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Nibali perfectly poised for climbs, say Astana team

By Julien Pretot

MULHOUSE France (Reuters) - Vincenzo Nibali's week-long hold on the yellow jersey came to an end on Sunday but his Astana team believe they are exactly where they want to be as the Tour de France heads into its first major mountain stage.

Monday's lung-busting trek to La Planche des Belles Filles has been labelled a duel between Italy's Nibali and Spaniard Alberto Contador since defending champion Chris Froome pulled out injured after a crash on Wednesday.

Nibali's coup de force on the tricky cobbles on the fifth stage mean he holds a two minute 34 second advantage over Contador with the big mountains looming.

Although Nibali lost three seconds to Contador in the first hilltop finish on Saturday as his team showed a first glimpse of weakness, Astana got rid of the burden of controlling the race on Sunday when deciding not to chase a counter-attack group.

France's Tony Gallopin, who has no realistic hope of the overall title, took over the yellow jersey on stage nine and holds a 1:34 advantage over Nibali.

"We saw that Gallopin was in that group but we were not going to kill our team to keep the jersey," Astana team manager Alexandre Vinokourov told reporters.

Astana now have no responsibility to control the pace of the peloton on Monday while Nibali was not expected to fulfil the various media duties expected of a yellow jersey wearer on Sunday and will be rested for the mountains.

"The most important thing was to save energy for tomorrow's stage. Tomorrow will be another great finale between Vincenzo and Alberto at La Planche des Belles Filles," Vinokourov said.

"This yellow jersey was a present for France," added the Kazakh, who started his professional career with French team Casino.

His sports director Giuseppe Martinelli was all smiles.

"Before the Tour we would have signed to find ourselves in that situation, to have 2:30 on Contador at that point of the race," he said.

Nibali is looking to become only the sixth man to win all three grand Tours (France, Spain, Italy) after Frenchmen Jacques Anquetil and Bernard Hinault, compatriot Felice Gimondi, Belgium's Eddy Merckx and Contador.

He won the Vuelta in 2010 and the Giro in 2013.


(Reporting by Julien Pretot; Editing by Martyn Herman)