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14:14 - Lead Drops To 8’40" The peloton is now 8’40" behind the seven escapees. The attack was instigated by Posthuma and Brochard in the first kilometer of the stage. These two riders were joined by Krivtsov at the 3km mark. A counter-attack from Sanchez, Facci, Bortolami and Isasi caught the three early escapees at the 16km mark. 14:09 - Eight Complete Teams There are only eight teams with a full contingent of nine riders still in the Tour. The complete formations are: Discovery Channel, T-Mobile, Rabobank, Cofidis, Quickstep, Bouyges Telecom, Gerolsteiner and Euskaltel. There are 173 riders still in...

Associated Press Posted: 3 hours ago GRENOBLE, France (AP) - Jan Ullrich was cleared Monday to stay in the Tour de France after X-rays revealed he had not broken any bones when he fell during the race's ninth stage. Ullrich, the 1997 champion considered by many to be Lance Armstrong's chief rival, fell in a descent during Sunday's stage and damaged the left side of his rib cage. He continued racing and finished 29th, in a pack with Armstrong. After his X-rays came back negative, the German rider went for a training ride, T-Mobile team spokesman Luuc Eisenga said. Ullrich...

Stage 9 showed that Lance Armstrong and the Discovery boys know when to hold 'em and know when to fold 'em. On Sunday's 107-mile route that was the Tour's toughest test yet due to six substantial climbs, Armstrong's Discovery Channel team made a show of force by setting the tempo at the front of the peloton. Discovery's collective effort lasted for the entire race and it let Armstrong's rivals know that Discovery's failure to protect Armstrong on Saturday was a mere hiccup, a pause for the pull of the starting cord before the Discovery machine started humming smoothly in the...

Monday: Rest day in Grenoble.Sunday's winner: Mickael Rasmussen, 4 hours, 8 minutes, 20 secondsArmstrong's stage place: 28thArmstrong's overall place: 3rd, 2:18 back

Stage nine!

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Lance Armstrong was threatened with expulsion from the Tour de France if he did not don the leader's yellow jersey. Armstrong wanted to make a "sporting gesture" on Wednesday after David Zabriskie lost the lead in a crash. But director Jean-Marie Leblanc stopped the race at the start of the 113.7-mile ride from Chambord to Montargis. "It didn't feel right to take the jersey on somebody else's misfortune, but Jean-Marie had other ideas," said Armstrong after retaining the lead. I wanted to try and do the right thing and make some sort of a sporting gesture Lance Armstrong The Texan...

Stage 6 - Thursday, July 7: Troyes - Nancy, 199 km This is a stage perfectly suited to a long breakaway - only problem is, most of the traditional breakaway protagonists are missing, which may land a surprise stage winner ont the podium. The four Cat 4 climbs and three intermediate sprints, stage 6 will have something for most riders, and if a break does get away, it'll have to move quickly as the strength of those sprinters taking part in this year's Tour stands out - Boonen's performance in this year's Classics shows he can motor all day, and...

Stage 5 - Wednesday, July 6: Chambord - Montargis, 183 km Another of the Tour's early stages for the sprinters, there are plenty of green jersey points on offer over a stage with only one Cat 4 climb - it's mostly flat, fast riding, and a day for one of the fast men to enjoy some time in the yellow jersey. In 2004 it was Thomas Voeckler who spent 10 days as the darling of France in the yellow jersey over the opening stages. The route sweeps further north and heads closer to its entry into Germany, with plenty to...

Stage 3 - Monday, July 4: La Châtaigneraie - Tours, 212.5 km CyclingNews.com Stage 3 - Monday, July 4: La Châtaigneraie - Tours, 212.5 km VeloNews.com

By Andrew Hood VeloNews European Correspondent The Dave Zabriskie Show came to the Tour de France on Sunday, momentarily diverting the cameras away from Lance Armstrong and the other big stars in the Tour's stage 2. And the European media, getting their first taste of Dave Z's quirky sense of humor, didn't know quite what to make of it - especially when he dead-panned to French television on how his first day went in the yellow jersey. "How did I spend it? Racing bikes," said the 26-year-old CSC rider said with a sardonic smile. Zabriskie enjoyed the view from the...

Stage 2 is under way.

Lance Armstrong's black eye was mostly healed by Thursday's pre-Tour de France press conference, but he still sported a few small cuts, legacy of a training crash last week that put him over the handlebars and cracked the six-times Tour winner's helmet in two. Not to be outdone, Jan Ullrich crashed into the back of his T-Mobile team car while out training. Ullrich was motorpacing behind directeur sportif Mario Kummer when Kummer braked hard on a stretch of wet pavement. Ullrich hit the back window, shattering it, but sustained little more than a few cuts and claimed to be fine....

PARIS (AP) - There's no stopping Lance Armstrong at six when seventh heaven beckons. The only six-time winner of the Tour de France ended speculation that he would skip cycling's most prestigious race by announcing on Wednesday he'll be back this July in France for another bite of the cherry. Armstrong's 2005 race schedule "will include this summer's Tour de France where he will go for a seventh straight victory," said his Discovery Channel team's Web site. The American will be nearly 34 — too old, surely, to win the grueling three-week race again? But doubters said that last year,...

LYON, France (Reuters) - A French judge has confirmed a preliminary probe has started of doping claims against six-times Tour de France winner Lance Armstrong. The American has vigorously and consistently denied the allegations. The judge from the Alpine city of Annecy has ordered local police to investigate after the publication last year of a book entitled "L.A. Confidential: The Secrets of Lance Armstrong." Written by journalists Pierre Ballester and David Walsh, the book quoted Emma O'Reilly, the rider's former masseuse, as saying Armstrong had asked her to get rid of a bag containing needles used by him on the...

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Was the 9/11 Commission Report a cover up? Were we lied to when we were told that 9/11 was the first time that Al-Qaeda hijacked and destroyed an American jetliner? Five time Emmy® award-winning investigative journalist Journalist Peter Lance and bestselling author Peter Lance asserts just that in his blockbuster new book Cover Up: What the Government is Still Hiding About the War on Terror (HarperCollins). In his 2003 bestselling nonfiction work, 1000 Years for Revenge (HarperCollins), Lance laid bare the plotting and events that led to the terrorist attacks of 9/11. After reading 1000 Years for Revenge, Governor...

September 7, 2004 U.S. Secretly Detained bin Laden Brother-in-Law For Four Months After Purported May 1995 Deportation Controversial 9/11 Commissioner Linked To Case By FOIA Documents By J.M. Berger INTELWIRE.com The U.S. government secretly detained Osama bin Laden's brother-in-law for four months in 1995, after the INS announced he had already been deported to Jordan, according to documents obtained by INTELWIRE using the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). The Jordan deportation was authorized by then-Deputy Attorney General Jamie Gorelick, at the request of Secretary of State Warren Christopher. A member of the independent commission investigating the September 11 attacks, Gorelick...