I take back all my praise for Stefan Schumacher and his breakaways and stage wins. Because, guess what? He tested positive for EPO! Natch.

And there's even bigger news! Bernard Kohl tested positive for CERA! Bernard Kohl, you may recall, was third in the general classification and first in the King of the Mountains competition. If the ( Read more... )

The 2008 Tour de France finally gets to Paris.

The winners:


( Read more... )

CSC really knocked it out of the park this year. After today's individual time trial, the final podium in Paris, barring any unforeseen weirdness on the ride onto the Champs-Élysées, will be Carlos Sastre, Cadel Evans, and Bernhard Kohl. And, amazingly, time trial champion Fabian Cancellara didn't win the stage today. He was actually bested by ( Read more... )

*hearts VeloNews liek whoa* They're managing to make this whole doping thing much less depressing and actually slightly funny. They may have gone a bit crazy as well, but I say more power to them.

VeloNews' Live Update Guy posts this:12:45 PM: Our apologiesMany of you may have had difficulty in reaching VeloNews.com yesterday, following Carlos ( Read more... )

From VeloNews' Live Update Guy:03:32 PM: More news from Saunier Duval
Leonardo Piepoli has been fired from the Saunier Duval team for a "violation of team's ethical code." We may assume that the results of his tests won't be all that good, either.

Sigh.

And so it goes.
Shit. He's going to lose his stage win ( Read more... )

Riccardo Ricco tests positive; Saunier Duval team withdraws from Tour de FranceFrench anti-doping authorities and Saunier Duval team officials confirmed Thursday that Italian climbing sensation Ricardo Ricco (Saunier Duval) has tested positive for the blood booster erythropoietin (EPO ( Read more... )

From VeloNews:On a disappointing note, the peloton will have one less rider today, as Barloworld's Moises Duenas has been pulled from the Tour de France after a urine sample provided after stage 4 showed signs of (what else?) EPO.
Would you all please STOP TAKING DRUGS!? I don't even care about Moises Duenas, whom I'd never heard of before this ( Read more... )

This year, instead of monitoring the Tour flashes on the Versus website, I'm monitoring it on VeloNews. This is clearly an awesome switch, because VeloNews provides you with actual *useful* information, and is also pretty snarky. For example, today they told us what the actual prizes for the jersey winners are:02:27 PM: Prize money ( Read more... )

According to VeloNews:A new rule for the 2008 Tour: Rider IDs on splits in the group are not announced until the gap(s) reaches 30 seconds.
Which makes it, um, hard to ID some of these riders.
Gee, ya think? Thank you so much, Christian Prudhomme. It's so much more fun to have NO IDEA WHAT'S GOING ON. Anything could be happening! But probably ( Read more... )

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