Thaindian News

At the end of the stage 18 of the 2009 Tour de France, Alberto Contador still managed to remain ahead of all the others, warding off off all the attacks and keeping stiff competition at bay, as the entourage raced around Lake Annecy. Contador did not only win the second of the two individual races of time trials in the stage but the Spaniard also retained his hold on the Yellow Jersey, as the elite Tour fast draws towards its end towards the victory podium in Paris later this week.

He left behind the persistent Andy Schleck by almost a margin of 4 minutes as he dashed for the finish. His teammate, Lance Armstrong managed to climb up by one step as he occupied the third rank overall, from his previous fourth.

In the group of riders, only two managed to finish the stage at an average speed of more than 50 km per hour; the two being Contador and Fabian Cancellara, who is the runner up in Annecy and is also regarded as a time trial specialist. Contador held back Cancellara by a margin of two seconds as he raced towards the end of the line in the race that spread over a distance of 40.5 km. In his ardent efforts, he managed to put a gap of more than 50 seconds between him and the other GC competitors, which also included his teammates Andreas Kloden and Lance Armstrong.

The other three who rounded up the top five for the day were Mikhail Ignatiev (0:15) from Katusha, Gustav Erik Larsson (0:33) from Saxo Bank and David Millar (0:40) from Garmin.