Contador wins, has Tour crown in bag

ANNECY, France – Alberto Contador won the final time trial in the Tour de France on Thursday, and Lance Armstrong moved up one spot to third place overall.

Contador now looks all but assured of his second Tour victory after increasing his overall lead in the 18th stage, in which riders embarked one-by-one down the start ramp for the 40.5-kilometer (25.2-mile) stage in and around Annecy.

The 2007 champion finished the stage in 48 minutes, 31 seconds – beating Fabian Cancellara of Switzerland by 3 seconds. Russia’s Mikhail Ignatiev was third, 15 seconds back.

“I went all out,” said Contador, adding that his earpiece radio linking him with Astana team managers stopped working during the stage, and that he was worried about Cancellara’s skill at time trials.

“Of course, what I especially wanted was to think about general class. A stage victory was less important,” he said. “I’m very happy. I didn’t expect it.”

Armstrong was 16th, 1:30 behind. But he easily overcame a 30-second deficit to Frank Schleck, who began the day in third place but slipped to sixth overall after finishing 2:34 behind Contador.

After the stage, Armstrong said he had “mixed emotions. Sixteenth in a time trial is not a good result, but my ambition is to get on the podium, so I have to be happy with that.”

Schleck and his younger brother Andy had bumped Armstrong from second place to fourth a day earlier in the last punishing Alpine stage.

“I suffered,” Armstrong said of the time trial. “I probably started too hard and maybe I was just empty from yesterday and those cramps I suffered at the end of the (17th) stage.”

Overall, Contador leads Andy Schleck by 4:11, Armstrong is 5:25 back and Britain’s Bradley Wiggins is fourth, 5:36 behind. Germany’s Andreas Kloeden, an Astana teammate of Contador and Armstrong, is fifth, 5:38 back. Frank Schleck is sixth, 5:59 behind.

While the stage was mostly flat, riders had to contend with the midlevel Bluffy pass climb, which snaked upward for 3.7 kilometers (2.3 miles) with magnificent vistas over the hill-ringed lake.

Several riders, including British time-trial specialist David Millar, said the course layout favored climbers because of that ascent.

“I felt like I had stopped dead in my tracks,” on the climb, Millar said.

The race against the clock started under cloudy skies. The sun eventually broke through, but rain doused the course by late afternoon and left patches of water on the roads.

Armstrong was relatively strong at the start, only 29 seconds slower than Contador through the second intermediate time check at the 25-kilometer mark. His main time deficit came on Bluffy – which peaked at 28.5 kilometers. There, he was 1:12 behind Contador.   (AP)