Le Tour 2008 Week One (or should I say Weak One)

As I predicted last year in this post, "there will be many more drug scandals before I regain confidence in the fairness of the race." Former US Postal and Discovery team member Manuel Beltran was arrested by French police Friday after testing positive for the banned red-blood cell booster erythropoietin (EPO). He was re-tested on Saturday July 5th after pre-race blood tests showed abnormalities, but the results of the followup testing weren't available until last Friday. (Photo from lequipe.fr)

Under a new French anti-doping law, Beltran faces a prison sentence of up to five years and a fine of $121,600 (€76,000). He has been expelled from the Tour, and will be fired from his team pending the results of the testing of the "B" sample. He will likely get a two-year ban from professional cycling, which will be in effect a lifetime ban since Beltran was planning to retire this year after a 14 year career as a top climbing team rider.

This is yet another of Lance Armstrong's teammates who have proved to have been doping. That doesn't make him guilty, but the fact that Lance was able not just to beat but to dominate the best cyclists in the world, when many of them have subsequently been proven to have been doping, makes it more difficult to defend him (and Floyd Landis and Tyler Hamilton).

Top 10 Tour Disappointments
10) Time-trial specialist and US team Team Garmin-Chipotle member Dave Zibriski's absence due to a back injury.
9) David Millar promised to be a GC contender in the Tour for Team Garmin-Chipotle. After the first mountain stage, he isn't even close. On a day he needed to gain time, he finished 55th in stage 8, losing more than four and a half minutes, and is now 25th overall.
8) French polka-dot jersey winners who can't climb. What an attention-whore Thomas Voeckler is. Not one of the polka-dot jersey wearers so far could hold a real climber's bike shorts.
7) After a fantastic time trial in stage 5, Stefan Schumacher fell near the finish in stage 6 when he ran into the back wheel of Kim Kirchen. He lost the overall to Kiki by 16 seconds, and probably would have had three more days in the yellow jersey.
6) Fabian Cancellara's time trial, the presumtive favorite as a time trial specialist and world champion for the last two years. Everyone was ready to give him the stage win and the yellow jersey. He finished fifth.
5) Robbie McEwen. Or lack thereof.
4) Some of the greatest sprinters in the world are absent from the Tour once again. Italian sprinter Alessandro Petacchi was banned for one year after testing high for the asthma medication salbutamol. Petacchi holds a therapeutic-use exemption for the otherwise banned substance, he is presumed innocent with levels of up to 1,000 ng/ml, but tested at a level of 1,320 ng/ml. Tom Boonen, last year's green jersey winner, was barred because he tested positive for cocaine outside of competition.
3) Juan Mauricio Soler, last year's polka-dot jersey winner, abandoning because of a fall on the first day of racing.
2) No Alberto Contador (last year's winner) and American Levi Leipheimer (least year's third place finisher) because of the arbitrary ban of Team Astana.
1) We're still talking about drugs in the Tour de France.

Top 10 of the Tour
10) Having a commentator that seems to know something about cycling. Craig Hummer replaced Al Trautwig and he seems to be growing on me, he's dominating the commentator picks. TDFblog described Al Trautwig as combining "bombast and ignorance in staggering proportions!" Hummer doesn't quite have the chemistry with Bob Roll that Trautwig had, but he's doing a great job. Much better than Kirsten Gum. Although not in a sweater.
9) The commentary of Jonathan Vaughters. He's a thousand times better an interview than Johan Bruyneel, and Bruyneel is better than the rest of the team managers. When he used the f-word on live TV, Robbie Ventura's expression was priceless.
8) After a 200 km breakaway, William Frischkorn of Garmin-Chipotle almost pulled it out at the end, settling for second place on the day.
7) Thor Hushovd winning a stage and the leading sprinter in the standings for the green jersey.
6) Bernard Hinault pushing the protester off the podium. The only thing worse than socialist Frenchies are activist socialist Frenchies.

5) Mark Cavendish's domination in the sprints, with two stage wins so far, and possibly more to come if he can make it over the mountains.
4)The cameras and Tour coverage gets better every year. I remember watching Greg LeMond winning the Tour over Laurent Fignon of France in 1989 by 8 seconds. It was on a one-hour tape delayed special, and that was the only coverage of the race that week.
3) Christian Vandevelde in third place overall in the GC standings. Wow. I would have bet money that he'd be toast by now. Go Christian! Another American Tour de France winner would just kill the Frenchies.
2) American teams Columbia's and Garmin-Chipotle's performances. These are teams to be reckoned with.
1) Kim Kirchen of Team Columbia in both the green and yellow jerseys. So far...