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2007 Tour de France, featuring slightly less widespread doping and a non-American winner.
The 94th Tour de France begins in London, covers 3,547km over the prologue and 20 stages.
There are 11 flat stages, 6 mountain stages (with 3 stage finishes on mountains), 1 hilly stage, 2 individual time trials, and 2 rest days.
It's a clockwise route this year, Alps first followed by the Pyrenees, and we hit the Alps a little earlier than has been the norm over recent years, Stage seven seeing the first big climb.
The UCI have, in their latest crack-down on doping instigated a riders charter, which is not compulsory to sign, but the list of riders who do sign will be published on the UCI's website.. The charter is as follows:
[quote]"I do solemnly declare, to my team, my colleagues, the UCI, the cycling movement and the public that I am not involved in the Puerto affair nor in any other doping case and that I will not commit any infringement to the UCI anti-doping rules. As proof of my commitment, I accept, if it should happen that I violate the rules and am granted a standard sanction of a two-year suspension or more, in the Puerto affair or in any other anti-doping proceedings, to pay the UCI, in addition to the standard sanctions, an amount equal to my annual salary for 2007 as a contribution to the fight against doping.
"At the same time, I declare to the Spanish Law, that my DNA is at its disposal, so that it can be compared with the blood samples seized in the Puerto affair. I appeal to the Spanish Law to organize this tests as soon as possible or allow the UCI to organize it."[/url]
I think it's a rather contentious issue, because the ASO, who organise the Tour de France, have stated no rider will be permitted to ride who has not agreed to it. Raises all sorts of questions about duress, but they'll no doubt be tested in a court by anyone who does get tested and found to be involved.
Unibet have been left out due to the shambolic French laws on internet gambling, despite the EU courts saying ASO didn't have a leg to stand on under EU law for omitting them, and Unibet have since instigated legal action:
Quote:
Unibet.com has filed new legal action against Tour de France organiser Amaury Sport Organisation (ASO), which is to come before a court in the French town of Lille in the coming days. The ProTour team is hoping to force ASO to grant it a last minute spot in this year's Tour starting in London on July 7.
"We want to be granted a start in the Tour de France, not with Unibet.com but with Canyon.com, the team's sponsor with which we are allowed to start races in France," explained Unibet.com's general manager Koen Terryn to SportWereld.
"Earlier we made a suggestion to the ASO that we could ride the Tour in our orange and black outfits. In the past, this has been allowed for other teams. An example is Boule d'Or, who, in France ride with modified jerseys displaying Sunair, instead of the cigarette brand. That is what we want to implement now also," Terryn said.
"I am not sure if I should get my hopes to high, but we need to do something. To just stick our neck out and let them chop it off is not our objective. I hope that they yield, and start using their common sense. They have already turned the clock back 20 years in cycling, they are turning new sponsors away from the sport, but it seems that they don't care about that in France."
Terryn further claimed that some Unibet riders were being barred from starting their national championships this coming Sunday, despite offering to wear their Canyon.com jersey. "They are conducting a witch hunt, the big three [ASO, RCS and Unipublic, organisers of the Grand Tours - ed.] are working together," he said.
"In Spain we have all the necessary licenses, but it seems that still, they would rather turn us away than let us start. Even our start in the Vuelta, is not guaranteed. We will wait and see what comes of this new court case against the ASO; afterwards, we will need to have a discussion within the team over its future."
Riders:
French squad Cofidis has announced its nine men that will compete in the Tour de France, July 7 to 29. The team will be Sylvain Chavanel, Nick Nuyens, Stéphane Augé, Geoffroy Lequatre, Cristian Moreni, Ivan Parra, Staf Scheirlinckx, Rik Verbrugghe and Bradley Wiggins.
In a teleconference with media from around the world, Johan Bruyneel announced today that the nine-man Discovery Channel roster for the Tour de France will be led by American Levi Leipheimer. Joining Leipheimer will be fellow American George Hincapie, along with Alberto Contador, Vladimir Gusev, Egoi Martinez, Benjamin Noval, Sergio Paulinho, Yaroslav Popovych and Tomas Vaitkus.
Euskaltel-Euskadi has announced its final Tour de France team, comprising of the Basque squad's strongest riders. The team's directors expect Haimar Zubeldia will be named as the squad's captain when it's officially unveiled on Monday. Zubeldia will be helped by Mikel Astarloza, a strong time trialist, veterans Iñigo Landaluze and Gorka Verdugo, young hopes Igor Antón, winner of a stage of last year's Vuelta a España, Rubén Pérez, Amets Txurruka and Jorge Azana and veteran sprinter Iñaki Isasi.
German squad Gerolsteiner has announced six riders that will take to the start of the Tour on July 7, in support of its GC hopes Thomas Föthen and Bernard Kohl. Along side its two leaders, the squad will send Fabian Wegmann and Stefan Schumacher, with both riders expected to go for stage wins, along with Heinrich Haussler, stage winner in the recent Dauphiné Libéré and Robert Förster who are the teams hopes for the sprint stages. The final three places for the squad are expected to be announced after the weekend´s national titles.
Lampre Daniele Bennati, Paolo Bossoni, Marzio Bruseghin, Danilo Napolitano, Daniele Righi, Patxi Vila and Tadej Valjavec. The final slot to be decided among Fabio Baldato, Claudio Corioni and Massimiliano Mori.
Predictor-Lotto has made a 10-man pre-selection for the Tour de France, from which, one rider will not take part. The 10 riders named in the pre-selection are: Mario Aerts, Dario Cioni, Cadel Evans, Chris Horner, Leif Hoste, Björn Leukemans, Robbie McEwen, Fred Rodriguez, Wim Vansevenant and Johan Vansummeren.
Saunier Duval-Prodir José Ángel Gómez Marchante, David Millar, Iban Mayo, David de la Fuente, Juanjo Cobo, Iker Camaño, Rubén Lobato, Christophe Rinero and Francisco Ventoso.
T-Mobile The final roster of nine riders to start the London Prologue will be selected from Lorenzo Bernucci, Marcus Burghardt, Mark Cavendish, Bernhard Eisel, Andreas Klier, Linus Gerdemann, Bert Grabsch, Giuseppe Guerini, Roger Hammond, Kim Kirchen, Axel Merckx, Michael Rogers and Patrik Sinkewitz. Rogers is certain of his place having been named as team leader.
Individuals:
Alessandro Petacchi and Leonardo Piepoli are still waiting on results from “B” samples taken during the Giro. Giro champion Danilo Di Luca, Eddy Mazzoleni, Riccardo Ricco, and Gilberto Simoni all showed hormone levels that resembled pre-adolescents, which might result from the use of masking agents intended to hide doping. Astana's Matthias Kessler - who won Stage Three of the Tour last year - has tested positive in an out of competition test.
Ullrich has retired after last year's Puerto revelations, and Ivan Basso is suspended for two years after confessing. Many other riders who were at T-Mobile in the 1990s also confessed to using EPO at the time, including current CSC director Bjarne Riis (who confessed to using it in 1996 when he won the tour) and Milram rider Erik Zabel.
Contenders:
There's a few, but they don't include anyone from last year. This is, again, seemingly a year of big unknowns.
Alexander Vinokourov and Andreas Kloden are expected to be strong contenders, despite both being in the same team (Astana), and they are expected to be challenged by Alejandro Valverde, who was also a favourite last year before crashing out. The highest finishing rider from 2006 who will contest the 2007 tour is his teammate, Oscar Pereiro Sio, but he's expected to assist Valverde rather than try and repeat last year's unusual circumstances which could yet see him be awarded with the win.
Not sure how much attention I'll be paying to this. Cycling has really beaten the **** out of it's fans over the last couple of years, and the Asian Cup is on, so I guess it depends on what the first few stages throw up. Hopefully something interesting with no positive tests for anything except beer and the occasional meat pie.
06-28-2007, 09:17 AM
2007 Tour de France, featuring slightly less widespread doping and a non-American winner. Post #2
totally gutted i'm going to miss it this year. I'm flying out to Japan on the 6th July and i don't return until the 3rd August.
god knows if there will be any kind of coverage over there, but i doubt it. Not at a reasonable time of the day anyway.
mixed bag this year and it's pretty open. I think Menchov has a very good chance. Valvarde will bottle it again, and Vino's form looked debatable in le Dauphine. He's still a major favourite thogh. Di Luca could be a decent bet if he rides.
come on Bradley for the Prologue, and it will be nice to see Cavendish and Hammond riding for T-Mobile. Cavendish will be competitive in the sprints, of that i'm sure. Now that Basso has gone and a lack of a real contender in the Discovery team, i think Steve Cummings may in with a good chance of a ride.
06-28-2007, 10:05 AM
2007 Tour de France, featuring slightly less widespread doping and a non-American winner. Post #4
Originally posted by Mr Nice:
totally gutted i'm going to miss it this year. I'm flying out to Japan on the 6th July and i don't return until the 3rd August.
god knows if there will be any kind of coverage over there, but i doubt it. Not at a reasonable time of the day anyway.
If it's going to be anywhere, it'll be on JSky Sports. JSky Sports 3 used to run the highlights packages in the evenings, but that was about 5-6 years ago. They could have either picked up complete coverage or dropped it altogether. If you know any Japanese, the place to check would be here: http://www.jsports.co.jp/
Enjoy the trip mate. :thup:
06-28-2007, 10:18 AM
2007 Tour de France, featuring slightly less widespread doping and a non-American winner. Post #5
2007 Tour de France, featuring slightly less widespread doping and a non-American winner. 
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