SAINT-ETIENNE, France | No “crazy” attacks. Conserve energy. Those were the watchwords for Tour de France leader Carlos Sastre as he tries to protect a lead of just more than one minute as he heads into the final three days of the race that ends Sunday in Paris.Sastre, from Spain, didn’t see the chance he was looking for to expand his lead against his top rivals in Thursday’s 18th stage out of the Alps, which Germany’s Marcus Burghardt won by heading a two-man breakaway.
With a flat ride on tap today, the final showdown in cycling’s premier event comes in Saturday’s Stage 20 a 32.9-mile race from Cerilly to Saint-Amand-Montrond.Sastre insists that he doesn’t want to think about that stage just yet, but time trial aces Cadel Evans of Australia and Russia’s Denis Menchov who are among those nipping at his heels are clearly on his mind.
“At the Tour, you have to be wise and place your attacks well,” Sastre said. “It’s true that today was hard, but not enough to put Menchov or Evans in difficulty.”Sastre leads his CSC teammate Frank Schleck of Luxembourg by 1 minute, 24 seconds. Austria’s Bernhard Kohl is third, 1:33 behind. Evans is fourth, 1:34 back, and Menchov trails by 2:39 in fifth.
Of those, Evans, the 31-year-old Silence Lotto leader and Tour runner-up last year, appears to be the best-placed to take the yellow jersey off Sastre in time for Sunday’s finale of the three-week race on the Champs-Elysees.The title hopefuls were content to let Burghardt, a 25-year-old Team Columbia rider, and Carlos Barredo of Spain speed ahead during Thursday’s 122.1-mile ride from Bourg-d’Oisans to Saint-Etienne.
Barredo came into the stage more than two hours behind Sastre, and Burghardt was more than three hours back. The two riders often attacked each other in the last 6 miles, and at times chatted.Burghardt raised his fists in the air and clapped after he won a sprint against Barredo, who banged his handlebars in frustration.Schleck’s father stopped.French customs agents looking for doping products stopped, searched and released a car driven by the father of Tour de France riders Frank and Andy Schleck near Grenoble on Thursday.
Several products were taken from Johnny Schleck during the search of two cars. Raphael Grandfils, a state prosecutor in Grenoble said: “It turns out that this was not about forbidden products, but medicines that are totally normal to have."