Former Tour de France winner Stephen Roche believes Andy Schleck got it wrong in the decisive stage of this year’s race today.
Schleck trailed two-time winner Alberto Contador by eight seconds going into Stage 17, which finished at the summit of the hors categorie Col du Tourmalet in the Pyrenees.
He attacked Contador halfway up the Col but the Spaniard was able to keep pace, and while Schleck eventually took the stage victory the real winner on the day was Contador who retains the yellow jersey ahead of the final three stages, including his specialist event in the time trial on Saturday.
On Eurosport, however, Ireland’s former Tour, Giro D’Italia and World Championship winner Roche criticised Schleck’s tactics on the final climb.
He said, “Without being too critical … Andy Schleck rode a terribly bad race today. When he attacked he blew everybody out – he had Mr Contador, already twice a winner of the Tour de France, on his wheel and he wasn’t just going to ride him off his wheel.
“He should have kept Rodriguez, Menchov and Sanchez with him as long as he could, basically so they could have a chance of attacking as well.
“Schleck kept the pace so high that even when he accelerated he was only going up by a kilometre an hour, instead of going from say 16km an hour to 20km an hour, which may have hurt Contador.
“When Contador attacked Schleck it blew Schleck’s brains. It knocked the wind out of his sails. At that stage he should have counter-attacked straight away but he sat there mesmerised.
“Schleck shouldn’t have waited but what does he do? He sits up. The only solution was to go past him and attack. He was saying all along, ‘This is my big day. Do or die. Second in the Tour doesn’t interest me.’ But here he was, basically settling for second.â€
