Sports

Tour de France Stage 15 Alberto Contador Gains Yellow Jersey

by Barbara McPherson | July 19, 2009 at 07:41 am

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Stage 15 of the Tour de France saw an exciting finish to the mountain route Pontarlier to Verbier with Alberto Contador(Astana) showing an amazing burst of speed to finish first and earn the yellow jersey. The 207 km route finished on a mountaintop with Andy Schlek(Saxobank) placing second and Vincenzo Nibali(Liquigas) third. The Schlek brothers tried valiently to catch Alberto Contador but couldn't match Contador's acceleration.

Stage 15 Finish:

1. Alberto Contador (Astana)

2. Andy Schlek (Saxobank)

3. Vincenzo Nibali (Liquigas)

4. Frank Schlek (Saxobank)

5. Bradly Wiggins (Garmin)

6. Lance Armstrong (Astana)

Today's stage win shook up the overall standings for the Tour. Alberto Contador stands in first place Lance Armstrong is in second place with a gap of less than 2 minutes. Third place in the Tour is currently held by Bradley Wiggins also with less than a 2 minute gap. Team Astana under the direction of Johan Bruyneel looks like it is taking control of the race.

Simon Spilak(Lampre) who was nearly eliminated because of a slow finish in a previous stage but reinstated because of crowd interference showed his competitive spirit today riding in the breakaway group and 15 km from the finish line, riding out solo for much of the climb.

Canadian cyclist Ryder Hesjedal(Garmin) is still riding strong. He was part of the 10 man breakaway group.

Two more riders were forced to withdraw from the Tour. Tom Boonan(Qickstep) was too ill to continue the race. He had been plagued with bad luck from Monaco. Vladimir Efimkin(AG2R) also abandoned today. He suffered a serious crash in a previous stage and had been riding hurt.

Tomorrow is a rest day. Tuesday Stage 16 Martigny to Bourg-Saint-Maurice, a distance of 159 km sees more mountains.

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mbaumgartner

at 09:22 on July 20th, 2009

Hi Barbara,

I've taken the liberty of adding a SCAN widget to this story. We're in the early stages of trying it out, I hope it's OK that I used your story as a test, let me know if I can do so for the rest of the stages. We're currently managing some issues but the scan should be visible to everyone shortly.

Here's what we're trying to do with SCAN.

Thanks for posting this and keeping us up to date.