Thursday 7 July 2016 20:38, UK
The opening stages of the Tour de France could hardly have gone worse for Alberto Contador.
He has already crashed twice, been dropped by his rivals twice and now lies 1min 22sec adrift of the likes of Chris Froome, Nairo Quintana and Fabio Aru in the general classification.
He is also still suffering from superficial injuries sustained in his crashes, which is particularly bad news with three mountain stages in the Pyrenees looming on Friday, Saturday and Sunday.
So is this the end of Contador's hopes of overall victory?
The answer on paper is, of course, a firm no. There are still more than two weeks, more than 2,000km and potentially 60 hours of racing still to come and there is therefore plenty of scope for recovery, not to mention the prospect of similar adversity befalling his rivals.
Recent history also tells us that far greater deficits than Contador's can be overturned in much less time.
In May's Giro d'Italia, Vincenzo Nibali was badly out of form and sat 4min 43sec off the overall lead with three stages to go, but over the next three days he pulled off one of the greatest comebacks in cycling history.
While Nibali suddenly found his climbing legs, his rivals simultaneously wilted and the Italian rose from fourth overall to first, eventually winning by 52 seconds.
Another factor in Contador's favour is that despite now being 33 years old, he remains one of the best climbers, best tacticians and most aggressive racers in cycling, a rider who can never be counted out.
In the 2012 Vuelta a Espana, he was 28 seconds down on Joaquim Rodriguez after 16 stages and was struggling to get the better of his fellow Spaniard in the mountains.
But then on stage 17, he embarked on what a he called a "kamikaze" solo attack, audaciously and unexpectedly surging out of the peloton on an innocuous category-two climb with a huge 55km to go.
Having received helped from team-mates and friends further up the road, he won the stage, finished 2min 38sec ahead of a stunned Rodriguez and went on to seal overall victory four days later.
But the signs are not all encouraging for Contador.
The fact he is four years older than on that memorable day is an obvious factor. He is now past his peak rather than being right in the middle of it and no longer seems capable of blowing rivals away in the way he did Rodriguez.
At Paris-Nice in March, he launched a similar long-range attack at Geraint Thomas in an attempt to unseat the Welshman from the race lead and although it made for one of the most entertaining days of cycling in the past 10 years, Contador was ultimately caught and had to settle for second place overall.
Of far bigger concern for Contador, however, is the fact he is also up against two of the most formidable opponents of his career in Froome and Quintana, both of whom are younger men in or approaching their prime, and both of whom he has repeatedly been beaten by in the past couple of years.
His record head-to-head against Froome on mountain-top finishes in the past two seasons is won three and lost eight, while against Quintana his record is won three and lost seven.
Two of his defeats to Froome were also as recent as last month's Criterium du Dauphine, when he was clearly some way short of the Briton's electric climbing form.
Team strength is another factor. While Team Sky and Movistar have both sent supreme climbing units to the Tour, Contador's Tinkoff line-up is considerably weaker and he is unlikely to be able call on team-mates to wear down Froome and Quintana. If he is going to overturn his deficit, he will probably have to do it on his own.
It would have been tough to beat Froome and Quintana had he reached the Pyrenees level on time and healthy, but given that he is both 1min 21sec adrift and injured, Contador's chances of a third Tour victory currently look grim at best.
