Alberto Contador has won his third Tour de France joining Philippe Thys, Louison Bobet and Greg LeMond as a three time winner of the world’s biggest race. Alessandro Petacchi has won the Green Jersey in the Tour to add to his wins in the points competition in the Giro and the Vuelta. He becomes the fourth man to achieve the grand slam of points jerseys along with Eddy Merckx, Laurent Jalabert and Djamolidin Abdoujaparov. Andy Schleck has won the white young rider’s jersey for the third time emulating the only other rider who has achieved this feat, Jan Ullrich. Cadel Evans wore the Yellow Jersey as the current world champion becoming only the 2nd man to do so in the past 20 years after Tom Boonen in 2006. Mark Cavendish is now the third rider to have won four or more stages in three consecutive Tours after Eddy Merckx and René le Gréves. The Manxman also became the first man to win back to back road stages into Paris since Charles Pélissier in 1930 and 1931.

Many aspects made this one of the most memorable Tours ever. The crashes and go slow on Stage 2, all the hoo-ha on the cobbles the following day, Cavendish’s ups and downs, Andy Schleck losing his chain and Contador’s subsequent attack, plenty of French stage winners and most importantly of all, the fact that the Yellow, Green and Polka Dot jerseys all came down to their last competitive day of racing.

John Wilcockson wrote an article recently suggesting that Contador could already be on the way out, I completely disagree. I think that Contador rode a perfect race. He rode a solid time trial followed by an unexpectedly excellent performance over the cobbles considering he had never ridden a cobbled race before. He managed to coax Andy Schleck into working with him on Stage Nine to Saint-Jean-de-Maurienne thereby distancing all of their mutual rivals and putting Schleck into the Yellow Jersey which he would then have the responsibility of defending.

He then took the yellow jersey after stage 15 which tasked his team with defending the Maillot Jaune for only three days (not including the final time trial and the procession into Paris). Then despite the presence of a fierce headwind on a flat time trial course he put over half a minute into his closest rival to seal his third Tour victory. It seems to me that Contador’s Tour worked out perfectly, despite the fact he didn’t win a stage. When people think of Greg LeMond they think of a three time Tour winner. They’re less concerned with the fact that he ‘only’ won four Tour stages in his career and won the 1990 edition without winning a stage.

Going into the second half of the race, Schleck led Contador by 41 seconds, the Spaniard took back 10 of those seconds on Stage 12 which meant the riders entered the Pyrenées separated by 31 seconds. On Stage 15 to Bagnéres-de-Luchon the now infamous chain incident occurred which saw Contador seize the Yellow Jersey with a lead of 8 seconds. Whether this attack was sporting or not, Contador clearly had this stage ear marked as the one where he hoped to assume the race lead. Contador countered the attack of the hapless Andy Schleck who dropped his chain shortly after his initial burst of speed. To me, the speed at which Contador zoomed past his team mate Vinokourov suggested that he would have caught and passed Schleck. There is no guarantee that Schleck would have gotten on to the back wheel of Contador. Judging by their inseparability in the subsequent mountains stages, it would seem that the best Schleck could have hoped for on that stage would have been to finish alongside Contador.

The major difference to the race that this would have made is that Schleck would still have been in yellow when it came to the stage finish atop the Col du Tourmalet. But the dynamic of the race would not have changed as Contador would probably have been content taking a 31 second deficit into the final time trial. Even if Schleck had been in yellow, the onus would still have been on him to drop Contador, which he evidently wasn’t able to do anyway. Contador on the other hand, being paced up the climb, seemed like he could have distanced Schleck if he had really applied himself. Therefore, I don’t think the chain incident would have ultimately changed the overall outcome of the race. It’s all ifs, buts and maybes, but it is wonderful that these are the type of ‘what-ifs’ that are being discussed rather than the likes of ‘what would have been the outcome if yer man who tested positive hadn’t have influenced the race?’.

I watched Stage 17 again this morning. Seán Kelly mentioned while commentating that when the Tour is over people will have forgotten the 39 seconds that Contador gained due to Schleck’s dropped chain. Remarkably, the gap between the two in the final general classement was exactly 39 seconds. Had this bizarre twist of fate not occurred, I feel Kelly would have been right. After all, how many minutes was Andy Schleck spared when the decision was made to stage a go slow on Stage 2?

As for Wilcockson’s suggestion that Contador is close to the end of his Tour de France reign; the triple Tour champion is now 27 years old and has won the last five Grand Tours that he’s entered. To put this into perspective the last seven Tour winners and the age they were when they won their first Tour are: Carlos Sastre 33, Oscar Pereiro 29, Lance Armstrong 27, Marco Pantani 28, Jan Ullrich 23, Bjarne Riis 32, Miguel Indurain 27.

Apart from the prodigious Jan Ullrich none of the recent former Tour winners were younger than Contador is now when they won their first Tour de France. He must also be commended for being competitive for the whole year before the Tour, in the week long stage races and the Ardennes classics. Perhaps this is the reason why many people reckon he wasn’t on his best form in this year’s Tour. So what will he be capable of if he returns next year back to his best? He will be very very hard to beat for a number of years to come.

In the race for the Green Jersey Mark Cavendish finished 11 points behind Alessandro Petacchi. Intermediate sprints are worth six points each but Cavendish didn’t contest any of them throughout the Tour (there were 45 in total). If he had won two of them he would have won the Green Jersey. However, we also mustn’t forget that Thor Hushovd was very hard done by on Stage 2 when the race finish was neutralised and no points were awarded when the bunch crossed the line. Hushovd had managed to stay with the main peloton which finished the stage behind Sylvain Chavanel. His main Green Jersey rivals Cavendish and Petacchi finished in groups 10 minutes and 13 minutes down respectively. Undoubtedly, Hushovd was in better form in the first week of the Tour than the last week, which means he probably would have been favourite to take the bunch sprint for 2nd place. Regardless, even if he had only finished 5th on the stage he would have landed an extra 22 points. He lost the Green Jersey by 21.

It was also a great Tour de France for Nicolas Roche who achieved his pre-Tour goal of a top 15 place. He sat in 18th place overall before the stage finish on the Tourmalet. On that foggy evening on the final climb of the race he put in the best performance of his career to take 12th place on the stage. This moved him up into 15th on G.C. capitalising on the time lost by Thomas Lofkvist, Alexander Vinokourov and Carlos Sastre. He followed up his immense performance in the mountains by also putting in his best ever time trial performance, finishing ahead of the likes of Armstrong, Kloden and Kreuziger to defend his 15th place which he carried proudly into Paris last Sunday.

The Tour de France withdrawal is now beginning to set in, but fear not, for there is plenty of other races on the calendar. In fact it’s been a good week for Irishmen all round. David McCann has just secured 5th place overall in the Tour of Qinghai Lake and Dan Martin took 3rd place in the Italian Brixia Tour. Most of the major Tour stars will be back in action this Saturday in the Pro Tour Clásica de San Sebastián. Roche will be present along with Philip Deignan who will be riding his first race since he was forced out of the Tour de Suisse due to illness. And sure it’s not that long until the Vuelta!

Having been in Swansea for a family wedding all weekend, I missed the last three stages of the Tour of Romandie. Not wanting to be absolutely raped by O2, I chose not to avail of any data roaming whilst out of the country so I’ve been completely off the radar. This was my first trip abroad since buying an iPhone. I used to mock iPhone owners who constantly harp an about them (you didn’t invent the bloody thing!), but having spent a whole weekend with a phone in my pocket about as useful as a Nokia 3210, I can honestly say that I have now become everything I hate – an iPhone nerd.

The main (non drugs-related) news story I found upon my return to reality was that Cavendish had been withdrawn from the Tour of Romandie after Stage 3 following his two fingered victory salute the day before. I had given out about his celebration on the Irish Peloton facebook page, saying that if I had been watching the race with an 8 or 9 year old, trying to encourage them to appreciate cycling, I would be raging with Cavendish. The point was made to me that what the sprinter did is no worse than the spitting and diving we see every week in most football matches. While I agree that there’s plenty of unacceptable behaviour that goes on during football matches, Cavendish’s actions didn’t just take place throughout the course of a contest, it came at the moment of victory where the public exposure is at its highest. A more apt comparison to football would be the behaviour of a player after he has scored a goal or his reaction upon hearing the final whistle.

Mark Cavendish celebrates a stage win at the Tour of Romandie by sticking his fingers up at all his detractors.

Most football players choose to celebrate with outbursts of happiness, be it jumping for joy, high fiving and hugging team mates or sliding along the ground fist pumping. But some players over the years have chosen to do otherwise. Emanuel Adebayor this season scored a goal against his former employers Arsenal for his new club Man City and decided to run 100 yards to taunt the Arsenal fans by celebrating directly in front of them rather than his own fans. Gary Neville did the same while playing for Man United against Liverpool in 2006. Although Neville didn’t score the goal himself (he never does) he ran the length of the pitch to goad the Liverpool fans who are notorious for giving the full back constant abuse (after all, he does hate Scousers). Then there’s Didier Drogba who, after his Chelsea team were knocked out of the Champion’s League semi-final last year amidst controversial circumstances, he bellowed into a Sky Sports TV camera that the result was “a f***ing disgrace”. Or recall Robbie Fowler playing for Liverpool against Everton back in 1999. He had been getting abuse from Everton fans who were accusing him of cocaine abuse. In response to the taunts, he scored a goal against them and then celebrated by getting on his knees and crawling along the goal line while pretending to snort the white line. As a result of these reactions, Adebayor was fined £25,000 and given a suspended two match ban, Neville was fined £5,000, Drogba was banned for three games while his club was handed a fine of €100,000 and Fowler was fined £60,000 and was given a four match ban.

Although the FA are notorious for being inconsistent in such matters, the harshest punishments were rightly handed to Drogba and Fowler. Of the four players mentioned, their actions were directly inappropriate. While the other two player’s conduct was also inappropriate, it was the context of the celebrations which landed them in hot water and not the nature of the celebrations themselves. Moving away from goal celebrations, a further example of behaviour which is comparable to that of Cavendish was that of Barry Ferguson and Allan McGregor while on Scotland duty. The pair had been dropped to the bench for a game against Iceland after being caught drinking heavily in the run up to the match. Both were subsequently caught on camera during the match flashing V-signs whilst sitting on the bench. Ferguson was stripped of the captaincy of his club team Glasgow Rangers, while both players were told they would never play for Scotland again.

And Mark Cavendish gets fined 6,000 Swiss Francs? He should count himself extremely lucky.

When I came back yesterday, I was saddened to hear the news of Nicolas Roche’s injury and subsequent withdrawal from the Tour of Romandie. He withdrew after the time trial on Friday with a suspected torn muscle in the back of his knee. This will throw his Tour de France preparations into disarray. He is slated to ride the Dauphiné Libéré in June before going on to partake in his 2nd Tour de France. If the injury doesn’t abate soon and allow him to return to full training, his participation in the Dauphiné may be in jeopardy. The Tour de Suisse which starts a few days later could also be a backup option, but if Roche fails to start either of these Tour preparation races it will be unlikely he will make the Tour team. Although his AG2R team will be desperate for their young Irishman to be at the Tour because two of their other big stars may not be there. Rinaldo Nocentini, who wore the yellow jersey at last year’s Tour suffered a broken leg back in February. He has stated his desire to part of the Tour team but has only recently resumed his rehabilitation. The other AG2R rider who will not be part of the Tour de France is Tadej Valjavec who has finished in the top 10 of both the Giro and the Tour. Valjavec is one of the riders along with Franco Pellizotti and Rosendo Prado who are being investigated after their biological passport returned abnormal values.

It was also announced while I was away that Dan Martin will start the Giro d’Italia this weekend. It was not explicitly announced that this means he would not be part of the Garmin-Transitions Tour de France team as a result. However, as still a realtively young rider, it is unlikely that Jonathan Vaughters would ask him to ride in July in what would be then his 3rd Grand Tour in a row, having ridden the Vuelta last September.

I had already expressed how undecided I was over whether I want Martin to ride the Tour, where he would be employed as a domestique for Christian Vande Velde, or the Giro where he would be the team’s G.C. leader. While it would be great to have all three Irishman at the Tour in July, perhaps it is better to have the Irish talent spread across more Grand Tours. After all, it will be more exciting for Irish supporters to cheer on Martin giving his all at the Giro rather than expending himself totally for a team mate at the Tour and falling back before the final climb. The Giro d’Italia gets underway this Saturday with an individual time trial around Amsterdam. Dan Martin will be wearing number 117. Let’s hope he can put in a great performance in his first Giro d’Italia.

The first monument classic of the season takes place this Saturday. Milan San Remo, at almost 300 kilometres is the longest race on the calendar. Last year Mark Cavendish had most people fooled before the race saying “San Remo is one of the most difficult races on the calendar, I am only 23 years old and don’t expect too much“. He had in fact been preparing specifically for La Primavera with the help of his sprinting mentor Erik Zabel, a four time winner of the race. Cavendish delighted in the comments of riders like Boonen who beforehand had scoffed at his chances of successfully negotiating the Cipressa and the Poggio saying that the Manxman “couldn’t get over a railway bridge“. Cavendish certainly had the last laugh when he beat Heinrich Haussler to the line by the narrowest of margins to become Britain’s second winnner of the race after Tom Simpson in 1964.

This year however things are different. Cavendish has had well publicised problems with his teeth which meant he has only a fraction of the miles in his legs which he had at this stage last year. He also tellingly, hasn’t won a race yet in 2010. Of the past ten editions of Milan San Remo, the only winner who came into the race with no victories under his belt was Filippo Pozzato in 2006. Usually, riders who win the Italian monument have won four or five races before setting out in Milan. Even Fabien Cancellara, the most non-sprinter to have won in recent years had four race wins early in 2008. Alessandro Petacchi, the Italian sprinter who will be hoping to have a say on Saturday, won a remarkable 11 races before his victory in 2005. Cavendish just doesn’t have the form. Unless he has taken the sandbagging to a whole other level, as I’ve mentioned before, I think HTC-Columbia would be better served by putting the weight of the team behind André Greipel.

A rider who is on form however is the Team Sky sensation Edvald Boassan-Hagen. He has won four races already this season including the final stage of Tirreno-Adriatico. Ominously, the final stage of the race of the two seas was also won by Cavendish, Petacchi and Cipollini on the way to their respective victories at Milan San Remo. The Norwegian is most people’s favourite to win on Saturday even though many can’t agree on whether he is better suited as a sprinter, a time-triallist or if he’ll become an unstoppable all-rounder in the Eddy Merckx mould. Well he has certainly shown his ability to beat the best in a bunch sprint. But according to Mark Cavendish, “Milan San Remo is never a bunch sprint, it is 20 guys“, which is somewhat true. Of the past ten editions of the race there has only once been a bunch at the end of more than 50 riders. The size of the average group which crosses the finish line first has been 32 riders. Cavendish says this is because it is all about resilience. A rider needs to have the courage and durability to make it over La Manie, the Cipressa and the Poggio and afetr 300 kilometres still have enough fight left in your legs for a burst at the line. To me, this sounds like a description of Edvald Boassan-Hagen and with one of Cavendish’s chief lieutenants from last year Michael Barry by his side he has as good a chance as any. Team Sky will be riding in their first monument classic and will be buoyed by the fact that in their first ever one day race, they won, through Juan Antonio Flecha at Het Niuewsblad.

In any edition of Milan San Remo there are always riders who think themselves capable of escaping on the climb of the Poggio and making it all the way down the other side to the finish line before the chasing pack swallows them whole. It has been attempted in recent years by riders like Davide Rebellin, Ricardo Riccó and Phillipe Gilbert. However the only successful breakaway in the last 15 years that went before the top of the Poggio to make it to the finish was in 2003 when Paolo Bettini took the victory. This year the route is slightly different to last, as more than a kilometre has been cut from the run in to the finish. In this month’s Pro Cycling magazine, Cervélo riders Thor Hushovd and Heinrich Haussler discuss how this new truncated finish could be beneficial for riders willing to attack on the Poggio. If attacks go, the bunch will have to close them down and if and when they do, there won’t be as much time to recover and regroup for the sprint as was afforded Mark Cavendish last year. This will be music to the ears of aggressive riders like Philippe Gilbert, Damiano Cunego or Alessandro Ballan. Gilbert will be aiming to become the first man since Seán Kelly in 1992 to win Milan San Remo coming off the back of having won the Tour of Lombardy the previous year.

Although Heinrich Haussler was talking up his chances in that interview he has since announced he will not be starting the race due to a knee injury sustained at the Volta ao Algarve. The sole leadership of the team will now be shouldered by Thor Hushovd who came 3rd last year. The Norwegian comes in to the race having won no races this year and seems slightly off form compared to last year when he had already won Het Nieuwsblad and a stage of the Tour of California.

As a powerful sprinter, Milan San Remo makes for a large empty space on the palmarés of Tom Boonen which already includes multiple Paris-Roubaixs and Tours of Flanders along with a Green Jersey and a Rainbow jersey. Unlike last year, Boonen has stated that he still rates Cavendish as a threat for the race on Saturday. The Belgian should come into the race with plenty of confidence for he has won a stage of each stage race he’s raced so far this year in Qatar, Oman and this week at Tirreno-Adriatico. He’s recently said that he would like to try his hand at becoming one of the world’s top time trialists but surely Milan San Remo ranks highly on his to-do list. Boonen himself has tipped the Liguigas rider Daniele Bennati for the win, but this is likely to be more smack talk and sandbaggery to try shift the focus away from himself. Boonen has finished on the podium before taking 3rd in 2007. He made the final selection last year but blamed the heat and the fact that he hadn’t had a drink for the final 50km for his inability to compete in the sprint. No doubt he won’t be making the same mistake again this year and must be considered one of the favourites.

As usual it will be an intriguing race and with plenty of sprinters coming into the race in top form, deciding who’ll win is very difficult. At the moment the shortest odds at the bookies are for André Greipel closely followed by Edvald Boasson-Hagen. Personally, I’ll be watching out for the Belgain duo of Boonen and Gilbert. But enough procrastinating, I need to move on to more serious business….the pub! Happy St. Patrick’s day everybody!