CHERBOURG-EN-COTENTIN, France -- Five years ago, Alberto Contador and Richie Porte were bound as teammates in the Tour de France. But the now rival riders have once again found themselves joined in the world's biggest bike race, yet not by choice, but as two of the initial big favourites for this year's race who are already on the back foot after a disastrous second stage in Normandy on Sunday.
Contador (Tinkoff), 33, and Porte (BMC), 31, who rode together on the Saxo team [now Tinkoff] in the 2011 Tour, are now both more than one minute behind the new overall race leader, Slovakian world champion Peter Sagan (Tinkoff), 26. Sagan claimed the leader's yellow jersey from the Stage 1 winner Mark Cavendish (Dimension Data), 31, by winning Sunday's tough 183-kilometer second stage from Saint Lô to Cherbourg-en-Contentin.
Many other riders lost time in the stage that finished uphill, including Welshman Geraint Thomas (Sky). But Contador and Porte were the two highest profile losers of the day after seeing their race cruelled by the misfortune of a crash and rear tire puncture, respectively.
Both will do well to remember that Colombian Nairo Quintana (Movistar) lost 1:28 to Tour winner Chris Froome (Sky) in Stage 2 of last year's Tour, and 1:04 in Stage 10 in before finishing second overall at 1:20.
All but two of the other main favourites for this year's Tour are at 14 seconds to Sagan -- Froome, who is in fifth place, Quintana seventh, Irishman Dan Martin (Etixx-QuickStep) 10th, Italian Fabio Aru (Astana) in 11th, Frenchman Romain Bardet (Ag2r) in 17th, and American Tejay van Garderen in 18th. Italian Vincenzo Nibali (Astana) is 28th at 25 seconds and Frenchman Thibaut Pinot (FDJ) is 31st at the same time.
Going into Stage 3, a 223.5km trek from Grandville to Angers, Sagan leads overall by eight seconds on Frenchman Julian Alaphilippe (FDJ) and 10 seconds on Spaniard Alejandro Valverde (Movistar), who finished second and third behind him on Sunday.
For Contador, his demise was due to his second crash in as many days with 120km to go. Frenchman Warren Bargueil (Giant-Alpacin), Germans Marcel Kittel (Etixx-QuickStep) and Tony Martin (Etixx-QuickStep), Spaniard Joaquim Rodriguez (Katusha), and Australian Michael Matthews (Orica-BikeExchange) were also fell Sunday.
Worse for Contador, he landed on his left side, which impaired his ability to stay with the overall contenders on the hilly finish when the peloton he had been in was reeling in the remaining breakaway riders one by one all the way to the finish.
Contador finished 61st at 48 seconds and is now 62nd overall at 1:02 to Sagan.
"I lost time that I didn't want to lose," Contador said after the stage. "I crashed again, and it left my other side banged up, as well. I tried to minimize the maximum amount of time I lost."
Contador remained defiant from the corner he has found himself in, saying: "Cycling is like that, and the Tour is unfolding like that for me. Physically, it's a setback. I cannot pedal like I want to. Nevertheless, I know that's a consequence of my falls. I want to maintain a high morale. I am still standing, but I am banged up. At least Peter [Sagan] won for the team today."
Meanwhile, for Porte, his grief was caused by a rear tire puncture inside the last five kilometres, and on a descent when well-placed on second wheel while the peloton was close to catching the final breakaway riders.
Since it was so late in the race, his team car could not get to him to change his wheel, as it was caught behind so many riders who were already dropped. And while the neutral service that attended to Porte took an extraordinary amount of time to attend him, there was no chance of him ever catching the speedy peloton before the finish.
With the assistance of three teammates -- German Marcus Burghardt, Frenchman Amael Moinard and Italian Damiano Caruso, -- all Porte could do was limit his losses, which amounted to 1:45 at the finish. Porte is now 81st overall at 1:59 behind Sagan, who, despite his class, is not a rider who threatens to win the Tour overall.
After returning to the BMC team bus, Porte spent only a few minutes inside to gather himself before speaking to the media, saying: "It was a disaster, but what can you do? You are sitting second wheel in perfect position and I don't know what the hell I hit. But next thing, the rear tire went down. We are going that fast, there is not much you can do in terms of the bike change. By the time Burghardt got back to me, the bunch was gone."
Porte said he is still determined to make good of what opportunities now come in the 21-stage Tour, as his team hopes of a podium finish for van Garderen.
"The Tour is far from over," Porte said. "It is quite a hard one to take, but at the end of the day, I guess we just try and pretend it never happened and wait for the mountains to come."
Porte was pressed on his history of bad luck, such as last year's Giro d'Italia, where he was penalised two minutes for receiving a wheel change from fellow Australian Simon Clarke, then on the Orica-GreenEDGE team (now Orica-BikeExchange), not knowing it was illegal.
"It is kind of like last year in the Giro minus the two minutes," he said. "But it probably would have been quicker to take the two-minute penalty than the wheel change I got. "But at the end of the day it is only a bike race isn't it? I'm sure the sun will come up tomorrow."
Told that the Tour is the bike race, Porte replied: "Yeah, I guess it is. It is far from over ... maybe in the third week, if we keep it all together, I might be able to go after a stage, too."
While Porte's time loss would indicate that van Garderen will be BMC's leader now, the American said the team would still continue with a two-pronged attack.
"The Tour is a marathon. Richie hopefully is able to stay strong in his head and keep fighting," van Garderen said. "We're co-leaders. Anything can happen, you know. We saw Contador lost time today, and crashed yesterday, Richie lost time today.
"Any one of these next 19 days could be my turn for bad luck. So we gotta keep Richie strong and focused, and give him a little morale boost tonight."