Sastre’s Quiet Sacrifice Pays Its Reward

At Tour de France parties all around the world yesterday, cycling fans raised a glass of Champagne to toast a new champion, Carlos Sastre.We did so hesitantly, because we have been fooled before. When drug tests disclosed that the winner two years ago wasn’t who we thought he was, it looked like this sport was headed for the medical waste bin. Last year’s eleventh-hour dismissal of the leader on similar charges seemed to confirm it.On the other hand, tighter drug testing policies and an exciting, competitive race this year might have breathed new life into the staggering sport. The cycling world is eager to believe that Sastre is the drug-free, steel-nerved veteran he appears to be, a 33-year-old perennial hopeful who quietly hammered out top-10 finishes year after year and who worked out the kinks in his strategy to come out on top, at last.After he out-dueled Cadel Evans of Australia in Saturday’s time trial — a testament to his focus on improving in that discipline — and held on to his overall victory by 1 minute and 5 seconds, Sastre was asked if the world should prepare for any surprises. Was he clean?“I’m a clean rider, and I know what sacrifices I’ve made to get this far,” he told the gathered press. “I can hold my head up high and say there are people who work hard and make sacrifices to achieve their goals in the most honest way possible.”If that is the case, then the Tour has a refreshing story to tell. It is about a determined Spaniard who suffered through 16 world-class races with only a third-place Tour finish on his resumé. It is a story is about a quiet rider in a field of self-promoters, so understated in his demeanor and laid-back in his approach that his own teammates could not be convinced to throw their weight behind him from the beginning, even though he is their most seasoned rider.That is partly because it is difficult to be noticed on a team such as CSC. Stuart O’Grady, Jens Voigt, Fabian Cancellara, and Bradley McGee are all big names, yet they weren’t even among the team’s contenders. Team CSC had three potential leaders and one official one: Andy Schleck, a prerace favorite and ultimately the winner of the white jersey for the top-rank rider under 25. Schleck’s brother, Frank, was the other hopeful, and was until last week its brightest star, wearing the yellow jersey into the Alps.American teammate Bobby Julich, who didn’t ride in this edition but Web-logged about it from his computer, admitted that he hadn’t put enough store in Sastre’s abilities to call him captain.“Throughout the year, I’d say to him, ‘Hey, man, if you want to be the leader of CSC or of any team, you have to give us something or give us motivation to work for you,'” Julich wrote. “But that’s never been his style. He’s not that kind of person.”“Carlos is calm,” echoed his team manager, Bjarne Riis, who won the Tour in 1996. “He’s not a rider to make a big show, but he’s done it twice in this Tour, first at the Alpe d’Huez and second at the time trial in Saint-Amand-Montrond. … He was sure of himself. He was never nervous. That’s his best quality.”On the base of the Alpe d’Huez, on the toughest climbing day of the race, Sastre beat everyone’s expectations by attacking ahead of the Schleck brothers, who never caught up. It was a bittersweet moment for Frank Schleck, who saw his yellow jersey disappear in that climb but lost it to a deserving teammate.“The most important thing about this Tour is that we rode as a team,” Frank Schleck said. “We sacrificed for Carlos, but he sacrificed for me earlier in the race. That’s what sets us apart. … Not many in the sport race like that.”Turning Sastre loose on the final climb was a shrewd team tactic because he was the stronger time-trialist of the two. He had been perfecting that aspect of his riding ever since repeatedly missing out on the podium, in part for poor races against the clock.Unsurprisingly, CSC won the award for the best team performance, as well as the admiration of every contender in this Tour. Evans and Denis Menchov, the top two prerace favorites, and Bernhard Kohl, a 26-year-old Austrian from Gerolsteiner who burst onto the scene this year by winning third place overall and the polka-dot jersey for best climber, each had a shot at the yellow jersey, but they regularly found themselves surrounded by a company of red, white, and black.Stricter doping regulations that saw about a dozen riders tested per day might have turned this Tour into another litany of arrests and scandals. In all, four riders tested positive for banned substances, and the Saunier Duval team withdrew after its leader, Riccardo Ricco, was caught with illegal levels of erythropoietin.In the end, though, the focus of this Tour was the quiet achiever who became the third Spanish winner in as many years (the seventh overall), and the selfless team that helped him get there. Sastre knew just whom to thank when he accepted the sport’s top honor in Paris.“It could never have happened without the support of my teammates, my directors, and the support staff,” he said. “This victory is just as much mine as theirs. I thank everyone who has supported me and never lost faith in me.”jmoretti@nysun.com

Sastre’s Quiet Sacrifice Pays Its Reward

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