Carlos Sastre

Infobox Cyclist
ridername = Carlos Sastre Candil

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|200px
fullname = Carlos Sastre Candil
nickname =
dateofbirth = birth date and age|1975|4|22 [ [http://www.carlossastre.com/Ficha-Tecnica.html Ficha Técnica] ]
country = ESP
height = height|m=1.73
weight = convert|60|kg|lb st|abbr=on|lk=on
currentteam = Team CSC Saxo Bank
discipline = Road
role = Rider
ridertype = Climbing specialist
amateuryears =
amateurteams =
proyears = 1998–2001
2002–
proteams = ONCE
Team CSC Saxo Bank
majorwins = (2006)
updated = July 27, 2008

Carlos Sastre Candil (born 22 April 1975 in Leganés, Madrid) is a Spanish professional road bicycle racer and champion of the 2008 Tour de France. Through his consistently improved top 10 results in the Vuelta a España and good showings in the Tour de France, Sastre established himself as a strong and stable climbing specialist, and after working to improve his individual time trial skills, he has become a contender for the top GC spots in the Grand Tours.

Biography

Sastre signed his first professional contract in 1997 with Spanish team ONCE. In his five years at ONCE he mostly served as a domestique and only managed a few wins, though he showed his strength in the mountains with several good results, most notably winning the mountain competition in the 2000 Vuelta a España.

In 2002 he switched to the Danish Team CSC, where he filled the role of captain in the Vuelta a España and, until 2005, had a free role in the Tour de France. This resulted in his winning the 13th stage of the 2003 Tour de France, which Sastre won with a pacifier in his mouth, as a greeting to his infant daughter. Sastre finished 2 minutes 32 seconds ahead of team captain Tyler Hamilton on the stage.

Before the 2004 season, Carlos Sastre and teammate Ivan Basso trained extensively to improve their individual time trial skills, making them better all-round riders. They went to Boston to train on MIT's wind tunnel. This helped Sastre improve his Vuelta a España performance, ranking 6th in the overall classification, as well as 8th in the 2004 Tour de France.

In the 2005 Tour de France he was a domestique for Ivan Basso, and 21st in the overall classification. However, as the captain of Team CSC's 2005 Vuelta a España campaign, Sastre finally reached the podium of a Grand Tour, finishing in third place behind Denis Menchov and initial winner Roberto Heras. Heras was later disqualified due to a positive EPO test, making Sastre the de facto second placed rider of the competition. After the Vuelta a España, he extended his contract with Team CSC for another year. In May 2006 he signed a new contract which expires after the 2008 season.

2006

Before the 2006 Giro d'Italia in May, Sastre decided to ride the Giro d'Italia to help Ivan Basso to win, [ [http://www.team-csc.com/ny_news.asp?n_id=890 Sastre in Giro line-up] , "Team CSC", 2006] indicating that he would ride all three Grand Tours; the Giro and Tour in support of Basso and the Vuelta as team captain. In the Giro, Sastre's pace on select mountain stages helped Basso win the overall classification. Sastre finished 43rd in the GC of the 2006 Giro.

Days before the 2006 Tour de France started in July, Team CSC suspended Ivan Basso as his name was brought up in the Operación Puerto doping case. This meant Sastre became the CSC team captain at the 2006 Tour. Even though his main focus for the season had been the 2006 Vuelta a España in September, this Tour was a great opportunity for Sastre to prove himself as a Tour GC contender. Through the mountain stages, Sastre proved himself the strongest mountain rider in the peloton, beating Floyd Landis by one minute and 59 seconds and Andreas Klöden by two and a half minutes on mountain climbs. [da icon [http://tour.tv2.dk/article.php/id-4544669.html Sastre var bedst i bjergene] , TV 2, July 22, 2006] Sastre was placed well on stage 15, and came in 2nd on both stage 16 and 17, where he closed the gap to the then yellow jersey Óscar Pereiro. Before the penultimate stage of the Tour, the stage 19 individual time trial, Sastre was the second placed rider overall, trailing race leader Óscar Pereiro by 14 seconds. However, on the final time trial, which stretched 57 kilometres between Le Creusot and Montceau-les-Mines, Sastre finished 20th, losing several minutes to Pereiro, eventual overall winner Floyd Landis and Andreas Klöden, who took third place overall. Sastre thus finished the 2006 Tour in 4th place. Floyd Landis has since been stripped of this title, making Sastre 3rd in the 2006 Tour de France.

By completing the Vuelta, Sastre, who also rode the Giro d'Italia and Tour de France in 2006, became one of a rare breed of riders to finish all three Grand Tours in one year.

Tour de France 2008

Coming into the 2008 Tour de France, Sastre was considered one of the favourites to win the race along with Australia's Cadel Evans of Team Silence-Lotto, Spain's Alejandro Valverde of Caisse d'Epargne and Russia's Denis Menchov of Rabobank. He also faced competition within his own team from brothers Andy and Fränk Schleck, despite officially being the leader of Team CSC.

Sastre had a quiet, understated opening to the tour. After a lackluster opening time-trial, he remained relatively restrained in the opening mountain stages in the Pyrenees and opted to stay defensive and follow the wheel of his main rivals. This allowed his CSC teammate Fränk Schleck to claim the yellow jersey at the finish to stage 15 at Prato Nevoso. However, on the crucial 17th stage, Sastre showed his class and mountain climbing prowess, attacking at the bottom of the final climb of the day, Alpe d'Huez, to claim the stage and the yellow jersey. Sastre, knowing Cadel Evans to be a strong time-trialist (the time trial being raced on the penultimate day of the race) sought to gain a lead over Evans by a couple of minutes, knowing that a lead of only a few seconds probably would not fare well for him going into the upcoming time trail. He achieved this goal, and with a superb time trial, wrote himself into the records books as the winner of the 2008 Tour of France.

Going into the final time trial, Sastre had an advantage of 1 minute and 24 seconds over his teammate Fränk Schleck, although more crucially he had 10 seconds more over Cadel Evans, a man considered a more accomplished time trialist than himself. Evans was widely expected to overcome the deficit to leapfrog Sastre. However, Sastre managed to hold onto his lead in the time trial, finishing the Tour with a 58 second lead.

Sastre's victory capped an exceptional 2008 tour for the Danish Team CSC Saxo Bank. CSC also won the young rider classification with Andy Schleck and the overall team classification, as well as 2 stages, the latter being won by Carlos Sastre, on l'Alpe d'Huez.

2009

Carlos Sastre contract with CSC will expire in December of 2008, so many rumours about Sastre future where on the headlines since the win of the Tour de France. After many newspapers confirmed his transfer to the new Russian team Katyusha, Sastre denied this and it was announced on the 5th of September 2008 that he signed a contract with the new team Cérvelo TestTeam for 2009.

Major results

;2000: King of the Mountains and 8th Overall, Vuelta a España;2001: Stage 3, Vuelta a Burgos: 20th Overall, Tour de France;2002: 10th Overall, Tour de France;2003: Stage 13 win and 9th Overall, Tour de France;2004: 8th Overall, Tour de France: 6th Overall, Vuelta a España;2005: 21st Overall, Tour de France: 2nd Overall, Vuelta a España: Stage 1, Escalada a Montjuïc;2006: 3rd Overall, Tour de France:: 5th Stage 11, Tour de France:: 2nd (1st)* Stage 16, Tour de France:: Stage 17, Tour de France: 43rd Overall, Giro d'Italia: 4th Overall, Vuelta a España:: Gold jersey (general classification) leader (after Prologue TTT):: White jersey (combination classification) leader (after Stages 8-16)

: Klasika Primavera;2007: 4th Overall, Tour de France:: 5th, Stage 14:: 8th, Stage 16: 2nd Overall, Vuelta a España;2008: Tour de France:: Winner overall classification:: 8th, Stage 6:: 7th, Stage 10:: 6th, Stage 15:: 1st, Stage 17: 3rd Overall, Vuelta a España:: 7th, Stage 7:: 8th, Stage 12:: 5th, Stage 13:: 6th, Stage 14

References

External links

* [http://www.carlossastre.com/ Official homepage]
* [http://www.team-csc.com/person_profiles.asp?p_id=9&lang=uk Team CSC profile]

Persondata
NAME=Sastre, Carlos
ALTERNATIVE NAMES=Sastre Candil, Carlos
SHORT DESCRIPTION=Road bicycle racer
DATE OF BIRTH= 1975-4-22
PLACE OF BIRTH=Madrid, Spain
DATE OF DEATH=
PLACE OF DEATH=