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Reigning Tour de France champion Alberto Contador confirmed on Friday he will kick off his 2010 season during the Tour of the Algarve cycling race in Portugal mid-February. "Last year I liked the race and I think it's ideal to start the season," explained the Spaniard, who is the reigning champion in the Portuguese race. "Then I'll go to the Paris-Nice (beginning of March) where we'll be mainly looking to work on a team level, notably on tactical coordination," he said.

Contador, winner of the Tour de France winner in 2007 and 2009, added that he was also counting on competing in the Tour of Catalonia from March 22-28 and the Tour of the Basque Country from April 5-10.

But he added: "I'm leaving the door open on the classics, we'll decide on that later."

Alberto Contador Velasco (born 6 December 1982 in Pinto, Madrid) is a Spanish professional road bicycle racer for UCI ProTeam Astana. He was the winner of the 2007 Tour de France with the Discovery Channel team, and the 2008 Giro d'Italia, the 2008 Vuelta a España, and the 2009 Tour de France with Astana. He is the fifth racer in history, and the first Spaniard, to win all three Grand Tours of road cycling.

Contador has been referred to as the best climbing specialist and stage racer in the world.Notable summit stage finishes on which he has victories include the Alto de El Angliru in the Vuelta and the Plateau de Beille in the Tour.After being widely expected to lose his tenuous lead in the 2007 Tour de France in that race's final individual time trial,Contador has become a more accomplished time trialist, with several victories in the discipline. He has earned a reputation as an all-rounder, a cyclist who excels in all aspects of stage racing which are needed for high places in the general classification.

Contador's career has been marked by occasional doping allegations, the foremost of which, the Operación Puerto doping case, led his Astana-Würth team (a team unrelated in composition to the one for which he currently rides, despite the same sponsor) to withdraw en masse from the 2006 Tour de France before it began. He was eventually cleared of any wrongdoing, but was also accused of doping after his victory in the race the following year.Contador has continually maintained his innocence, and has never faced any individual sanctions for doping.

more: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alberto_Contador

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