The Tour is the metaphor of the Stock Exchange and its roller coaster: today Contador is on the Titanic

Contador yes, Contador no? The favorite on the eve halfway through the Tour, after the first two disappointing Pyrenean stages, is a puzzle rather than a certainty. A bit like your Spain which after the boom ended up in the meat grinder of debt and doubts about its ability to honor it. At Luz Ardiden, at the first big uphill finish, a stone's throw from the home frontier, the Spaniard was even detached, albeit only slightly. At Plateau de Beille today another colorless ascent. Contador was already behind the Schleck brothers and Cadel Evans due to crashes in the opening stages. A first sign of reaction was expected. Nothing at all. Even Basso and the surprising yellow jersey Thomas Vockler did better than him. The Matador suffers from a bruised knee and also from the coldness with which the French welcomed him on the roads of the Tour, with the majority of the public not believing his innocence in the story of the clenbuterol found in his urine during the Grande Boucle he won Last year. A case of doping that will be clarified only after the Tour is over but that could cost him the 2010 yellow jersey which would eventually pass to Andy Schleck, runner-up. It is a fact that the current Contador of the Tour is a cyclist who does not release the strength displayed at the Giro d'Italia: from the 405 watts of power reached in the climb of the Grossglockner, the finish line of the stage which bordered on Austria, it has passed to 342 watts on the 10 kilometers that lead to Luz Ardiden. A sharp drop in power which for Contador, again borrowing a comparison borrowed from big finance, causes the outlook on his continuation in the Tour to change negatively. Insiders, after extolling him, are changing register. Contador's fans hope they are wrong, as happened to the rating agencies which made sensational blunders from the Argentina case to those of Lehman Brothers and Parmalat. Today Moody's and Standard & Poor's are flagellating the Eurozone as final and unappealable judges, as if the almost daily reports and warnings on debt and growth from absolutely more credible institutions such as the IMF, the OECD, the European Commission and others were not enough. Everyone knows that every Italian is born with 30 euros in debt on their shoulders. But if Mr. Alexander Kockerbeck tells us (but how many of us know the Moody's analyst for Italy?) we are suddenly on the brink of the abyss with the stock market going haywire. Also for Contador there are many Kockerbecks who threaten an imminent downgrading even if the final sentence will be given only after Alpe d'Huez and Galibier. Certainly seeing him climb the legendary Tourmalet pedaling like a cycle tourist without a sprint is not exciting. Cycling also suffers from it, which thrives on feats and battles. Without taking anything away from the feat of Thor Hushvod, first in Lourdes after the dive from the Aubisque, the pathos of the (roller) mountains this week was offered, more than the Tour, by Piazza Affari with the forefinger plunged into hell to then go back up approved maneuver and then fell again with the spread between the BTP and the Bund jumping again in yesterday's last session above 300 basis points. “We are all on the Titanic”, warned Tremonti in the mood for sentences that leave their mark. Yet the euro, if it loses against the Swiss franc, continues to sail above the 1,40 level against the dollar. Even the America of Obama and Lance Armstrong is not doing so well with a deficit. It is true, but in the year of its debut, 2002, for months the single currency was worth just 0,85 dollars.