Tour de France 2010

Alberto Contador's chain reaction is Tour de France's defining momentIt is only because cycling sets such store by its complicated and historic etiquette that 's behaviour in yesterday's 15th stage created, to borrow his own word, "a polemic". In most other sports – think of eye-gouging in rugby, diving in football, and the end of walking in cricket – an attempt to take advantage of an opponent is simply the modern way. In cycling, the competitors' recognition of each other's suffering prompts chivalry.
Unlike golf, cycling is not smug about its unwritten protocols. They are not the inheritance of some dimly remembered public-school ethos but were forged in a furnace of pain, the result of a collective need to survive the tests offered by a day in the mountains in a race like the Tour de France.
That is why they are so important, and why the debate was so heated among the Tour's followers in the hours after Contador had taken the yellow jersey from Andy Schleck in Bagnères-de-Luchon. The Spaniard sprinted away to the top of the last climb of the day, the Port de Balès, while the Luxembourg rider was trying to put his chain back on, held on to a lead of 39sec at the finish, and took the race's overall leadership, which Schleck had held for six days.
Schleck's misfortune occurred just after he had launched what he obviously hoped would be the attack to increase his 31sec lead over Contador by a significant margin, thus weatherproofing him against his expected losses in Saturday's time trial. The chain came off when Contador was about 20m behind, and the Spaniard's claim that he was unaware that anything was wrong with Schleck did not have the ring of truth, not least because in the process he also overtook his own team-mate, Alexandre Vinokourov, who certainly knew what was happening.
Like Thierry Henry in last winter's World Cup play-off against the Republic of Ireland, Contador had a handful of seconds in which to make a decision that would have brought him a new kind of glory, in his case while also showing the world that cycling is anything but a sport corrupted to the core by decades of doping scandals.
Cogent arguments were made on both sides, the Spaniard's defence given added force by the knowledge that although no rider wins four grand tours, as he has, without the sliver of ice in his soul that denotes a ruthless competitor, he is a man whose pleasant disposition has hitherto been reflected in his approach to racing. Last year he won widespread sympathy by winning the race against a background of continued sniping from his team mate, Lance Armstrong, and the American's close confidant, Johan Bruyneel, their team manager.
There was also the suggestion that if Schleck lost his chain while changing gear on the sharp gradient – perhaps trying to switch ratios on both the front and rear derailleurs at the same time – then he only had himself to blame. And it was he, after all, who initiated the attack.
Nevertheless, after assessing the reaction – which included boos and whistles as he donned the jersey – and presumably viewing the footage of the incident, Contador chose to apologise a few hours later.
"Today I managed to get on the podium, which makes me happy," he said. "The problem with that was the circumstances. Right when I attacked on the last climb, Andy had a mechanical problem. The race was in full gear and, well, maybe I made a mistake. I'm sorry. At a time like that all you think about is riding as fast as you can. I'm not happy, in the sense that, to me, fair play is very important. The kind of thing that happened today is not something I like. It's not my style, and I hope my relationship with Andy will remain as good as before."
But nothing can change the fact that, in the heat of the moment, he rode on, and the mistake is one that he will have to live with, unless he also decides to find a way of giving back those lost 39 seconds to his opponent. Cycling keeps its history close to its heart, and incidents such as this are replayed in reminiscences and arguments down the decades. It may be that in those moments below the 1,755m summit of the Port de Balès, Contador created the defining moment of the 2010 Tour.