Alberto Contador (Tinkoff-Saxo) has ruled himself out of taking part in next month’s Vuelta a España.
Alberto Contador (Tinkoff-Saxo).
Photo: Tim de Waele / TDW Sport
The Spaniard crashed out of this year’s Tour de France with a fractured leg, but bounced back within 48 hours to claim that he could race the Vuelta, which starts next month.
He gave himself a forty day window of recovery after it was confirmed that his leg did not need surgery but on Wednesday morning he took to Twitter to announce that he would miss the race.
“Bad day, the wound healing gets complicated. I’ve no date to take the bike. Goodbye to the Vuelta,” Contador said.
The news comes as a hammer blow for the Tinkoff-Saxo team, who although have won two stages in this year’s Tour de France, were hoping that Contador would regain fitness and challenge for a grand tour.
Michael Rogers won the team’s second Tour de France stage in Bagnères-de-Luchon on Tuesday after a solo attack in the closing kilometres.
Bjarne Riis spoke to Cyclingnews at the finish and said that Contador’s recovery would depend on how much longer he spent off the bike.
“It’s tough and it’s going to be a long process,” he told Cyclingnews.
“It’s only been a week and it’s going to take another week before we really know how his recovery is going. He had a broken leg after all.” – Cyclingnews
