Le Tour 2008 (or should I say La Tour 2008)

Well, we're four days into the 2008 Tour de France, and it's been exciting despite the absence of two of the three podium finishers, Alberto Contador and Levi Leipheimer, both of the barred Team Astana, and the green jersey winner, Tom Boonen, who was barred because he tested positive for cocaine outside of competition. The winners of thirteen of the yellow jerseys from 2007 were banned. The most interesting chapters of this Tour promised to be Mauricio Soler dominating the mountain stages (oops, he fell and broke his wrist) and Fabian Cancellara (who won seven yellow jerseys in 2007) again dominating the time trial events (oops, he came in fifth in today's individual time trial). No Michael Rasmussen, Alexandre Vinokourov, or Alessandro Pettachi. No Floyd Landis. No David Zabriskie. No Fred Rodriguez or Chris Horner. No Johan Bruyneel. No Al Trautwig, even! (although that might be a good thing, Craig Hummer seems to be growing on me)

I'll still watch every minute they broadcast (three hours a day on most days, today was four because of the ITT). There will always be compelling stories, most every day, with underdogs like Romain Feillu, wearing both the white and yellow jerseys yesterday after a 200 km breakaway (William Frischkorn of the US team Garmin Chipotle almost pulled it out at the end) and Stefan Schumacher, winning today's stage over the best time trialers in the world.

Tomorrow should be another great stage for the sprinters, and I think that's one of the most exciting things to watch in sports, which means that there'll be a breakaway that stays out. Or a big crash in the final turn. Ho hum, come on Pyrenees.