Alberto Contador wins La Vuelta 2012!

El pistolero!

Five days ago, it seemed over. Rodriguez beat Contador in all the mountain stages and there looked to be no way for Alberto to bridge the gap; let alone take the lead.

But then, in one of the most shocking overhauls I have seen in road cycling, Contador won the 18th stage and wore the Red Jersey, leaving Rodriguez behind by almost three minutes. It wasn't even a mountain stage! There were two climbs, yes, but both category 3. Contador was smart enough to acknowledge that since his usual tactics were failing, he needed to attack on the pace.

In road cycling, "pace" is slang for riding on plain or slightly hilly terrain. Here the speed is higher, so the trail effect is stronger (tailgating another rider makes you go faster with less effort), and so it is very difficult to ride away from the peloton. This is what makes cycling such a team sport after all, because all other things being equal, a group of 10 riders is faster than a group of 5, a group of 20 is faster than a group of 10, etc. This is why stage races are almost always won in the mountains or time trials, for that's where you can truly make an individual difference. To successfully attack on the plains you'd have to make your whole team pull you, and your main opponents are likely to do the same with theirs, and it will be a sterile stalemate: much fatigue with little or no advantage. (Of course, many pace attacks do succeed, but almost always from no-name riders who have no stake in the general classification and who the peloton literally "allows" to ride away without chasing).

Contador, then, won this stage due to a mixture of these three factors: 1) Rodriguez either did not see Contador's attack or, if he did, decided that Contador and his small-ish group of 10 weren't going anywhere, and he let them go. 2) Rodriguez was too tired to chase. 3) Rodriguez's group tried but failed to ride as fast as Contador's. Be that as it may, Contador's group went away, and then one by one Contador dropped them all and went on his merry way.

L-R: Valverde, Contador, & Rodriguez contested a great Vuelta.

All except one, that is: Astana's Paolo Tiralongo. And this is where we need to take a step back. Rewind to the 2010 Tour de France, which Contador won and later saw revoked after the doping ban. Contador rode for Astana back then, and Tiralongo was his most trusted wingman, and Alberto clearly owed that win to his teammate's help in the mountains (see this piece about wingmen in pro road cycling in general). The following year, in the 2011 Giro d'Italia, Tiralongo was pursuing a stage win in Macugnaga. In the final kilometers, Alberto sprinted to the top of the breakaway, seemingly to pursue a stage win himself. Instead, Contador let Tiralongo tailgate him all the way to the finish line, finally moving aside to let him win. The amazing thing was that Contador, who would then win that Giro, was no longer riding for Astana. He had switched teams to Saxo the previous winter, but to honor his former teammate's efforts in the 2010 Tour, he helped him win a stage in the Giro. Their heartfelt hug after the finish line was one of the most touching moments of road cycling I'd seen until that point, and the two have remained great friends. (More on that now-classic stage here).

And this year at the Vuelta we saw another chapter of that friendship, as Tiralongo let Contador trail him for the better part of the final three kilometers, only stepping aside when he literally couldn't ride any more (here as in 2011, the two were riding for two different teams, again Astana and Saxo). Then it was up to Contador to win it, and he did, though that last kilometer after the red flag must have seemed to never end. So a stage that nobody would have indicated as being decisive turned out to be an instant classic, and it added another beautiful story of solidarity to the sport's lore.

Two days later, Contador resisted Rodriguez's final attack on the Bola del Mundo climb, taking but a 45-second hit. And today he wore Red into Madrid, winning his second Vuelta after 2007 and his first race since his return after the ban. Needless to say, this win is personally important for Contador far beyond the indubitable honor of winning a grand tour. He needed it badly and wanted it even more. Literally everything about him exuded the will to win this Vuelta, from his offense-minded climbing to his evening tweets.

Alberto wanted to let his opponents know that he was back and that the ban had been undeserved. More importantly, I think, he wanted to tell himself the same thing.

Below: Contador's triumphal arrival Thursday. More pictures here.