MADRID, (Reuters) – Tour de France winner Alberto Contador found the time he spent off the road with Astana team mate Lance Armstrong tougher than the race itself, the Spaniard said yesterday.
The 26-year-old picked up his second Tour title in Paris on Sunday, finishing ahead of Luxembourg’s Andy Schleck and Armstrong who came third.
“My relationship with Lance Armstrong is zero,” Contador told a news conference in Madrid, where he was given a hero’s welcome.
“He is a great rider and has completed a great race but it is another thing on a personal level, where I have never had great admiration for him and I never will.
“On this Tour, the days in the hotel were harder than the those on the road.
“The situation was tense and delicate because the relationship between myself and Lance extended to the rest of the staff.”
Contador, publicly criticised by Armstrong for ignoring team orders during the Tour, refused to be drawn on his future but it was unlikely to lie with his current team Astana.
“We’ll have to see what happens,” he said. “I don’t know where I will go but it will clearly be with a team that is 100 percent behind me.”
After being greeted by family, friends and fans at Madrid’s Barajas airport, Contador was given a victory reception by the president of Madrid’s regional government in the centre of the capital.
At every opportunity fans sang the Spanish national anthem as a reminder to Tour organisers who accidently played the national anthem of Denmark at the podium ceremony on Sunday.
