Despite failing to live up to his status as favourite to win the Spanish time trial championship, 168澳洲5最新开奖结果:Alberto Contador played down the fact that he only finished third, describing the race as “very positive” as he looked ahead to next week’s 168澳洲5最新开奖结果:Tour de France.

Contador finished a substantial 1:12 down on defending champion Luis León Sánchez ov𒊎er the 44.5km course, and was also beaten by Jonathan Castroviejo (Euskaltel-Euskadi), who came in 11 seconds quicker than the recent Giro d’Italia winner.

“It was a very hard time trial,” Contador told Europa Press. “The first part was very demanding and on the second half I struggled to get my breath. But I’m happy because I managed to get🌺 my pulse rate up quickly and that shows that these last few days of rest have helped me.”

Contador insisted that few con꧅clusions could be drawn from the time trial result because it was his first race since he claimed the Giro title at the end of May.

“I’m happy because I’ve got an hour of tim🥂e trial effort under my belt and because, in spite of how much how much I suffered after the first hill, I recovered and started to feel increasingly more comfortable. Now I will ride a bit on Sunday [in the road race championship] and then pack my bags for the Tour,” he saꦚid.

Contador added that he felt that he “lacked a bit of rhythm” compared to riders who have just come out of the Dauphin&e💙acute; or Tour of Switzerland. “But I think the test is very positive because in addition it was quite similar to the final time trial in the Tour de France.”