Tour de France stage 15 results in Alberto Contador wearing yellow
Spaniard Alberto Contador has won stage 15 of the Tour de France and now wears the yellow jersey, one minute and 37 seconds ahead of Astana team mate Lance Armstrong in second.
The usual breakaway in the 207.5km stage 15 from Pontarlier to Verbier came in dribs and drabs, started by Frenchman David Moncoutié of the Cofidis team after 42km, joined by Italian Franco Pellizotti of Team Liquigas, then six others, then another four, then another three for a total of 15.
One of the three in that last mini-group was Spaniard Mikel Astarloza of Euskaltel, who was the virtual leader on the course when the breakaway’s time gap rose almost a minute above his three-minute deficit to yellow jersey wearer Rinaldo Nocentini.
Team Astana gradually drew the gap back and the breakaway was caught with six kilometres to go, which was the signal for Frank Schleck and then Contador to attack.
Surprisingly, Lance Armstrong did not respond to Contador, and was content to sit behind Andreas Kloden and eventually lose 94 seconds on his Astana team mate, possibly consigning him to second fiddle in Astana for the rest of the tour.
Stage 15 results
1 Alberto Contador Velasco (Spa) Astana 5:03:58
2 Andy Schleck (Lux) Team Saxo Bank 0:43 behind
3 Vincenzo Nibali (Ita) Liquigas 1:03
4 Fränk Schleck (Lux) Team Saxo Bank 1:06
5 Bradley Wiggins (GBr) Garmin – Slipstream
6 Carlos Sastre Candil (Spa) Cervelo TestTeam
7 Cadel Evans (Aus) Silence – Lotto 1:26
8 Andreas Klöden (Ger) Astana 1:29
9 Lance Armstrong (USA) Astana 1:35
10 Kim Kirchen (Lux) Team Columbia – HTC 1:55
General classification
1 Alberto Contador Velasco (Spa) Astana 63:17:56
2 Lance Armstrong (USA) Astana 1:37 behind
3 Bradley Wiggins (GBr) Garmin – Slipstream 1:46
4 Andreas Klöden (Ger) Astana 2:17
5 Andy Schleck (Lux) Team Saxo Bank 2:26
6 Rinaldo Nocentini (Ita) AG2R La Mondiale 2:30
7 Vincenzo Nibali (Ita) Liquigas 2:51
8 Tony Martin (Ger) Team Columbia – HTC 3:07
9 Christophe Le Mevel (Fra) Française des Jeux 3:09
10 Fränk Schleck (Lux) Team Saxo Bank 3:25
11 Carlos Sastre Candil (Spa) Cervelo TestTeam 3:52
12 Christian Vande Velde (USA) Garmin – Slipstream 3:59
13 George Hincapie (USA) Team Columbia – HTC 4:05
14 Cadel Evans (Aus) Silence – Lotto 4:27
15 Maxime Monfort (Bel) Team Columbia – HTC 4:38
16 Roman Kreuziger (Cze) Liquigas 4:40
17 Kim Kirchen (Lux) Team Columbia – HTC 5:05
18 Luis León Sánchez Gil (Spa) Caisse d’Epargne 5:27
19 Mikel Astarloza Chaurreau (Spa) Euskaltel – Euskadi 5:37
20 Vladimir Karpets (Rus) Team Katusha 5:56
