The sun finally made its way back over the 48th Tour of the Basque Country Saturday. And especially over the yellow jersey of mighty Alberto Contador, that claimed the overall title also in this race at the end of the sixth and closing leg, a demanding challenge to the clock held over 20 kilometres, with the start/finish line situated at Orio town.
The stage turned out to be a clash of two giants between Contador and Cadel Evans. But not much of a close fight, we have to say: the Spaniard rocked the clock since the first time check, and was leading the Australian by over 20 seconds after four kilometres. He kept his winning pace all the way to the line and set the best finishing time (29'10"52) of course, beating the Silence-Lotto's world-class rider (29'32"27) by 22 seconds. "Best of the rest" was Thomas Dekker, third place finisher in the GC too, and kicking Damiano Cunego - that snatched 4th both in the stage and overall standings - out of the podium spots.
Paris-Nice revelation Robert Gesink (5th at 01'16"), Maxime Monfort of Belgium (6th), Stefan Schumacher (7th), Chris Horner (8th), Sandy Casar of Paris (9th) and Marco Pinotti of Bergamo-land (10th) filled in the other top ten spots of thee day. Monfort, Mikel Astarloza, Kim Kirchen, Casar, Ezequiel Mosquera and Franck Schleck followed Contador, Evans, Dekker and Cunego in the final overall standings instead.
Alberto Contador obviously won also the prize reserved for the top Spanish finisher while Mikel Astarloza of Euskaltel turned into the best-placed local competitor after the consequences of yesterday's last-minute fall forced David Herrero not to start in the final day.
www.dailypeloton.com / www.as.com
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