Confident Contador leads in Spain

Alberto Contador (Astana) once again proved his might by riding away from his rivals on the 48th Vuelta al País Vasco's opening stage. The Tour de France champion took a three second victory over Ezequiel Mosquera Miguez (Karpin Galicia) on the ProTour event's opening stage, with David Herrero Llorente (Karpin Galicia) finishing a further five seconds back.

"My team worked again so hard," said Contador. "My overall victory in the Tour of Castilla y León gave the team extra motivation and confidence. We really made an intelligent race.

"Rain or sunshine, it doesn’t matter for me," added the Spaniard. "When you have the right condition, you support every type of weather. The next days, all other teams will look at us, but we are used to it. I did not gain so many seconds on the other riders, but we showed again that our team is one of the strongest teams in the world."

While Contador knows the Tour is far from over, the Astana rider enters tomorrow's second stage, a 153 kilometre stage from Legazpi - Erandio, with a small margin over his rivals.

"This is an important win for the team," said Contador. "The team worked well. But I won't say that the Vuelta is already decided, everybody can have a bad day. And now, we will have a lot of work for the rest of the week, because the other ones will attack."