Under-fire defending champion Floyd Landis will be among the notable absentees when the 94th edition of the Tour de France kicks into gear on July 7.
Organisers are faced with an historic double this year, although starting the race without the previous year’s winner for the first time in its 104-year history is a distinctly less appealing prospect than London’s debut as host of the opening prologue.
Landis’s future is still in limbo following his positive test for testosterone, which brought the Tour to its knees only days after he had sealed a spectacular yellow jersey triumph in Paris last year.
But the signs are that the American will be stripped of the title which looked to have given some credibility back to the Tour after its worst start since the 1998 Festina drugs scandal.
Tour de France chief Christian Prudhomme had taken charge in 2006, but it was a baptism of fire for the forward-thinking Frenchman who was forced to eject several top contenders due to their alleged implication in the ongoing Spanish doping affair ”Operation Puerto”.
Despite efforts to avoid a similar catastrophe, the fear of doping is likely to accompany the race as it heads down towards the Alps before tackling the Pyrenees, where the yellow jersey battle will be cranked up considerably.
This year Prudhomme has launched a pre-emptive strike by fully endorsing a potentially explosive anti-doping initiative by the International Cycling Union (UCI).
In their bid for a clean Tour, and to simultaneously weed out anyone still linked in the Puerto affair, the UCI has requested DNA samples and the lodging of a year’s salary from all 600 riders participating in the July 7 to 29 race.
The measure is not compulsory, but with all signatories being listed on the UCI’s website, it won’t take long before fingers start being pointed.
”The UCI will not tolerate any individual or organisation that causes damage to our sport,” UCI president Pat McQuaid affirmed.
Prudhomme applauded the move, and warned riders of their fate if they refuse: ”We will block their entry to the race.”
If all goes well, it could be one of the most open Tours in years.
Alexandre Vinokourov will have revenge on his mind having become an indirect victim of Prudhomme’s last year. Several of the Kazakh’s teammates were implicated in the Puerto affair, leading to the entire team’s expulsion.
Vinokourov will be counting on Andrey Kashechkin, former Tour runner-up Andreas Kloden and Italian ace Paolo Savoldelli in his battle to drop his rivals on the Tour’s six mountain stages, the most deadly of which are in the Pyrenees.
Stage 15 features five mountains, and 53km of climbing while stage 16’s ride to the rarely-seen Col de l’Aubisque a day after the second rest day is over 51,5km of going uphill.
”We wanted to follow up the second rest day with a stage which is going to be selective for the GC [general classification] riders,” said Prudhomme.
It remains to be seen if Vinokourov, the Tour of Spain champion who finished third on the Tour in 2003, will have improved upon his distinct lack of climbing form shown at the Dauphine Libere stage race last week.
Lance Armstrong’s former team, Discovery Channel, will be expected to challenge with Levi Leipheimer the new team leader in the absence of Ivan Basso, who was handed a two-year ban after admitting his links in the Puerto affair.
That leaves Leipheimer, Spanish climber Alberto Contador, American Tom Danielson and Ukraine’s Yaroslav Popovych with the job of trying to make up for the team’s spectacular failures last year, their first Tour campaign without Armstrong at the helm.
Australians Cadel Evans of Predictor-Lotto and Michael Rogers of T-Mobile will continue their march towards the race’s ultimate prize, having finished fifth and tenth overall respectively last year.
Unlike Vinokourov, Evans showed his pre-Tour form with a second place finish behind the surprise Dauphine winner, Frenchman Christophe Moreau.
Despite the team being traditionally built around Robbie McEwen’s bid for stage wins and the race’s green jersey for the points competition, Evans is at home on his own in the high mountains.
CSC’s yellow jersey bid will be led by their efficient Spanish climber Carlos Sastre, who can count on the support of Luxembourg’s Franck Schleck.
The ambitions of highly-fancied Spanish ace Alejandro Valverde meanwhile could depend on some last-minute soul-searching.
As the Caisse d’Epargne team’s Tour leader, Valverde will be expected to launch a real challenge after having crashed out in both 2005 and 2006.
Persistent rumours have recently linked the 27-year-old, who pulled out of the Dauphine with illness, to Operation Puerto.
Earlier in the season, Valverde rejected all requests for a DNA sample. – Sapa-AFP