Tour de France champ Alberto Contador says cold European weather hampering training

Contador: Cold weather hampering training

MADRID — Tour de France champion Alberto Contador says the unusually cold weather in Europe is hampering his preseason training plans.

The Astana rider said Tuesday his training so far has been “difficult to sort out.”

“The winter we’ve been having in Europe this year — and especially in my area — I can’t remember one as bad as this one,” Contador said of his hometown Pinto, which is south of Madrid and been hit by freezing temperatures and snow.

But the Spanish rider still feels he’s in good shape going into Astana’s 10-day preseason training camp Thursday at Calpe, Spain.

The 2007 and 2009 Tour de France champion will start his season at the Tour of Algarve in Portugal in mid-February, but doesn’t believe he’ll win that race because of the lack of training.

“This year, I don’t think I’ll arrive there at the same level as last year,” Contador said. “But it will be a good warm-up for the rest of the races.”

Contador expects to compete in Paris-Nice in March and perhaps the Tour of Catalonia and Tour of the Basque Country. He has not ruled out the Giro d’Italia or Spanish Vuelta, but said his priority is the Tour de France.

Contador said Astana has built a good team around him since the departure of Lance Armstrong and Levi Leipheimer.

“We’ve managed to put together a pretty competitive team that is quite complete, one that is at the level that the Tour requires,” he said.