Tour De France 2007

Starts in London this year!

I myself will be attending the prologue and opening stage on the Saturday and Sunday respectively.

So, what do people think about this years event?

Basso’s not taking part, neither is Ullrich, so some of the younger promising riders could make a name for themselves this year,

CSC have a good team this year, with people such as Vandevelde, Schleck, Sastre and Voigt.

Thomas Voeckler will want to be the first Frenchman to win since forever, but people like Boonen and Vinokourov tend to surprise.

I’ve missed a lot of names off but what do other people think?

 

Its going to be a hard one to call but i recon valverde will win it with kolden and vino 2nd and 3rd. i dont think there is any chance of any the brits winning the prologue but cavendish could win a stage.

 

10 pints and a curry before the ride

 

who is kolden, do u mean andreas Kl*den (by the way, a very funny name:]]



i think it'll be just like last year, there won't be a "clean" winner:doom:

 

I went on Saturday and Sunday. Saturday it was packed I ended up a Hyde Park it was packed could not see the riders to clear we ended up
watching the race on a big screen in the park.

Sunday was much better found a small village to watch the riders go by then we maid our way to Maidstone to watch the riders again.
Found a pub that had the Tour and the F1 on at the same time so it was win win in the pub.

As far as the over all win is I am going for Vinokourov as he has such a strong team around him. CSC will be happy being in yellow now
Rabobank will go for King of the Mountains with Rasmussen I don't think Menchov will get yellow.

Mayo now he is not ridding for Euskaltel he may have more a free hand maybe he will go for King of the Mountains

Oscar Pereiro came second last year but that was because he got in a lucky break and know one missed him.

I think Robbie McEwen will end up in Green

Riders I think we will see in the race are Kloden, Casar, Karpets and Cavendish I could go on but

Who do you think will win overall and get on the podium in France and will win the Green and King of the Mountains

 

On Saturday I got an awsome place next to Buckingham Palace and Constitution Hill so I got to see all the riders twice in the Prologue, and two CSC riders stood and had a chat right next to me during the warm up.

On the Sunday I was on a bridge next to Embankment station and got to see the whole peloton at a really good pace as they have to take a sharp corner...

I was dissapointed at the lack of stalls ETC in the town on the route, during the Tour of Britain there is tons of stuff to do!



I think this year it will be really close, too close to call, but Vino would be my tip...

 

I think you are right it is so close to call but I do think it will be Vino.

It is good to get away from the predicted Lance Armstrong will win again with US Postal or Discovery team dominating the race. We could do with some real characters in the race like in the day of Mario Cipollini or Marco Pantani

 

i saw some of this on staurday as i was in london on other business. i only really remember missing my train and trying (unsuccesfully) to sleep on a bench near bond street, then some sort of park and finally the floor of a hotel lobby though. i think i remember being bored for the cycling though.

 

Marco Pantani is the best ever one of my sporting hero's.

 

oh dear, even michael rasmussen is said to have taken epo or something; he is now not allowed to take pasrt on the olympic games for the danish national team, sorry can't give u an english link for it

 

michael rasmussen has not been banner for taking EPO His crime is he did not make his self availlable to take tests to see if he has been taking drugs.

 

2 weeks in and still i have no idea who is going to win the tour. today's time trial will be the best stage yet.

 

Vivo is back. Can he pull it off??????????

 

The TT yesterday was amazing. Vino killing everone off and the chicken managing to lose only 3 minutes and finishing 11.

The next three stages are vital but who'll win it. Well, Rasmussen needs to gain another 3-5 minutes on the others to survive the final TT. Vino is still 4 minutes behind Cadel Evans who I see as the current favourite. Kl*den is my second favourite. Stronger than Evans in the mountains and equal to or better than Evans in the TT. Kl*den is 1½ minutes after Evans which could be difficult to find.

My outsider is Contador - but it is a couple of years too soon for him really. But if Discovery lets him, he can be very tough to contain in the mountains.

I'd love to see Rasmussen win it but I can't see it happening. He's in a new situation this year - he normally breaks away early and has a head start on the final climbs. Now he has to wait and sit with the other favourites and that's something he never did well before.

It's very very exciting this year. And today could be an all time classic.

 

Mayo has been showing the awsome form most of us expected 3 years ago, surely he must be another outside fave?

 

He cant time trail so he is not even an outside bet but i will be very interested to see what he can do today. For me its between vino and evans if vino can attack like he has done in other tours he could just do it but he is 4 mins behind evans so i recon evans will do it.

 

Exactly. Mayo can climb very well but even lost time to Rasmussen yesterday. 3'09'' is a lot to lose to another non-TT specialist.

Mayo is gone. Valverde surprised me negatively yesterday. He lost 3'13 to Rasmussen. In the overall standings both Mayo and Valverde er 5'48'' behind Rasmussed and 38 behind Vino. These 3 coming stages are interesting. Mayo and Valverde needs to attack, Vino can sit back a bit and let Kl*den and Kashechkin attack Rasmussen. Evans can wait as he'll take a minute on Rasmussen easily in the next TT. I expect Astna and the two at 5'48' to attack today.

 

They showed Vino come back to 9th on Eurosport and it is epic! If he can get himself from 90-something to 9th in 9 stages he can win this IMO.

 

Wow did not see the coming at all i tipped contador for the stage but for Rasmussen to drop so many people including evans i did not see happening. to me contador looked the strong out of him and Rasmussen and is a better TT rider so perhaps he could be the one. Its still too hard to call.

 

Vino can not win but he could win another stage. If not the TT he could win the strage into Paris as he did before by ridding the riders off his wheel

If Contador what to win this tour then the discovery team have got to attack on the last stage in the mountains.

I don't think you can wait to the next TT and hope Rasmussen does not do well. In the last TT Contador was 37 secounds faster than Rasmussen
Evens was 1.41 faster than Rasmussen. Contador is 2.23 down and Evans 4.00 down on Rasmussen. Lotto and Discovery have got to start working hard in the last day of the mountains. Do you think they can ??

 

i still dont really understand tour de france is all about combined times or combined number of stage wins or??????

 

its the overall combined time that counts,

 

It will be remebered for something !!! not for being a classic though .

Another dirty cheat bringing the sport into disripute , resulting in the withdrawl of the whole team. Could it be because they were the ones that foreced him and the rest of his team to take something that they thought was still untraceable ??

 

ok thanks

 

c&p sky sports

VINOKOUROV FAILS DOPING TEST
Tuesday 24th July 2007


Astana have withdrawn from the Tour de France after confirming team leader Alexander Vinokourov failed a doping test following his victory in Saturday's time-trial.

"The anti-doping control on Alexander Vinokourov, which was carried out on July 21 after the time trial in Albi, has tested positive," a team statement read.

"According to the ethical code of the Astana Cycling Team Alexander Vinokourov has been suspended from the team with immediate effect. The rider has asked nevertheless for a B sample analysis.

"Informed by the Astana management, the organisers of the Tour de France invited the team to withdraw, which was immediately accepted."

The statement also confirmed Astana's belief that the Kazakh had tested positive for blood doping.

"There is the presence of a double population of haematids (blood corpuscles), which implies there has been a blood transfusion with homological (the same type of) blood," it added.

If a test on his B sample also proves positive, it will confirm that Vinokourov did indeed undergo a blood transfusion in order to enhance performance.

The president of cycling's world governing body, the UCI, said he could not comment before the result of the backup B sample was known.

"We have a process in place and we have to see this process through," Pat McQuaid said.

Vinokourov, the pre-race favourite, struggled in the Alps following a heavy crash during the first week of the Tour.

The 33-year-old rode then rode into yellow jersey contention by winning the Albi time-trial, but his chance of overall victory was ended on Sunday when he lost almost half-an-hour to race leader Michael Rasmussen on the first day in the Pyrenees.

Vinokourov again responded to win his second stage of the race on Monday, but remained well back in 23rd place in the overall standings when news of his doping indiscretion emerged during Tuesday's rest day.

Astana's decision to pull out of the final week of the Tour ends the participation of Andreas Kloeden and Andrey Kashechkin, who were fifth and eighth overall respectively.

 

Im going to wait to see what he has to say but with or without he is one of the best. i feel sorry for all his teams mates who are all out the tour when they done nothing wrong.

 

does anyone reckon valverde can still come back and win this? am i being stupid? i dont know much about it but ive got orns on him so wondered

 

I thought he was going to be good this year but he has done poor so he has no chance.

 

well thats orns down the drain lol will teach me to follow everyone else in a sport i knew nothing about

 

One of the best? Same way Bjarne Riis was - (on EPO), or Landis laft year. Vino is a farking disgrace - end of.

He takes out Kl*den and Kacheskin (sp) who still had chances of a podium finish.
Today is the last chance to take the victory away from Rasmussen. But whoever wins - it wil be forever tarnished by the ghost of doping. Heck even Contador is not as clean as he seems - he is mentioned in Doctor Fuentes' journals along with J*rg Jachkse who has been convicted already (i think). But Contador has cooperated with the Doping Agency and thus kept his name out of most material uncovered.

 

I think it is hard for riders to keep clean when more and more the sponsors want the
team and riders to win and put pressure on them to do so.

If you read Marco Pantai book you will read how other members of his when out to get him cocain
as the sponsors told the team that they had to keep Pantani happy or they would put the plug on the money that
when into the team.

 

Who coincidently has been kicked out of his national team for missing 4 (four) out of competition drugs tests this year !!! :dismay::dismay::dismay:

Still time for the authorities to catch him before the end of the tour.

Also see that poor old Bradley Wiggins team has pulled out of the tour this evening following the failure of a rider . :dismay:

 

c&p

Tour de France leader Michael Rasmussen has been sensationally thrown out of the race, after being sacked by his Rabobank team.
The news came just hours after the Dane had all but sealed victory in this year's Tour, having won the 16th stage, a 218.5 kilometre ride from Orthez to the Col de l'Aubisque.

Rasmussen had been booed by spectators at the start of the stage, during a protest held by other riders against the doping controversies which have once again overshadowed the race.

The protest came one day after Alexander Vinokourov and his Astana team withdrew from the event, the pre-race favourite having tested positive for blood doping.

Rasmussen had himself become clouded in controversy when he was thrown out of the Danish national team after missing four mandatory doping tests over the past two years.

And the last straw for Rabobank appears to have come after they discovered that Rasmussen had lied to them about his whereabouts last month.

Rasmussen told the team he had been in Mexico in June, when he was in fact in Italy.

The decision means that Spain's Alberto Contador (Discovery Channel) now holds the overall lead in the race, ahead of Australia's Cadel Evans (Predictor-Lotto).





I say give the prize to the guy who finishes last this year, cause you can sure as hell guarentee that he wont have been taking drugs or having blood transfusions . all of the dope fiends would rather pull out that finish last.




IMO The next guy out will be Alberto Contador (Discovery Channel) , who has already been linked with doping , just not got caught yet.

 

i say give them all drugs. an equal and enhanced playing field. but have a wildcard hallucinogenic drug to keep some athletes interesting.