Alberto Contador (42), a double winner of the Tour de France, admires modern offensive and daring cycling but the Spaniard notes a huge difference in the monitoring of runners, based on mathematical and scientific data.
Eight years after the cessation of his superb career, Alberto Contador (42) would imagine himself well in current platoons. In an interview with the Gazzetta dello Sport, the Spaniard confides very much to appreciate the offensive and daring way of approaching the races of the new generation. “Ah, as I would have liked to run in this cycling, with this imagination and these continuous attacks, even from afar,” he gets carried away. “And sometimes, when I am on the races and I see a coast, I say to myself: ‘Ah, I am no longer in good shape, but it was just for me … I imagine that I am still in the race’.”
“Today, patches measure the time that a frost puts to reach the body”
It is not the only difference that he notices with cycling of his time, from the beginning of the 2000s to the mid -2010s. The winner of the three great towers (twice the Tour de France) notes a much more advanced and scientific follow -up of the runners. He saw it through his team Polti Visitmalta, of which he is managing director with his brother Fran and former runner Ivan Basso, and his consulting activities for Eurosport.
-Winner of Liège-Bastogne-Liège, the extraordinary spring of Pogacar on the classics
What makes the biggest difference in this cycling? “Food, above all, and recovery,” replied the native of Madrid. “Before, I ate bars and gels, but today, nutrition is incredible. I never weighed what I was eating on the scale, but I felt my body and I knew what he needed.”
“Today, they train with patches that measure blood sugar to determine the absorption of a frost, they study the time it puts to reach the body, they measure the skin temperature to understand the functioning of the heart, they know the optimal temperature to stimulate recovery: everything is much more scientific”, synthesizes the “pistolero”. “I was part of a large team of 70 people, today we are more than 100. I felt my body, and it was wonderful, it was my sensations, we could have more or less sensitivity, and that made the difference. Today, everything is calculated: it goes beyond the figures.”
