Luis Leon Sanchez won the Paris-Nice race despite a bold raid from fellow Spaniard Alberto Contador on the eighth and last stage around Nice on Sunday.
Another Spaniard, Antonio Colom of Katusha, was the first to cross the line at the end of the 119km ride featuring three category-one climbs, outsprinting Astana’s Contador and Luxembourg’s Frank Schleck of Saxo Bank.
Caisse d’Epargne rider Sanchez, who took the overall lead with victory on Saturday, ended the stage 17 seconds behind, keeping the yellow jersey with a one-minute advantage over Schleck in second place.
France’s Sylvain Chavanel of Quick Step was third, nine seconds further behind, with Contador fourth 1.24 off the pace.
“I had talked with Frank Schleck and I was confident his [Saxo Bank] team would do some work in the peloton,” Sanchez said.
Astana sporting director Alain Gallopin hit out at the Saxo Bank team’s tactics, saying their collaboration with Sanchez led to Contador’s defeat while failing to hand Schleck a victory.
Gallopin said that when Saxo Bank appeared to help Sanchez “I went to see Kim Andersen [Saxo Bank sporting director] and said to him, ‘Why are you doing that?’”
In Rome, Germany’s Andreas Kloden won the fifth stage of the Tirreno-Adriatico race on Sunday, topping a 30km individual time-trial between Loreto and Macerata ahead of Stijn Devolder of Belgium and Sweden’s Thomas Lovkvist.
Kloden, the winner in 2007, also took the overall lead in the week-long race that concludes today.
He leads Lovkvist by six seconds but with two stages remaining more suitable to sprint finishes, the German looks set to repeat his victory of two years ago.
Taiwan’s Hsieh Su-wei and partner Jelena Ostapenko of Latvia yesterday advanced to the women’s doubles final at the Australian Open after defeating New Zealand’s Erin Routliffe and Gabriela Dabrowski of Canada 7-6 (7/3), 3-6, 6-3 in their semi-final. Hsieh has won nine Grand Slam doubles titles and has a shot at a 10th tomorrow, when the Latvian-Taiwanese duo are to play Taylor Townsend of the US and Katerina Siniakova of the Czech Republic in the championship match at the A$96.5 million (US$61 million) outdoor hard court tournament at Melbourne Park. Townsend and Siniakova eliminated Russian pair Diana Shnaider and Mirra Andreeva 6-7
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Taiwan’s Hsieh Su-wei yesterday advanced to the semi-finals of the women’s doubles at the Australian Open, while Coco Gauff’s dreams of a first women’s singles title in Melbourne were crushed in the quarter-finals by Paula Badosa. World No. 2 Alexander Zverev was ruffled by a stray feather in his men’s singles quarter-final, but he refocused to beat 12th seed Tommy Paul and reach the semi-finals. Third seeds Hsieh and Jelena Ostapenko of Latvia defeated Elena-Gabriela Ruse of Romania and Marta Kostyuk of Ukraine 6-2, 5-7, 7-5 in 2 hours, 20 minutes to advance the semi-finals. Hsieh and Ostapenko converted eight of 14 break
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