Levi Leipheimer of the US won the 20th and penultimate stage of the Spanish Vuelta on Saturday, while Astana teammate Alberto Contador of Spain retained the overall leader’s yellow jersey.
The 34-year-old Leipheimer moved into second place overall after finishing the 17.1km time trial up the category 1 Alto de Navacerrada mountain in 33 minutes, 6 seconds.
Contador followed 31 seconds later, just ahead of Alejandro Valverde of Spain.
Contador will complete a rare sweep of cycling’s three major races — the Tour de France, the Giro d’Italia and the Vuelta — if he retains his lead during the final stage.
Barring an unexpected upset or accident, the 25-year-old Astana rider will equal the feat of former cycling greats Eddy Merckx, Jacques Anquetil, Felice Gimondi and Bernard Hinault, who also won the three cycling classics.
Contador won last year’s Tour and this year’s Giro. A Vuelta victory would see him claim all three titles within 15 months, besting Hinault’s previous record of 26 months.
Leipheimer is 46 seconds behind Contador overall. This year’s Tour champion Carlos Sastre of Spain, riding for Team CSC, is 4:12 back in third.
“It was important to maintain the overall lead,” Contador said. “They were really squeezing me from behind, so I didn’t have time to even think of celebrating until I’d finished. Now, I just want to rest a bit and savor the moment.”
Sastre said he was delighted to finish the stage 1:02 behind in fourth place to secure third place overall.
“I wanted to secure third place but it was difficult, which is all you know when you are out there fighting,” Sastre said. “But I did it. It was very important for me and I will be very happy to be on the podium in Madrid.”
The race was set to end yesterday with a 102.2km ride from San Sebastian de los Reyes north of Madrid to the finish down the central Castellana boulevard.
BOOT TO FACE: Wilfried Singo said that his actions were not intentional, ‘but I was able to see afterwards that’ the ’keeper had a significant face injury Paris Saint-Germain on Wednesday came from behind to extend their unbeaten start to the Ligue 1 season with a 4-2 win away against AS Monaco, but lost goalkeeper Gianluigi Donnarumma to a gruesome facial injury. The bloodied Italy international was left requiring 10 staples after sustaining lacerations to the right side of his face when he was caught by the studs of Monaco defender Wilfried Singo. “I don’t know if the referee was badly positioned, but VAR [video assistant referee] needed to intervene, you have to protect the players,” PSG captain Marquinhos said. “To not give a red in a situation like
India’s chess star Gukesh Dommaraju returned to a hero’s welcome in his home city yesterday after becoming the youngest world champion aged only 18. Hundreds of fans crowded the arrivals area of Chennai International Airport, cheering alongside banks of television cameras as Gukesh made his way out of the airport after victory in taking the World Chess Championship title. “It means a lot to bring back the trophy to India,” Gukesh told reporters, with garlands of flowers draped around his neck, brandishing the glittering trophy in his hand. “I can see the support and what it means to India, I
Zach LaVine on Thursday scored a season-high 36 points to lead the Chicago Bulls to a 117-108 upset victory against defending NBA champions the Boston Celtics, while LeBron James once again made history. LaVine went 11-of-19 from the floor and made six three-pointers while adding six rebounds and four assists for the Bulls, who improved to 13-15 for the season. “We’re a good team,” LaVine said. “We’re competitive and we’re a resilient group.” Ayo Dosunmu contributed 17 points for the Bulls, while Nikola Vucevic had 16 points and 14 rebounds for Chicago. The Bulls outscored Boston 35-22 in the fourth quarter to rally past
Brimin Kipkorir of Kenya and Amid Fozya Jemal of Ethiopia won the men’s and the women’s categories, respectively, in the annual Taipei Marathon yesterday, which drew about 28,000 participants. Kipkorir finished the 42.2km run in 2 hours, 11 minutes and 41 seconds, which was about 2.5 minutes off the event’s record of 2:09:18 set by his countryman Paul Lonyongata in 2020. Meanwhile, Jemal — who also won the New Taipei Wan Jin Shi Marathon in March — finished with a first-place time of 2:32:47, about seven minutes behind the race’s women’s record of 2:25:55. For winning the race, Kipkorir and
RSS