Tour de France: Sastre times it right to set up his lap of honour

Spaniard survives race against clock to leave Evans floundering

Alasdair Fotheringham
Sunday 27 July 2008 00:00 BST
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Against all the odds, barring a last-minute catastrophe, today Carlos Sastre will become the third Spaniard in three years to win cycling's showpiece event, the Tour de France.

Yesterday's 53-kilometre time trial saw a major turn-up for the books, as the slender climber from Madrid successfully defended his overall lead against Cadel Evans, the Australian specialist at beating the clock.

Of his 94-second lead prior to this final time trial, Sastre lost a mere 29 against the Silence-Lotto pro – widely tipped to win the Tour ever since he finished second last year – by riding steadily here on the rolling course from Cerilly.

"Carlos did exactly as he was supposed to do," said Bjarne Riis, the manager of Sastre's CSC- Saxo Bank squad, one of the most high-profile squads in cycling, but a team who have never won the Tour de France. "He kept an even pace throughout, without ever losing the plot. That was really impressive."

After crossing himself on the starting ramp, the 33-year-old Spaniard plunged into the most crucial time trial of his life without a single glance at the Spanish flags waving on either side of the road.

Moving in and out of the saddle as the course weaved its way through the Forêt de Tronçais – Europe's largest oak forest – and past herds of Charolais cattle in the odd stretch of pastureland, the climber never seemed to push himself. But nor washe panicking.

"Even this morning I felt surprisingly good, not at all nervous," Sastre told reporters afterwards. "I was calm and willing to take things just however they turned out. I didn't think I had to think about what Evans had done or could do in the time trial, I just rode my own race."

His tactic paid off in spades. More than halfway through the time trial, Sastre was only 1min 41sec down on the eventual stage winner, Stefan Schumacher. Much more importantly, he had only lost 23 seconds to Evans. Victory was almost certain.

The second half of the course proved almost equally straightforward for the Spaniard, and Sastre even took the surprising risk of upping the pace towards the finish.

"At the end he was going as fast as [team-mate and World Time Trial champion] Fabian Cancellara," a delighted Riis said. "That said it all, really, about how confident he was."

After a quiet first two weeks, Sastre's rise to Tour victory had started earlier this week when he blasted off at the foot of the infamous Alpe d'Huez climb.

The Spaniard opened up a gap of over two minutes on the field, and moved into the first yellow jersey of his career ahead ofhis team-mate Frank Schleck. From then on, he could play a defensive game.

For Evans, seventh on the stage behind Schumacher, yesterday represented a huge disappointment. The former mountain biker's rise and rise through the Tour ranks – from eighth in 2005 to fourth in 2006 and second in 2007 – has suddenly been cut short thanks to a time trial, in theory a speciality he dominates.

He was able to limit the gaps on Sastre at Alpe d'Huez even though he was surprisingly isolated from his Silence-Lotto team-mates, and on the previous 14 occasions that he andSastre had crossed swords in a time trial, the Australian had always beaten the Spaniard.

But this time the Australian was clearly off the boil from the start. With his head rocking from side to side and his mouthwide open, it was evident that beating Sastre was going to be uphill work.

"He just didn't have the legs," Evans' manager, Marc Sergeant, said. "He was never really in contention."

Britain's David Millar, the winner of the Tour's final time trial in 2003, finished in a respectable fifth place. The Scot has done sterling work helping to defend his team leader Christian Vande Velde's placing in the general classification, but nonetheless still managed to finish fifth on the stage. "I've been getting very tired all this week, it's not been brilliant for me." Millar said.

"What I am pleased about is the way that Christian's done so well and come through so well." Vande Velde is likely to take fifth place overall in Paris.

All that remains for Sastre before he officially becomesthe 2008 Tour winner is today's 143km symbolic trek from Etampes through the Paris suburbs to the Champs Elysées. For the Spaniard the victory is the culmination of a string of top-10 positions in the overall classification of the Tours of France and Spain, although that success has resulted in comparatively few victories.

In a 12-year-career Sastre has only taken five wins, and this year his build-up to the Tour has been comparatively low-key, with no really impressive performances until he blasted off at the foot of Alpe d'Huez.

But although his Tour victoryis his and his alone, Sastre argued that it was his CSC-Saxo Bank squad who were ulti-mately responsible for getting him into a position from which he could clinch the win.

"We've taken the right decisions at the right time as a team, taken them together and worked hard at the moments we neededto" was Sastre's assessment. "That's what's given me the yellow jersey today."

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