Bad manners or bad luck?

There is an unwritten rule in cycling that says that you can’t take advantage of the misfortune of others. “Taking advantage,” means not attacking the unfortunate rider while “misfortune” in this sense would mean a crash or a mechanical problem. Also included in this “misfortune” clause are taking a bathroom break (along the road, of course) and in feed zones.

So the big argument going on in the Tour and probably in the years to come is whether Alberto Contador was right when he didn’t wait for Andy Schleck after Schleck dropped his chain.

Just a few moments before Schleck’s misfortune, he made a strong attack on Contador that only Contador’s teammate, Alexander Vinokourov could match. Of course, we’ll never know if Schleck could have dropped Contador or Contador could have gotten back and dropped Schleck. The point of contention here is whether Contador should have honored the unwritten rule to wait for Schleck or not.

Contador claims that he was so focused on himself that he didn’t know what happened to Schleck. But if you saw the video clip, it was clear that Contador had a good view of what happened to Schleck. But Contador, who was probably wearing blinders, claims he didn’t see anything. It didn’t help that his team director, Giuseppe Martinelli, told reporters, “I didn’t tell him to wait, that’s for sure...”

On the other hand, the Tour is a dog-eat-dog race. There is very little room for error. A dropped chain could probably be the fault of SAXO BANK’s team mechanic and therefore a part of the race.in fact, tour champions Laurent Fignon, Bernard Thevenet and Bernard Hinault said that mechanicals are just a part of a bike race.

In the heat of battle, with so little oxygen in the brain to think with, it is hard to make the right decision. Some people can make a quick ethical decision and some can’t. Maybe Contador’sbrain are not as quick as his accelerations or maybe he is a quick thinker made the decision to forged ahead. Besides, he just couldn’t allow Sammy Sanchez and Denis Menchov to go while he waited for Contador. But then, he could have asked the duo to wait for Schleck who was, at one point during the chase, was just 15sec behind.

In the end, moral champions are just nothing but moral champions. In the 1987 Tour, Stephen Roche pre-planned an attack on a feed zone that cost Jean-Francois Bernard the yellow jersey. Roche would go on to win his only Tour (and Girod’Italia and World Championships in the same year). He would enjoy the financial windfall from his win while Bernard is remembered as the guy who lost the Tour. – THE FREEMAN