Contador: two things could keep me riding into 2017

Spanish cyclist Alberto Contador said on Monday there were two things which could stop him retiring at the end of the current season: either something going wrong which prevented him giving his best in the Tour de France, or the chance to form and lead his own professional cycling team.

The 33-year-old who is the only Spaniard to have won the three 'grand tours' (France, Italy and Spain), has said that he was thinking of retiring at the end of the year, but speaking at an event in his home town of Pinto, just to the south of Madrid, he said he could continue, but only under special circumstances.

"There are two options in my head to stop the idea of retiring which I mentioned a year ago," said Contador.

"One of them is that something goes wrong in the Tour d Francce, as happened in 2014 (when he broke his leg in a fall) which stops me giving my best, or being able to launch the professional team that we are planning," he said.

Contador said he was optimistic that the project was "slowly taking shape."

"It is a complicated project, because my idea is for it to be a team that would guarantee success and for that to happen you need a big budget," he said, adding the possibilities of starting his own team for 2017 were "around 50 percent."

The cyclist admitted that budget would be around 15 million euros (16.5 million US dollars) and insisted that the work he was doing in trying to set it up was not affecting his preparations for the new cycling season. Endit