In Praise of Contador

Much like his native Spain’s World Cup victory, Alberto Contador’s 2010 Tour de France wasn’t pretty or overpowering. However, it still produced the winning formula, and a ceremonial stroll down the Champs-Elysees to claim his third Tour de France is all that remains.

He will ride through the streets of Paris, drinking champagne and savoring the ultimate prize – one final yellow jersey ceremony. He won’t cross the line first, but it won’t matter. He has yet to claim a stage victory over the course of three grueling weeks (the first champion since 1990 to be shut out), but his dominance still shone through when it mattered most.

That ability to seize the moment when it came before him will surely be of comfort during future struggles; this was supposed to be a preordained win, yet his chances often seemed to rest on shakier footing than the cobblestones upon which he rode.

He struggled to a sluggish sixth-place finish in the opening prologue and then bled out time before reeling in 2009 runner-up Andy Schleck. Even his seizure of the yellow jersey left more questions than answers. His attack in stage 15 coincided with a Schleck mechanical error that Contador (perhaps rightly) claimed he never saw. He endured his fair share of criticism for the supposed breach of Tour etiquette, but few pointed out the minute of time that Contador lost when Schleck attacked in stage 3 with many of the favorites impeded by a crash pileup.

The eight seconds that separated them set the stage for the most significant stage of the Tour, a torturous “Beyond Category” climb up the Col du Tourmalet in stage 17. Schleck all but conceded beforehand that he would need to take back the yellow jersey plus a minute of cushion to fend off Contador in the time trial of the Tour’s penultimate stage.

The five-hour long stage featured more foreplay and time killing than “The Decision,” but unlike LeBron’s snoozefest, the last hour produced some of the most compelling drama in the race’s 97-year history.

With roughly six miles to go, Schleck made his move, driving forward and bringing Contador with him up the misty mountaintop. The scene was nearly primal – no barriers to contain the masses of costumed fans who crept dangerously close to the pair as they churned onward. Flags waved, horns honked, voices screamed and the fog grew so thick that it forced cameramen to repeatedly wipe their lenses. If ever there was a place to decide a championship, this was it.

Contador didn’t need to win, but he couldn’t afford to be dropped. Schleck, on the other hand, was in go-for-broke mode, emptying his arsenal in an attempt to crack the defending champion and leave him broken on the mountainside.

For ages they stayed together, Schleck surging forward and varying the pace. At one point, Contador attacked, but it was more speculative than aggressive. After Schleck quickly chased him down, the Spaniard seemed content to sit on his foe’s wheel for the remainder of the ascent.

And so they arrived at the summit, locked together, a victory for Contador and a huge blow to his challenger. Contador, in a show of sportsmanship, allowed Schleck to take the stage win, perhaps as an apology for the incident that occurred only days before. It was a sporting gesture, and certainly repayment enough.

Just as suspected, Contador dug further into the lead in Saturday’s time trial, gaining 21 seconds on Schleck and locking up his third title.

Sunday’s ride will be a coronation that will offer up an unspoken challenge to the sport’s gold standard: Armstrong’s seven titles.

Contador is 27 years old and just now hitting his stride, three Tours in hand. For some perspective, Armstrong won his first at age 28. From 2007 to present, he has entered five Grand Tours – three Tours de France, one Giro d’Italia and one Vuelta a Espana.

He won them all.

Armstrong, meanwhile, owes his former teammate an apology. He spent the 2009 Tour whining like a petulant schoolchild, had Contador carry him to a third-place finish, and then pulled the stunt of stunts to form his own team.

Where’s Lance?

40 minutes back. One year removed from a spot on the podium.

Cycling is a sport increasingly prone to… cycles. Indurain won five Tours, as did Merckx, Hinault, and Anquetil. Armstrong won seven. And now Contador has won three.

That kernel of knowledge lives in Andy Schleck, and will surely haunt his dreams. For every Affirmed, winner of the 1978 Triple Crown, there is an Alydar, who finished second in all three races by a combined margin of less than three lengths. For every Lance Armstrong, there is a Jan Ullrich, who owns five second-place finishes in the Tour.

This was Contador at his weakest, and he still found a way to haul himself up the mountains and grind through the time trials. He did it when it mattered.

Can he get eight?

Don’t bet against it.

Oranje Crush

I love the Dutch.

There’s really no other way to put it.

As an American soccer fan, it’s almost unquestioned that there has to be a second team. One day, that won’t be the case. But for now, somebody has to fill the gap each time our collection of futbol neophytes is excused from competition in yet another painstaking fashion.

In times past, those teams have been Mexico (for their passion) and Italy (for their brilliance in finding ways to win). And while I’ve been as devoted as any polygamist could be to his second wife, there have been numerous realizations that seem to cool the flames of fandom rather than stoke them. Namely, in the case of Mexico, the facts that their fans love to throw cups and bags full of urine and vomit on American players. During the game. Or, in Italy’s case, the fact that they seem hell-bent on turning The Beautiful Game into a diving competition. Put any of those 10 field players on springboard in London two years from now and we’ll be cueing up the Italian national anthem after they take the gold medal.

In short, the second marriage has been… lacking.

I am the world’s worst cheater.

Enter the Dutch – with their ostentatious color scheme, remarkable fans, beautiful soccer, fantastic nicknames and general all-around sexiness.

I’m smitten.

Start with the orange – or oranje, I should say. The color is beautiful to behold en masse. It’s garish and jolting. My first experience with it came from the Winter Olympics years ago. The Dutch clearly drew the short straw when sporting dominance was being distributed. America got baseball, Brazil got soccer, India got cricket, New Zealand got rugby, Canada got hockey. The Dutch have long track speed skating. Bless them. But there they were in Nagano, Japan, filling the entire arena in a giant orange wave, blowing horns (no, not those), waving flags, and generally raising hell that should never be raised in such a venue, especially more than 5,000 miles away from the motherland.

That particular party was thrown to watch competitors skate 25 laps on an icy track, two at a time. Imagine a soccer game on the world’s biggest stage, in a place that they used to own. (No, really, look it up. They owned Cape Town. Sore subject there.) It’s wild, to say the least. They’re the fun of Brazil minus the Samba, Mexico minus the piss balloons, England minus the bitching and moaning. Paaaaaarty.

And then there’s the nicknames, an infinite array of possibilities. The simple Oranje, the Americanized Orange Crush, Orange Alert and Clockwork Orange. The Flying Dutchmen. There are the cheers – “Hup Hup!” It’s all beautiful. The player names are equally glorious, with more vans than a pedophile convention. Van Bronckhorst. Van der Vaart. Van Persie. Van de Wiel. On and on… wonderful.

Lastly, the on-field product has an interesting – baffling, really – history. The Netherlands showed up at the second and third World Cups (ready to party, no doubt) and didn’t make it out of the first round either time. From there, they missed out on the next six tournaments, until the mid-1970s, when they played the best soccer anyone has played in the history of the game. Total Football, as it was called, relied on the 10 field players (minus the keeper) being able to rotate to any position at any point in the game. The Dutch mastered it, and in today’s world of specialization, nobody will ever play it as well as they did during those years. Unfortunately, they ran into the dirty little secret of the World Cup – the home team wins. In 1974 and 1978, they lost in the finals to the hosts – West Germany first, Argentina second. They promptly fell back off the face of the Earth, failing to qualify for the next two editions.

However, they are currently in a revival of the glory days, having made the semi-finals in 1998 and the knockout stage in 2006. They deserve the star above the crest that comes with World Cup glory more than any other country without one. If they beat Spain, they’ll be the first team in the history of the Cup to make it through seven games undefeated and untied. It will be a monumental achievement.

Nike began the Cup with a Write Your Story advertising campaign. It featured their star teams and players – Brazil (bounced by the Dutch), Ronaldinho (didn’t make the team), Ronaldo (one goal), Rooney (goalless). The Dutch are a Nike team. Nothing. Not one second in a three-minute commercial.

Here’s hoping they write their story today.

Tomorrow’s headline – Hup, Hup Hooray!