With three weeks, 3,550 kilometres, 20 stages, and four countries between start and finish, there's a lot that can go wrong in the
Tour de France, but this year should see the first
Tour in a generation that is free of controversy and free of drugs.
News that 1996 winner Bjarne Riis had admitted to using the devil's elixir erythropoietin (EPO) to obtain his yellow jersey may shock many, but this writer could barely stifle a yawn. Riis admitted to using the performance-enhancing drug for at least six years in the mid-'90s, which could lead some to question how he managed only one win. The answer to that is because everyone else was on it, too; he probably just wasn't taking enough.
The Danish racer has since been removed from his country's sporting hall of fame, and he has offered to return his maillot jaune on the grounds that he no longer deems himself worthy. The
Tour says it wants it back, but because of the time that has lapsed since the offence, it can't make him hand it over. Even if it did, there's no one to give it to. Second-, third-, and fourth-place finishers Ullrich, Virenque, and Dufaux, respectively, have all been involved in EPO scandals since. So, the 1996 "Tour de Farce" is essentially a write-off, but it's probably not the only one.
Six more of Riis' Telekom teammates have admitted to using performance-enhancing drugs as the sport's reputation suffers body blow after body blow. Amazingly, despite his confession, Riis is due to appear at this year's event as CSC's sporting director, a situation that General Director Christian Prudhomme describes as "shocking." Near fatal could be closer to the mark.
Gotta get high
The "Tour de Dopage" of 1998 saw the arrest of Festina rider Willy Voet for the possession of enough drugs to keep Pete Doherty wide-eyed and grinning for years, the subsequent discovery of more drugs in the rooms of the TVM team, the sit-down protest that the riders staged over their treatment, and the resulting withdrawal of all of the Spanish teams from the race.
The problem is that all of these revelations and scandals can't be consigned to the murky past when the present is just as murky. After the scandal-hit '90s, the belief was that Lance Armstrong came along and cleaned things up, returned respectability to the event, and regained the confidence and support of the public.
However, even he hasn't been safe from the mudslinging. Despite there being no proof, some of his teammates on the US Postal Service team have been implicated, and several allegations have been made against him. Unsubstantiated though these claims are, enough of that mud has stuck to undermine what was an amazing achievement.
Winning the race a record seven consecutive times was always likely to draw suspicion, but the allegations made against him amount to little more than hearsay. What people may not realise is that Armstrong trained almost specifically for the Tour de France, and has several almost freakish physical attributes that made him ideal for cycling. Armstrong is most likely innocent of all charges levelled at him, but even he must understand why few people believe him 100 percent.
Will they ever learn?
Last year's event was a debacle. We're still waiting to find out who came out on top. The rocket fuel they found in Floyd Landis' urine samples after he hit speeds of more than 100 kilometres per hour going up the sheer face of the mountains between St.-Jean-de-Maurienne and Morzine in stage 17 should have seen him stripped of the title, but the mandatory drawn-out legal appeal means no action has yet been taken.
Runner-up Oscar Pereiro awakes early each morning with the hope of finding a congratulatory letter in his mailbox, but he rises in vain; there was something a little suspicious about his sample, too. It just doesn't seem to end.
With an all-but-confirmed cheat as reigning champion, the reputation of the
Tour de France is hanging by a thread, making this one of the most important races in its history, and, quite rightly, the cleanup has already begun. Several major US sponsors have already pulled out, and it may prove too late to repair things in the short term, but steps have to be taken to safeguard the race's future.
Teams are now conducting their own stringent doping tests, and with the eyes of the world firmly focused on this year's event, looking out for bloodshot eyes and track marks, the governing bodies will be doing everything they can to avoid another scandal. Whether they succeed or not is another thing, but this year should see one of the fairest contests in the history of the illustrious event.
How to make money on the Tour de France
Most significantly, as far as the outright market goes, we see the return of Alexander Vinokourov. The Kazakhstani rider was forced to withdraw last year, not because of any involvement with doping, but because so many of his Astana-Würth teammates were embroiled in scandal that the team didn't have the requisite number of riders to take part.
Vinokourov has second- (2000), third- (2003), and fifth-place (2005) finishes in the
Tour to his name, and with none of the riders who finished ahead of him on those occasions still competing, he's rightly this year's favourite. He's a good all-rounder who is known for his aggressive attacking style, and it could come down to how he performs in the mountain stages, which along with the time trials is where the
Tour de France will be won or lost.
The second favourite, Alejandro Valverde, (pictured) is another who's linked to last year's doping scandal and is allegedly being protected by the Spanish media. Valverde has been forced to withdraw from the last two
Tours due to injury. He is an immensely talented rider who is going to push Vinokourov all the way, as long as he can get around unscathed.
Punters looking to back an outsider should wait until things start going vertical from stage seven onward. It may be prudent to avoid last year's runner-up Pereiro; his big price might look tempting, but his good finish was solely down to stage 13. A group of five riders, including the Spaniard, broke away early in the stage, but because the main contenders in the peleton didn't consider any of them a threat, nobody gave chase.
This error in judgment enabled Pereiro to pick up nearly half an hour on Landis and resulted in him taking the yellow jersey from the American. It is unlikely that a similar mistake will be made this year.
Of the others, Carlos Sastre is a good, if not spectacular, climbing specialist who improved his time-trialing to finish fourth last season. If he impresses in the early time trials, he may be worth a small bet in the outright. Andreas Kloden is another to keep an eye on. Depending on the Landis and Pereiro situations, he could yet be awarded victory in last year's race.
He'll be amongst the front-runners, but his erratic showing in 2006, his proneness to injury, and the possibility that he'll have to sacrifice his own glory for that of Vinokourov indicate that punters should look elsewhere.
Other riders worth noting include Danish climbing specialist Michael Rasmussen. Rightly an outsider to win the whole thing, he's purely suited for the "King of the Mountains" battle, which he won in 2005 and 2006.
He's a good bet to regain his pink polka-dot jersey, but may have some competition from the winner of last year's infamous L'Alpe-d'Huez stage, Fränk Schleck.
Contenders for the green jersey include favourite Robbie McEwen from Australia, and his main challenger, Alessandro Petacchi. The Italian won five stages in the
Giro d'Italia, laying down the gauntlet to all other sprint specialists in the T
our de France.
Look to these two riders when placing your bets on the individual sprint stages, but having yet to complete the full race in France, Petacchi is a gamble for the green jersey.
Tom Boonen is another to look out for in this category, and must be an almost certainty for stage two through his home country of Belgium. Similarly, with the whole thing kicking off in London, Brits Millar and Wiggans will be keen to impress in front of their home crowd.
