El Diablo Rojo

Velonews has lot's of Tour news including Disco's line up and who will support Levi. Also an ominous request from the powers-that-be at the Tour for names involved in the Spanish Affair.

https://www.velonews.com/race/int/articles/10032.0.html

bigskymacadam

i luuuuuvv the hype! there's a webisode at race2replace with johan listing the lineup. it's gettin' me all hyped!

PedalMasher

I'm torn about releasing the 100+ names connected to the doping affair.

I'm slowly falling into the camp that everyone dopes and don't care, which is unfortunate... but... this could make the tour very boring if they decide to sanction riders. Heck, even Ullrich has been connected (although denied). What are your thoughts?

El Diablo Rojo

The selfish side of me wishes they could have waited to bust these guys until after the Tour. The more rational side believes that this could finally lead to teams paying the price as well as the riders. If that's the case then I say off with their heads and clean house. But I do fear that a good percentage of the peleton is going down.

harlond

Maybe we should get some bets down now on Moreau or some long-odds French rider who's sure to remain untarnished by the Spanish investigation? Then when all the big favorites are excluded, we get rich.

toshi

No Danielson on the Disco 9. Not that I disagree with it, but I wonder what the reasoning was behind his omission. He's probably their most talented climber and can help them in the high crossings. Maybe he hasn't developed enough all-round, but he's not a poor TT guy either.

El Diablo Rojo

They announced before the Giro that Tommy D would be doing the Veulta this year and not the Tour. My guess is that he'll be on the Tour team next year if he keeps improving. For my money he's not lived up to the hype yet. He's a solid guy but not the 'next' they've been touting.

El Diablo Rojo

You might be on to someting! I was actually thinking of Moreau for the KOM this year, especially after Rassmusens performance in the ToS.

toshi

Danke.. must have missed that somewhere along the line.

DocRay

Where's Stefan Schumacher?

DrPete 

What's really ironic about the whole thing is that I picked up a copy of the Velonews TdF guide for 2006, and there's a piece by Jean-Marie Leblanc about how this year's Tour marks the "Liberty" of the tour from Lance's "oppression," and specifically names guys like Saiz as the future of the Tour.

I agree, though, that if all the implicated riders are suspended, it may be a pretty boring tour, but at least the Maillot Jaune would go to someone who was truly deserving.

DrPete

USAZorro

I'm surprised that Guisev isn't on the primary list. With no TTT, I expected to see him there rather than Padrnos. Does anyone know if this is Johan showing loyalty to his guys that have been around for years, or does Padrnos have some invaluable function that I'm just ignorant of (which is entirely possible).

bigtrack

Does anyone know when CSC annonces? thebroadbandracer.com has couple interviews with Christian Vandevelde about trying got make the tour team as he rides the TdS. He's killing it, second for CSC on GC. He deserves to go. Does anyone know when CSC will announce? I don't want to miss it.
Check out the highlights of Oscar's win today! He dropped the breakaway the easy way!

Snicklefritz

Also I think Danielson is going to be the team leader at the vuelta as well, so he will need to focus his energy on that. Johan did say that he thinks once danielson has a few more grand tours in his legs than he ould be good at the TdF also. Look at the guys on the squad. I don't think any of them are newbies to the TdF. Johann probably doesn't want to take chances on anyone who hasn't proven themselves in a grand tour especially dealing with the uncertainty now that lance is gone

baiskeli

Yeah, I did so and I thought that article was just plain stupid and mean-spirited with the way he went after Lance.

Snicklefritz

I'd like to meet Jean-Marie LeBlance and tell him he's a "tas de merde"

El Diablo Rojo

Hey watch your language young lady