By Paul Turner

Last updated at 13:23, Tuesday, 27 July 2010

Paul Turner

SPAIN’S sporting summer of glory should have been shining all the brighter after a weekend in which two of their greatest individual performers claimed further success.

But the triumphs of both Alberto Contador and Fernando Alonso come with an asterisk after them in the history books and having left fans of both cycling and Formula One bemused at best, incandescent at worst.

Barely had my words been written last week about the magnificent duel between Contador and Andy Schleck in the Alps and the Pyrenees, than the race exploded into life on the slopes of the hors category climb of the Port de Bales.

Schleck made a break for it and looked to have Contador reeling, but his chain slipped at the key moment, the Luxembourger panicked as he tried to get it back on and Contador took full advantage as he sprinted away. That may not seem a big deal, but boy was it.

Tour etiquette dictates that when a rider in contention for the yellow jersey suffers such a problem, the rest of the pack wait for him to catch up and then start racing again.

Not this time. No, instead Contador sped off with gay abandon, overturning a 31-second deficit on his rival to take an eight-second lead – a 39-second swing that put him in control of the race.

The fans didn’t like it one bit. For the next few days, whenever he went onto the podium to receive the Maillot Jaune he was booed by the crowd, showing just what they felt of his opportunistic move.

There are those who argued Contador was right in what he did, that he should have kept on racing, but he did not help himself with his low-key, half-hearted YouTube apology, nor his claims that 39 seconds would mean nothing come the end of the Tour. Come Sunday and the final stage, what was his margin of victory over Schleck? 39 seconds.

There may have been signs on the road to Paris that Schleck and Contador had put it all behind them with a mock recreation of the events in the Pyrenees, but you can guarantee the memory with live long with the runner-up, longer still with the fans of the race.

On the same day Contador was claiming his third Tour title, Alonso was partaking in one of the most contrived motor-racing results seen in many a year.

In a move defended only by Michael Schumacher – and if ever there was a greater sign of guilt, I’ve yet to see it – the Ferrari team ordered fellow driver Felipe Massa to pull over and let Alonso past to win the German Grand Prix.

Of course, they did it with a coded ‘Fernando is faster than you’ message over the race radio, but that message was followed with questions of ‘do you understand’ and after he had yielded ‘sorry’. Guilty M’Lord.

The FIA have fined Ferrari, more sanctions are possible, but those at Hockenheim were cheated out of seeing a proper race and Ferrari just plain cheated as it says in the rules that such team orders are strictly outlawed.

Two more triumphs for Spain then, a first Tour and World Cup double for any country since 1938 when Italy and countryman Gino Bartali did it, and what should be huge adulation.

And yet, sometimes, winning isn’t everything.

First published at 13:04, Tuesday, 27 July 2010
Published by http://www.nwemail.co.uk