Alberto Contador, of Spain, and Michael Rasmussen, of Denmark, emerged as the leading contenders for overall victory in this year’s Tour de France after the duo climbed clear of their rivals in yesterday’s first Pyrenean stage, from Mazamet to Plâteau de Beille.

Contador took the stage 14 victory and is 2min 23sec behind Rasmussen in the overall classification. The Dane remains in the yellow jersey despite growing concerns over his availability for drug testing during the build-up to this year’s Tour. The Dane failed to comply with International Cycling Union (UCI) whereabouts testing on March 24, 2006; he was warned over his unavailability for two Danish Antidoping Agency (ADD) out-of-competition tests this year; he was then suspended by his national federation and on June 29 he was sent a letter from the UCI warning him about his conduct, which was also passed on to his sponsor.

For the whole of June this year, his whereabouts were apparently unknown to the Danish Cycling Union (DCU) and the UCI. “In late June, we wrote to Rasmussen and told him that he was on his last chance,” Pat McQuaid, the UCI president, said. “His team, Rabobank, will have received a letter reiterating those concerns. But no rules have been broken and he can ride the race. All we could do was ask the team to exclude him. The guy has a right to race and his team has a right to put him in the race.” Yet McQuaid described the climate of suspicion over Rasmussen as “not good”.

In Saturday’s individual time-trial, on a 54-kilometre circuit in Albi, British riders rode impressively, leading the way for much of the afternoon, despite a torrential downpour. Bradley Wiggins set the best early time and remained at the head of the leaderboard until the leaders set off in drying conditions. Alexander Vinokourov, of Kazakhstan, took stage victory, while Wiggins finished a creditable fifth.