Discovery Channel played its joker card Sunday and sent Spanish phenomenon Alberto Contador on the attack.

The 25-year-old Paris-Nice champion took flight and easily marked accelerations by Christophe Moreau and Iban Mayo up the Cat. 1 Tignes finale, but saw a puncture with about 4km to go take the wind out of his sails.

“I tried to get back but I lost my rhythm. I was going well and it’s unfortunate to have this bad luck,” said Contador, who finished eighth at 3:31 back. “Things were going OK and you have to remember there’s a lot of racing ahead of us, but when you lose time like this when you were right up in the front with the best, it makes you mad.”

Contador was forced to make a wheel change with the Mavic neutral support vehicle and lost contact with his group and rode in 18 seconds behind the riders of his group.

With the strong result, Contador is suddenly a second option for Discovery Channel as Levi Leipheimer plays the patient hand and waits for the decisive second half of the Tour to make his move.

Leipheimer stayed with the likes of Carlos Sastre (CSC), Alexandre Vinokourov (Astana) and Denis Menchov (Rabobank) while Contador joined the attacking Moreau, Mayo, Frank Schleck (CSC), Cadel Evans (Predictor-Lotto) and Andrey Kashechkin (Astan) working about 30 seconds ahead up the road.

“Alberto was the best on the team today. He showed that he can stay with the favorites,” said Discovery Channel sport director Johan Bruyneel. “Levi wasn’t able to follow Sastre and Menchov at the end there, but he was OK. The Pyrenees and time trials will decide everything.”

Contador surged into eighth overall at 3:10 back with Leipheimer slotting in at 13th at 3:53 back. Yaroslav Popovych slipped to 28th at 7:32 back and Vladimir Gusev to 31st at 9:23 back.

Bruyneel cautioned it’s too soon to talk about Contador as a podium candidate, but said having two riders within striking range for the Tour’s final top three plays perfectly for the team’s role as outsiders in this year’s Tour.

“Levi is our leader for the GC because he’s the most experienced and he has the resistance to fight for three weeks. Alberto is still young and we have to see how he can do in the third week of the race,” Bruyneel said. “Because we’re not a favorite to win the race, there’s room for everyone on the team. Alberto fits perfectly in that plan.”

Mayo back to best
A ghost from Tours past was back in the mix Sunday as Iban Mayo had his best day a the Tour since the 2003 edition when he lit up the race and dared to challenge Lance Armstrong’s dominance.

The Basque climber was one of the leading attackers out of the group of favorites firing in Michael Rasmussen’s wake up the final Cat. 1 climb to Tignes.

Mayo attacked the Moreau/Valverde group to finish second for his best stage result since winning atop L’Alpe d’Huez four years ago.

“It’s satisfying to be at the front again. I knew that if I could finally have my health back I would return to my position among the favorites,” Mayo said after the stage. “Last year I came here very strong but I got sick. Some lost faith in me, but I never did.”

Mayo has struggled to live up to his breathtaking performance from the 2003 Tour, when he finished sixth and made noises about challenging Armstrong for the overall. After winning the 2004 Dauphiné ahead of the Texan, Mayo has abandoned the past three Tours without living up to the hype as giant-killer.

“The truth is the past three years, things haven’t gone as I would have liked. For reasons of crashes or illness, I couldn’t fulfill the Tour as I had hoped,” Mayo said. “My health is back and I have the motivation to return to the highest levels.”

Mayo left his longtime home at Euskaltel-Euskadi after seven years with the Basque team to sign on with Saunier Duval. He paid back the team with a stage victory at the Giro and he’s hoping for another stage at the Tour.

“I don’t have the same pressure as I did at Euskaltel,” he said. “I’d love to win a stage again. We’ll see how things go in the GC. The motivation was never lacking.”

Mayo told VeloNews earlier this week he lost “four kilos” after the Giro to arrive at the Tour in top shape.

It looks like the lighter and leaner Mayo could finally fulfill the promise from all those years ago.

Solid day for Valverde, Pereiro
Alejandro Valverde revealed he’s in fighting form to contest for the Tour de France while last year’s runner-up Oscar Pereiro kept his options open after a solid day for the Caisse d’Epargne co-captains.

Valverde followed the day’s aggression out of the main group of favorites and darted ahead to claim third in the stage and move into fourth overall at 2:51 back.

“I felt well but I think that my rivals are very well too, first of all Moreau, but also all the other riders which made up our small group,” Valverde said. “In the final I made the sprint so that I could be the third of the stage and also the fourth overall. Tomorrow, we will have the first rest day and we will take advantage of it to recover from the efforts we made yesterday and today.”

Pereiro – who could inherit the 2006 Tour crown if Floyd Landis fails in his bid to clear his name of doping charged – finished 15th at 4:13 back to remain within shot of the overall favorites. “I believe that many people were expecting to see what I was able to do in that difficult mountain stage and I think that I showed that I was there and feeling well. I am satisfied with my own stage but also with the one of all the team,” Pereiro said. “The general classification is clearer tonight but the gaps are not very important yet and I think that a rider like Vinokourov, who had a hard time today, remains among the favorites for the final win.”