OLN's Tour de France Preview

OLN ^ | June 2006 | Phil Liggett

[nutmeg]

This will be a very exciting Tour de France without You Know Who! We will all miss Lance Armstrong and the way he rode with such domination during his seven Tour wins. But now that the King has abdicated, there are plenty of others who think they are up to sitting on the vacant throne.

Even without Lance, there is no sign of American cycling taking a dive. In fact, the opposite is true and Floyd Landis, Levi Leipheimer, George Hincapie, Chris Horner, Christian Van de Velde, Bobby Julich and others, too, have all enjoyed an exceptional period this year.

All of the above names are in the Tour and all, I guarantee, will feature during our live commentary of this year's race. Yes, Lance is gone, but America will again play its part in a Tour de France.

This is a great route -- one, I think Lance would have liked very much. It is different with no team time trial and two long time trials. The first time test is not until a week into the race, so after the Prologue, there will be plenty of riders racing to wear the yellow jersey, if only for a short while.

In the first week, we visit Germany, Luxembourg, Holland and Belgium, so thank heavens for the Euro as a common currency. In the old days, Paul Sherwen and I had to spend an hour at the exchange office every time we entered a different country.

The real story of this race will be told in the final week when we go into the Alps for three very difficult days...*snip*

[nutmeg]

Paul Sherwen's 2006 TDF preview

Bob Roll's 2006 TDF preview

[nutmeg]

Tour de France ping!

Please FReepmail me if you want on or off my Tour de France 2006 list.

[Eurotwit]

Thanks for the ping.

One day to go.

I will warm up with the prologue tomorrow, before watching England crush Portugal in the World Cup quarters.

What a great weekend for a sports fan :-)

Cheers.

[Eurotwit]

Just reading now from reuters that Jan Ulrich has been suspended.

It is apparently related to the evolving doping scandal in spain.

THis could get really ugly.

Earlier stories have indicated that people like Basso might also be involved.

Bad news for cycling :-(

[Eurotwit]

Here are some of the people on the list accoring to cyclingnews.com

The list so far (31 riders)
Astaná-Würth: Michele Scarponi, Marcos Serrano, David Etxebarria, Joseba Beloki, Angel Vicioso, Isidro Nozal, Unai Osa, Jörg Jaksche

CSC: Ivan Basso

Caisse d'Epargne-Illes Balears: Constantino Zaballa

Saunier Duval: Carlos Zarate

AG2R: Francisco Mancebo

T-Mobile: Jan Ullrich, Oscar Sevilla

Phonak: Jose Enrique Gutierrez, Jose Ignacio Gutierrez

Comunidad Valenciana: Vicente Ballester, David Bernabeu, David Blanco Rodriguez, Jose Adrian Bonillla, Juan Gomis Lopez, Eladio Jimenez, David Latasa, Javier Pascual, Ruben Plaza, J.Luis M. Jimenez

Unibet.Com: Carlos Garcia Quesada

Retired/suspended riders: Roberto Heras, Angel Casero, Santiago Perez, Tyler Hamilton

http://www.cyclingnews.com/news.php?id=news/2006/jun06/jun30news2

[Eurotwit]

Basso and Mancebo is now also suspendended according to cyclingnews.com.

This is going to be a major, major scandal.

[Wyatt's Torch]

Wow. What a disaster for cycling. I didn't think Ulrich or Basso would win but I thought they would be up there. Now this throws the whole thing up in the air. You have to like someone from Discovery (Bruyneel is the master) and possibly Vino as the new favorites.

[Eurotwit]

But, will Vino even have a team anymore?

Then again, he was always good on his own :-)

[managusta]

That cuts the peleton by 22 riders and puts into doubt many of this years races. As today's Le Figaro puts it "Le cyclisme ne peut se permettre la moindre mansuétude." (no mercy)

Mind you this really opens the field for Floyd Landis, Levi Leipheimer,and George Hincapie.

[Wyatt's Torch]

Good point. Seems to be conflicting reports on the status of the Astana-Würth team......

[Eurotwit]

Someone just told me that only two of all the Astana riders were supposed two ride in the tour, so there might still be a team there.

[Eurotwit]

Yeah, the doping scandal aside (if that is possible), it really opens up the field, and creates an interesting wide open race.

[RichardW]

This doping scandal is a disaster. The two biggest names out. Horrible.

[GATOR NAVY]

How can this be? According to the French, Lance Armstrong was the only cyclist doping. /sarcasm

[Eurotwit]

Well, Lance was a mightily impressive rider who managed to absolutely demolish all these people cycling with designer steroids coming out of their ears :-)

[theFIRMbss]

>Tour de France Preview

Can our hearts stand it --
To go from soccer right to
bicycle racing?!