Contador, Jinxed in Le Tour again

Two falls in the first two stages of his third Tour de France and 48 seconds lost at the Cherbourg arrival_ Alberto Contador is an unlucky man in the French cycling event.

The Tinkoff cyclist was involved last Sunday in a fall, some 60km away from the Second stage’s departure at Saint Ló.

His other fall happened with only 80 km remaining until the Utah Beach arrival, when his front wheel skidded, making him crash into the kerb of a roundabout, completely bruising his left side.

Visibly shaken, the Spaniard was unable to keep up with other sprinters at the Third category mountain top of La Glaciere, only a few kilometres from the Cherbourg arrival.

In only two days, Contador has managed to lag behind by nearly a minute compared to his two great rivals: the British Chris Froome and the Colombian Nairo Quintana.

“I have fought to lose as little time as possible, but I have lost some vey important seconds,” said the cyclist, displaying a more pessimistic outlook in Cherbourg than the previous day.

Contador seems to have an unlucky streak firmly set in his Tour de France experience.

Falls in 2011 and 2015 also left him severely delayed, and in 2013 he became ill a few months before the Tour started and was unable to recover on time to be in optimal condition.

Even so, he was luckier than in in 2014, when a spectacular fall descending the Petit Ballon forced him to abandon the Tour.

When he is not falling off his bike, Contador has to face problems either with feuds, the public or scandals.

In 2006, when he was about to race with the Liberty cycling team, he was linked to “Operation Puerto”_ a doping scandal that surfaced in Spain and involved world class cyclists. His team was forced to abandon the Tour before its start in Strasbourg.

The following year, with Discovery, he won his first tour amid the scandal that surrounded Michael Rasmussen’s withdrawal due to suspected doping.

He had trouble again in 2008, when the organizer of the Tour decided his team was not allowed to participate in any of the 2008 events because of its previous problems with doping.

In 2010, what he won on the road, he lost in the offices after he tested positive for clembuterol, which also forced him to miss the 2012 edition of the Tour.