Despite hugely criticizing Alberto Contador last season following his ill-fated Tour de France campaign, the Russian oligarch, known cycling enthusiast and, most importantly, Tinkoff-Saxo owner Oleg Tinkov claimed that Spanish climber is the biggest favorite to take the spoils in the French grand tour at the moment.

Without any doubts Contador emerged as the most impressive among this year’s Tour de France contenders, winning Tirreno-Adriatico and Vuelta al Pais Vasco and finishing runner up on two other occasions: at Volta as Algarve and Volta a Catalunya, while Christopher Froome (Team Sky) despite winning the Tour of Oman and Tour de Romandie was hugely struggling with his health whole spring and Vincenzo Nibali (Astana) was so far the shadow of his former self.

“If the Tour started tomorrow, I think Alberto would beat him. He is stronger right now, from what I have seen, even with Romandie,” the Russian told CyclingTips on Thursday evening.

“But the Tour is in two months time so we never know, of course. In two months’ time anything can happen. But right now he is stronger,” Tinkov said.

“He is very strong right now. I hope he will stay at least at this level of form,” he said. “If he stays like he is now – he is super strong now – he is going to win, normally.”

Even though there were some tensions between Tinkov and Contador last year, everything has changed after the Russian oligarch became the owner of the Danish squad, and even more following Spaniard’s brilliant performances throughout the whole spring.

Tinkov wasn’t able to point out to particular factors which prevented Contador from reaching his top level last season, but his arrival to Tinkoff-Saxo brought more systematic approach to training and nutrition since the last winter-break what apparently helped the 31-year old Spaniard performing on the expected level.

“Anybody can have a bad year…he definitely had a bad year last year. The good thing is that he realised that he had a bad year and now he has to be better.”

“He changed his preparation programme and he changed his racing programme. He learned from the mistakes he has made and he is doing very well. I am more than happy.”

The Danish team owner also suggested that mental aspects of performing on the highest level also came to the fore and Contador needed to build his self-assurance from the scratches this season.

“He needed to prove himself,” he said, reflecting on some of the things which were said to spur Contador into motion. “He started to train a lot and differently, and this year he is much, much stronger, which is good.”