Contador justified favouritism on the difficult Alpe d'Huez climb

Alberto Contador of Astana won the Criterium du Dauphine's sixth and penultimate stage on L'Alpe d'Huez.

But RadioShack's Janez Brajkovic tightened his grip on the race lead.

Slovenia's Brajkovic finished second to last year's Tour de France winner Contador, while Poland's Sylwester Szmyd came home third on the big climb.

With a strong head wind in the final stretch, Contador stayed on Brajkovic's wheel and overtook the overall leader in the last 50 metres of the race.

It was the last of several Contador attacks in the final ascent, but Brajkovic had been able to respond to all of them, until the very end.

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The sixth stage was a 151.5-kilometre ride from Crolles to the famous ski resort including two difficult climbs before the final ascent, which featured 21 curves.

The seventh and final stage of the race is a 148km ride from Allevard-les-Bains to Sallanches.

Although it is held on a hilly circuit which played host to the world championships in 1980, it is unlikely to stage a final duel between Contador and Brajkovic.

Contador is racing the Dauphine primarily to fine-tune his preparations for the Tour de France and showed, at times, that he is lacking the killer punch that has become his trademark on the most difficult climbs.

The Tour runs between 3-25 July.

Stage 6 results:

1 Alberto Contador (Astana)
2 Janez Brajkovic (RadioShack)
3 Sylvester Szmyd (Liquigas)
4 Jerome Coppel (Saur Sojasun)
5 Jurgen Van den Broeck (Omega Pharma-Lotto)

General Classification after Stage 6:

1 Janez Branjkovic (Team RadioShack)
2 Alberto Contador (Astana)
3 Tejay Van Garderen (Team HTC-Columbia)

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