Contador shakes off race leader Diaz at the finish of today’s stage 6 at the Tour de San Luis in Argentina
Philip Deignan has once again shown he is in very good form at the Tour de San Luis in Argentina, climbing very strongly on today’s summit finish of stage 6, though losing a little more time than he would have liked.
The Unitedhealthcare professional started the day in 13th place overall thanks to good rides on the race’s two mountain stages and time trial since the event began last Monday. With today’s stage finishing on top of the 8km long Mirador de Sol fist category climb, it promised to be a bruising early season encounter, and so it came to pass.
Contador (Saxo-Tinkoff) attacked what was left of the select group with just 1km to go. The only rider who could follow him was race leader Daniel Diaz (San Luis Somos Todos).
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And though Contador dropped the Argentine in the last kick to the line and put two seconds into him, the local rider still leads the race.
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He has 33 seconds to spare on Tejay van Garderen (BMC) going into tomorrow’s final stage, which features just one third category climb.
When the road went skywards today in the finale, Deignan was not as good as some but he was better than most.
He hung on for a long time at the very head of the race until the pace split things late on. He eventually came home in 24th place, 1:22 down on the stage winner. That result means he has slipped in the overall standings from 13th this morning to 16th this evening after today’s penultimate stage. He trails the race leader Diaz by 4:30.
However, the Irishman will not be too concern about that. He had an indifferent season last year, his first with Unitedhealthcare, and the team had said in recent weeks they were still confident he would get results and that he was pressing the “reset” button for 2013.
While still only in its infancy, Deignan’s 2013 campaign has certainly started on the right note.
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