremely hard from the outset. The start will be very tough and there is close to 3,700 meters of elevation gain, combined with temperatures of 40 degrees centigrade. In my opinion, tomorrow will be an extremely hard day, one of the hardest of the Vuelta and the differences will be much bigger.”
