page_title: Alberto Contador
section_title: Discovery Channel (2007)
hierarchical_section_title: Alberto Contador / Professional career / Discovery Channel (2007)
caption_attribution_description: Alberto Contador dans la montée Avenue de Cognac (5 kms de l'arrivée), 19ème étape du Tour de France 2007
context_page_description: Alberto Contador Velasco is a Spanish former professional cyclist. He is one of the most successful riders of his era, winning the Tour de France twice, the Giro d'Italia twice, and the Vuelta a España three times. He is one of only seven riders to have won all three Grand Tours of cycling, and one of only two riders to have won all three more than once. He has also won the Vélo d'Or a record 4 times.
  He was regarded as the natural successor of Lance Armstrong and won the 2007 Tour de France with the Discovery Channel team. During his time at the Astana team, he won the 2008 Giro d'Italia, the 2008 Vuelta a España and the 2009 Tour de France. Between 2007 and 2011 he won six consecutive Grand Tours that he entered. This included winning the 2010 Tour de France with Astana, although it later emerged that he had tested positive for clenbuterol during the race. After a long battle in court, he was suspended by the Court of Arbitration for Sport and stripped of his 2010 Tour and 2011 Giro wins.
  Contador was known as an attacking rider who excelled as a climber, and on his best days was also an excellent time-trialist.
context_section_description: After having been implicated in the Operación Puerto doping case, Contador was without a professional contract until mid-January 2007, when he signed with Discovery Channel.
  Contador's first major professional victory came with Paris–Nice, which he won on the race's final stage. Discovery Channel effectively wore down the remnants of the race leader Davide Rebellin's Gerolsteiner team, allowing Contador to launch an attack on the final climb. With Rebellin leading the chase, Contador held off his competitors in the final kilometres, winning him the race.
  In the Tour de France, he won a stage at the mountaintop finish of Plateau de Beille, and was second in the general classification to Michael Rasmussen. Upon Rasmussen's removal from the race before stage 17 for lying to his team about his pre-race training whereabouts, Contador assumed the overall lead and the yellow jersey, though he did not don it until after the stage. In the stage 19 individual time trial, he managed to defy expectations and keep hold of the yellow jersey by a margin of only 23 seconds over challenger Cadel Evans and 31 seconds over teammate Levi Leipheimer. As this was the Tour's penultimate stage, it was the last real competition of the race (since the final stage is traditionally non-competitive save for a bunched sprint to the finish line) and it secured Contador his first Tour de France victory. It is the closest the top three finishers in the Tour de France have ever finished to one another.
caption: Contador wearing the yellow jersey during the 19th stage of the 2007 Tour de France.
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