Fabian Cancellara: Good Sport Or Con Man?

Fabian Cancellara has either pulled off one of the all time great acts of sportsmanship, or he has perpetrated one of the great con acts on the entire field of the Tour de France.

The second stage of the 2010 Tour saw remarkable scenes, as riders fell in the slippery conditions that were apparently made worse by oil from a motorbike that had crashed in an effort to avoid a fallen rider. Few teams and few big names were immune from the ensuing carnage.

RadioShack’s Lance Armstrong went down, as did Cadel Evans of BMC and reigning Tour champion Astana’s Alberto Contador.

Christian Vande Velde of Garmin-Transitions was the most significant casualty of the day. The American broke two ribs in his fall and was forced to withdraw from the tour. Compatriot, teammate and sprint hope Tyler Farrar was also caught up in the crash but resumed, although he was taken off to hospital at the end of the stage to be checked over.

The real story, though, was that of one of the Tour favourites, Andy Schleck. Schleck went down hard and stood for quite a long time at the side of the road looking quite dazed and seemingly unaware of where his bike was. He also appeared to be nursing quite a few sore spots and was showing signs of having a broken collarbone.

Schleck’s brother Frank, who was also involved in the crash, and other members of the Saxo Bank team stayed to support Andy, with Andy finishing the stage on a teammates bike. Despite being more than three minutes behind the main bunch, Cancellara managed to contain the peleton’s natural desire to chase down the breakaway, instead maintaining a steady pace to allow the fallen riders to catch up.

When everyone was back together, Cancellara further orchestrated a non-aggression pact with the sprint teams and even with race officials.

He is quoted on the website of Australian broadcaster SBS as saying "It was the right thing to do to wait, so everybody comes together to the finish line together," Cancellara explained.

"When you have everybody on the ground and people five minutes behind because they can't find their bike then it's only normal.

"I think fairness comes before being selfish. That was the reason why I spoke with (race official Jean-Francois) Pescheux."

Meanwhile, out in front, Sylvain Chavanel powered away to a very comfortable victory with an almost four minute lead.

On the face of it, this looks like quite a magnanimous gesture. Cancellara willingly gave up his yellow jersey for the good of all teams and riders who were caught up in incidents and injured through no fault of their own. It’s the sort of altruistic act that we’d all like our sporting heroes to be capable of.

But was it really that grand a gesture. Of all the General Classification (GC) contenders who were caught up in crashes, it was his teammates that had come off worst of all. Armstrong, Contador and Evans all rapidly rejoined the group whereas the Schleck brothers took quite some time to catch up and looked quite pained when they did so.

Cancellara also claimed the neutralizing the sprint was in everyone’s best interest as there were enough injuries in the peleton already.

The thing with sprint finishes, however, is that the pace really begins to wind up a few kilometers from the finished and Cancellara was clearly concerned that his wounded teammates, who had already expended significant energy just to catch up, would lose time on the way in to the finish line.

The really big question is whether the same generosity would have been shown if Armstrong, Contador, or Evans had been the ones languishing far behind the field. We can only hope that the answer would be yes.

While it is certainly true that most athletes would like to beat their opponents on even terms, it’s difficult to know how far to take that ideal. Cancellara’s sacrifice of the yellow jersey was a hollow act, he could not possibly have hoped to carry it all the way to Paris and so could be satisfied that he had worn it for two stages.

Neither is conceding the lead to Chavanel, even by three minutes, that much of a concern. Not even Chavanel himself would consider him a genuine GC contender.

So it comes back to Cancellara either organizing one of the great displays of collective sportsmanship or he has managed to convince almost the entire field to fall for a con that allowed his teammates to recover from an extremely difficult position.

Either way, to do all of that while riding an extremely tricky and challenging stage of the Tour de France in very ordinary weather conditions, is an amazing feat that deserves our congratulations.

I just want to know what to congratulate him for.