Major moments of 93rd Tour de France

The AP looks at the major moments in this topsy-turvy Tour de France, ending Sunday on the Champs-Elysées in Paris.

Link on msnbc

Landis is Tour winner

Hushovd outsprinted his rivals to take victory in the final stage of the Tour de France on Sunday. The big Norwegian followed the wheel of green jersey Robbie McEwen, before powering to victory over the last 100 metres.
But the champain and the day belonged to Landis.

Landis secures tour win, Honchar wins TT

Floyd Landis essentially clinched the yellow jersey with a third-place finish in Saturday's penultimate stage of the Tour de France.
Kloden had a strong time trial to beat Sastre and climg on the podium
Serhiy Honchar won his second time trial at this Tour, while Landis built an almost certainly insurmountable 59" lead over former leader Oscar Pereiro.

Riis may have lost the tour for Sastre

Riis made a huge mistake by not making csc push and chase Landis on stage 17.
Sastre the favourite then to win the tour has lost over 8 minutes to Landis.
Perreiro ( the current yellow jersey holder) is also of this opinion

Tossato wins stage 18

Italy's Matteo Tosatto handed the Quick Step team and his country their first victory in this year's Tour de France when he won the 18th stage on Friday.
osatto, who was part of a long range breakaway, outsprinted compatriot Cristian Moreni of the Cofidis team at the end of a 197-km ride from Morzine to Macon. German Gerolsteiner rider Ronny Scholz took third place.

Perreiro keeps the yellow jersey, but if he knows it's not for long, he indeed stated that F Landis is the favourite to win this year's tour.

Ullrich sacked by TMO

Ullrich responded on his website saying this decision is unacceptable

Stage 17: Landis the Legend

After cracking and losing 8 minutes on wednesday floyd Landis achieved today what many believe to be one of the great performances in tour history, winning stage 17 and making up all but 30 seconds on the maillot jaune.
A confident Landis says afterwards he will make up the 30 seconds in the time trial.
Landis being a far superior TT than Perreiro the maillot jaune seems destined to be his.

Frank schlek with a great win in the first alpes stage, Landis in yellow

Great effort by Frank schleck from team CSC to break away from Damian Cunego and win the first stage in the alpes. Cunego, schlek and Mazzoleni formed a trio that had up to 3'30'' ahead of the maillot jaune.
Questionable tactics by TMO holding back Mazzoleni and not allowing him to go for the stage win in order to help Kloden who was a minute behind.
Landis, Kloeden and Sastre made up to 1'30 on perreiro and now Landis holds the yellow jersey with a slight advantage of 5'' on perreiro.
Boonen has quit the tour during this stage, leaving Mcewen even more favourite for the green jersey

yet another stage win for the french

Pierrick Fedrigo gav the french the 3rd victory of the tour by beating Commesso.
David Canada et Rik Verbrugghe have abandonned the tour after a dangerous fall. "Le Maillot Jaune" remains with Oscar Pereiro.
landis is still a 1'29'' behind

Basso to leave to Disco?? Riis denies

Riis has denied that Basso is planning to leave team CSC

Freire makes it 2

Spain's Oscar Freire held off a late surge from Australia's Robbie McEwen to take Stage 9 in Dax on Tuesday, his second of this year's Tour. Erik Zabel and Tom Boonen missed out in third and fourth place while the Ukraine's Serhiy Honchar retained his yellow jersey on the eve of the Pyrenees.

Article by Eurosport

France's Calzati Wins Tour De France Stage

French rider Calzati won the stage with a solo effort, giving France reason to celebrate a few hours before its World Cup soccer final against Italy. (Though Calzati, whose father is Italian, confessed he was rooting for Italy.)

Tour de France riders get to put their feet up Monday, their first rest day. They'll need it. Looming ahead are brutal ascents in the Pyrenees, which American Floyd Landis will need to climb strongly to confirm his status as favorite to succeed his former teammate, seven-time winner Lance Armstrong.

Landis is exactly 1 minute behind overall race leader Serhiy Honchar after nine days of racing in the three-week race. But the Ukrainian may have trouble holding onto the leader's yellow jersey when the roads start heading sharply uphill.

Article Continued

Honchar in yellow after TT win

Landis targets time-trial

Number 10 for McEwen

Australia's Robbie McEwen secured a tenth career stage victory in the Tour de France with a convincing win on Wednesday's stage 4. The Davitamon rider burst clear of Isaac Galvez and Oscar Freire to take his second scalp of the race while fifth place Tom Boonen retained the leader's yellow jersey.

Seemingly destined for catastrophe, Erik Zabel punctured in the final four kilometres, conceding yet another stage to McEwen in the race for the green jersey.

Boonen again seemed dumbstruck by McEwen's superior power at the line, as the world champion had a lead with about 500 metres left to ride, but eventually lost by about five bicycle lengths.

Story and Stage details by Eurosport

Fuentes speaks out

Story by Eurosport

The doctor at the centre of the Spanish doping investigation has said he treated footballers, athletes and tennis players as well as cyclists. However, Doctor Eufemiano Fuentes, who was held for questioning by police in May, denied that his methods could be classed as doping.

Fuentes's declarations come in stark contrast to a statement released by the Spanish government on Tuesday that said no footballers or tennis players were implicated in the investigation.

"I'm angry about the whole matter," Fuentes told the Cadena Ser radio station on Wednesday.

"Names have appeared of people that I don't even know and there are others that haven't come out and I've no idea why but my professional oath forbids me from revealing their names.

"Treatment only for cyclists? I'm also indignant about that. I've worked with other sports, like athletics, tennis and football. There are a lot of names that haven't come out, there has been only selective leaks. I don't know why.

"I've worked with Spanish football teams from the first and second divisions that have improved their performance. If I haven't carried out the treatment myself I have recommended it to them."

Fuentes: no footballers but woe for Basso?

In the high temperatures of the Low Countries, it was
a quiet day for Operacion Puerto, although the highest
ranked official within the Tour de France organisation
confirmed that ASO, the Tour’s parent company had no
knowledge of any other sports being involved in the
Guardia civil-led investigation.

“We saw a document with a list of names that were only
cyclists, nobody from other sports,” said Patrice
Clerc, President of the Tour de France. “It was an
excerpt of the list, sent to us by the Minister for
the Interior in Spain. So I can’t comment on what (UCI
President) Pat McQuaid has said, except to say that
it’s a huge responsibility to talk about something
when you’re not sure of it.”

Clerc did not rule out the possibility of a separate
document having been sent to UCI President McQuaid. “I
don’t know if he has seen a different list,” said
Clerc. “We haven’t been in contact with the UCI. We
were in contact with the governments in Spain and
France and we were working with them.”

Last night, UCI President McQuaid said that he had
only seen the same documentation as ASO, and again
refuted quotes that had been attributed to him in a
series of agency reports, newspaper articles and
website stories.

“I never said that I had seen a list of names of
athletes from other sports. That is absolutely
incorrect,” McQuaid said.

In one significant development in the scandal which saw Ivan Basso and Jan Ullrich kicked out of the Tour de France last Friday, La Gazzetta dello Sport has shed further light on Basso's alleged links with Eufemiano Fuentes.

According to the Italian newspaper, a flurry of telephone calls between Fuentes and Comunitat Valenciana directeur sportif José Ignacio Labarta during the recent Giro d'Italia appear to contradict Basso's claim that he is not among the Spanish doctor's clients.

In one conversation between Fuentes and Labarta, taped on the evening of May 14 - just hours after Basso's stage victory on the Passo Lanciano - Fuentes adopts a mischevous tone to tell his friend that "A strange rider won: Basso, Ivan Basso." Labarta replies knowingly: "A certain Ivan Basso".

According to La Gazzetta, Labarta later seems to be complementing Fuentes as he observes that Basso and another alleged client, José Enrique Gutierrez, occupy first and second place on general classification. Labarta: "Good, my boy, a certain Basso and a certain Guti are first and second." Fuentes: "My goodness". And, finally, Labarta: "You have first and second".

La Gazzetta quotes further telephone transcripts from the Giro in which investigators believe Basso is identified by the codename Birillo (also the name of the CSC rider's dog). The same presumed pseudonym appears on another handwritten note taken from Fuentes and referring to testosterone patches, blood plasma, the female hormone treatment gonadotropine, and also the code for a Swiss bank account.

Basso has denied any contact with Fuentes and the use of banned substances.

Story by Procycling

Stage 3: Kessler wins, Valverde, Dekker out!!!!

Matthias Kessler of T-Mobile broke clear on the Cauberg to win stage three of the Tour de France in the Netherlands on Tuesday. He dedicated that win to Jan Ullrich.
This was pleasant news for T-Mobile team that lost it's leader before the tour started.
Tom Boonen took over the Yellow jersey by winning intermediate sprints.

But the big news of the day is the crash of Valverde one of the tour favourites at this point. Vey bad luck for the spaniard. More on Valverde's crash
Tour veteran Dekker also crashed out.

Standings

The Death Of Marco Pantani

How a champion cyclist lost his way on the rocky road through life

Review By Chris Maume

McEwen sprints to victory in stage2

Yellow jersey Thor Hushovd has cleared rival Robbie McEwen of any wrong doing in the spectacular stage two finish on Monday, in which the Norwegian almost took a tumble. The stage was won by the Australian after Hushovd lost his footing following a late swerve by McEwen.

Story Eurosport

casper wins stage1, Hincapie in yellow

The unexpected winner of the opening stage, a largely flat 184.5 km affair around Strasbourg, was Frenchman Jimmy Casper.

Johan Bruyneel's Discovery Channel team eased into life-after-Lance on stage one of the 2006 Tour de France with American rider George Hincapie, one of Armstrong's oldest cronies, taking the race by its horns and seizing yellow from bloodied Thor Hushovd.

Hushovd: "I want to beat Boonen"

After taking the Saturday prologue in Strasbourg, Credit Agricole's Thor Hushovd aims to keep his yellow jersey and he knows that means keeping at bay an ultra-motivated Tom Boonen. "My objective is still of course the green jersey and to win a stage. I want to beat Boonen," said the Norwegian.

Article by Eurosport

Operación Puerto News for July 2, 2006

Latest news on the operatcion by cyclingnews

Article

Now who can win it?

Nice preview for the now remaining main player's chances

Article

Prologue: Brilliant victory for Hushovd

A very humble thor Hushovd won the prologue of the tour de France. The norwegian will be this year's first carrier of the yellow jersey.
He added "I'm just happy with my time in the prologue, it's a good start."
Second place and third place was taken by americans Hincapie and Zabriskie.
Hincapie one of this year's tour favourites must be very pleased with his performance.
Also noticeable Valverde 5th place.
If he can keep up good form in the TT, the tour is his to lose this year.