The Tour de France gets under way today - but this year the race is also being held in England. The race starts in London and goes through neighbouring Kent before heading across the Channel to France.
Our clean pair of wheels
By ALEX BANNISTER
6th July 2007
Daily Mail
Today's Tour de France route in central London
First, the good news. The vast circus of the world's greatest annual sporting event rolls into London today for the start of what promises to be one of the most exciting and open races in years.
Last time the Tour de France visited these shores — for a couple of midweek stages in 1994 — two million people took the day off work to soak up the spectacle of the peloton speeding along the South Coast.
Best of British: Mark Cavendish with his bicycle on the London Eye
This year, the event hits the capital at a weekend for Le Grand Depart.
In 1994, a dour Spaniard called Miguel Indurain was still squeezing the life out of the race with an iron grip that held for five years. This year, whatever happens, we can look forward to the birth of an aggressive new star.
Even without a strong British contingent, think crowds 10 deep.
How much better then that seasoned pro David Millar and local Olympic hero Bradley Wiggins are among a handful of favourites capable of emulating Chris Boardman's record-breaking 1994 effort by scorching around the picture-postcard London circuit at 35mph to bag the yellow jersey in the 7.9km prologue dash.
Better still that hot new sprinter Mark Cavendish, just 22, has forced his way into the T-Mobile squad and has a realistic shot at outgunning the field to claim tomorrow's 203km opening stage from Greenwich to Canterbury.
In 2003 and 2004, Britain failed to count a single rider among the 200 or so who contested the world's greatest bicycle race. This year, thanks in large part to our world-beating Olympic programme, we have five. So what is the problem? Well, in a word, drugs.
An anniversary is creeping into view. The great Tommy Simpson, facing the prospect of a career past its best and a final tilt at his beloved Tour, turned to alcohol to numb the pain and amphetamines for some extra zip. On the bleak sun-baked Mont Ventoux in July 1967, as the Briton wobbled with the mercury nudging 110 degrees, he paid the price with his life.
Pills were found in his jersey and drug-taking — widespread in this event since its inception in 1903 — was finally forced on to the agenda. At the time, tests proved that 37 per cent of professional cyclists were using drugs.
On recent evidence, you would be hard pushed to guess whether that figure had gone up or down. And while in 1994 we witnessed a sport in denial with little to disturb the riders' eerie code of silence, more recently cycling has been publicly tearing itself to shreds.
Accepted lore had it that after the Festina affair in 1998 — when a soigneur (team medical man) called Willy Voet was caught trying to ferry industrial quantities of performanceenhancing drugs through customs — a new wave of riders were sweeping into the peloton and booting out the old ways. Recent events have blown away that theory.
Last year's Tour plumbed new depths. At its outset, a raid on a Spanish doctor — Operation Puerto — turned up a vampire's hoard of 200 bags of blood, 58 of them linked to pro riders.
Thirteen riders were thrown out days before the race, including the two favourites, Jan Ullrich and Ivan Basso.
Another contender, Alexandre Vinokourov, was unable to start as more than half his Astana team had been implicated. Worse was to come.
Floyd Landis — the 'winner' courtesy of an outlandish race-winning breakaway across the Alps — scored another first when he tested positive for testosterone just as everyone was going home.
And then this year, as that case rumbled on, Team CSC's sporting director Bjarne Riis admitted to using drugs for his Tour victory in 1996 in a scandal that fingered the whole of his 1990s Telekom team.
Seven of that squad — including legendary sprinter Erik Zabel but not Ullrich — admitted doping. What should we make of the fact that many of those pros are now installed as team managers?
Of the last five Tour winners, four — Riis, Ullrich, Marco Pantani and Landis — have all either failed drugs tests, been heavily implicated in a drugs scandal or admitted drugs use.
One — Pantani — joined Simpson by paying with his life. But a growing band of teams, led by T-Mobile, CSC and some of the French squads, are now making a big point of riding clean.
An initiative demands that each rider at this year's Tour signs a document committing them to the loss of one year's salary if he tests positive.
Millar — back from a two-year ban for EPO use — refuses any kind of injection and is trying to prove it is possible to get results on 'bread and water'.
And our young Brits command attention because they are 'guaranteed clean'.
This is a sport that could go either way but as Wiggins says: "It has got to a point where there are enough of us out there to sway the balance."
Whatever the future holds, the latest drugs busts have blown this 2007 Tour wide open. Into the vacuum left by Basso, Ullrich and Landis swirls the aggressive and unpredictable Kazakh, Vinokourov, the closest thing the race has to a favourite thanks to his previous podium placing in 2003 and his super-powered Astana squad. But make no mistake, Vino is no Lance Armstrong.
While Vinokourov has unquestionable strength in time trials — as does his team-mate and possible top challenger Andreas Kloden of Germany — there will be no shortage of riders looking for signs of weakness when the Tour hits the mountain passes of the second and third weeks.
First among these is the super-talented Spaniard Alejandro Valverde. Questioned interminably about alleged links to Operation Puerto, Valverde has had a nightmare run-up to this race after he took ill in the Dauphine event. But if he makes it he will be dangerous.
If not, his Caisse d'Epargne team have plenty to offer in the shape of last year's 'runner-up' Oscar Pereiro and the up-and-coming Tour de Suisse winner Vladimir Karpets of Russia.
Karpets joins Discovery's Alberto Contador, AG2R's John Gadret and Astana's Andrey Kasheschkin on a list of young riders who could make the step up this time.
Behind these lie the usual clutch of thirtysomethings still hoping cycling's pain will gift them an opportunity to escape the tag of eternal also-rans. In addition to Kloden — the most dangerous of the lot — this group comprises Australian Cadel Evans, Spanish climber Carlos Sastre, American Levi Leipheimer and France's Dauphine winner Christophe Moreau, all experienced riders looking to learn how to lead the Tour rather than follow.
Regrettably, there will be no British Tour champion. Of our five starters, all have targets for the three-week race which do not include winning it.
For Millar and Wiggins, of course, the first 7.9km of the 3,554km will matter more than all the rest put together. As for the others, only the seasoned Charly Wegelius should make Paris.
And yet Cavendish and Geraint Thomas — at 21 and 22 respectively — have a much more important role to play.
They may not see Paris but as two clean riders at the very outset of their professional careers, they carry on their shoulders nothing less than our hopes and dreams for the future of this troubled sport.
THREE TO WATCH...
ALEXANDRE VINOKOUROV
33, Astana
The aggressive, unpredictable Kazakh missed last year's race when half of his Astana squad were thrown out for alleged connections with Operation Puerto. Third in 2003, he put in a mixed performance at the Dauphine Libere, winning the time trial and staging two impressive breakaways, but disappointing in the two high mountain stages. If his form is not there, teammate Andreas Kloden will take the reins.
ALEJANDRO VALVERDE
27, Caisse d'Epargne
Spanish sensation who made his name in 2005 when at Courchevel he became the only rider to take on Lance Armstrong head-to-head on a mountain stage and win. Highly aggressive and will be a handful for everyone in the mountains if he can recover from illness at the recent Dauphine. Time trials let him down and dogged by alleged links to Operation Puerto, which he denies.
ROBBIE McEWEN
35, Predictor-Lotto
Brash Aussie speedster who takes no prisoners in the final kilometres when he's jostling for position at 50mph. Unable to ride well in the mountains but will be looking to add to his 11 Tour stage wins and three green jerseys for best sprinter. Disadvantage is that half his team will be riding for the American team leader Cadel Evans in the overall, unlike sprint rivals Tom Boonen and Thor Hushovd.
BEST OF BRITISH...
MARK CAVENDISH
22, T-Mobile
Track star brought up through the Olympic programme who has enjoyed a sensational debut season with five wins. Fearless sprinter but he will be going into unknown when he mixes it with Robbie McEwen and Co for the 50mph sprint into Canterbury. Will not complete Tour due to his young age.
DAVID MILLAR
30, Saunier Duval
Won the World Time Trial championship in 2003, only to be banned for two years after admitting taking EPO. Now riding on 'bread and water' and aiming to repeat crushing prologue victory of 2000 and then go for stage wins.
BRADLEY WIGGINS
27, Cofidis
Olympic track star who has had difficulty converting awesome power from the track into road success. Victory at the prologue in the Dauphine Libere has given him a huge confidence boost. Is in the form of his life.
GERAINT THOMAS
21, Barloworld
Another track rider brought up through the GB Olympics. The first Welsh rider in the event for 40 years, and another rider guaranteed clean. Hopes to have a good prologue and gain experience for the future. Too young to complete Tour but will just take it day by day.
CHARLY WEGELIUS
29, Liquigas
Seasoned Italy-based pro who specialises as a mountain domestique. Will shepherd team leader Danilo di Luca.
dailymail.co.uk
Our clean pair of wheels
By ALEX BANNISTER
6th July 2007
Daily Mail
Today's Tour de France route in central London
First, the good news. The vast circus of the world's greatest annual sporting event rolls into London today for the start of what promises to be one of the most exciting and open races in years.
Last time the Tour de France visited these shores — for a couple of midweek stages in 1994 — two million people took the day off work to soak up the spectacle of the peloton speeding along the South Coast.
Best of British: Mark Cavendish with his bicycle on the London Eye
This year, the event hits the capital at a weekend for Le Grand Depart.
In 1994, a dour Spaniard called Miguel Indurain was still squeezing the life out of the race with an iron grip that held for five years. This year, whatever happens, we can look forward to the birth of an aggressive new star.
Even without a strong British contingent, think crowds 10 deep.
How much better then that seasoned pro David Millar and local Olympic hero Bradley Wiggins are among a handful of favourites capable of emulating Chris Boardman's record-breaking 1994 effort by scorching around the picture-postcard London circuit at 35mph to bag the yellow jersey in the 7.9km prologue dash.
Better still that hot new sprinter Mark Cavendish, just 22, has forced his way into the T-Mobile squad and has a realistic shot at outgunning the field to claim tomorrow's 203km opening stage from Greenwich to Canterbury.
In 2003 and 2004, Britain failed to count a single rider among the 200 or so who contested the world's greatest bicycle race. This year, thanks in large part to our world-beating Olympic programme, we have five. So what is the problem? Well, in a word, drugs.
An anniversary is creeping into view. The great Tommy Simpson, facing the prospect of a career past its best and a final tilt at his beloved Tour, turned to alcohol to numb the pain and amphetamines for some extra zip. On the bleak sun-baked Mont Ventoux in July 1967, as the Briton wobbled with the mercury nudging 110 degrees, he paid the price with his life.
Pills were found in his jersey and drug-taking — widespread in this event since its inception in 1903 — was finally forced on to the agenda. At the time, tests proved that 37 per cent of professional cyclists were using drugs.
On recent evidence, you would be hard pushed to guess whether that figure had gone up or down. And while in 1994 we witnessed a sport in denial with little to disturb the riders' eerie code of silence, more recently cycling has been publicly tearing itself to shreds.
Accepted lore had it that after the Festina affair in 1998 — when a soigneur (team medical man) called Willy Voet was caught trying to ferry industrial quantities of performanceenhancing drugs through customs — a new wave of riders were sweeping into the peloton and booting out the old ways. Recent events have blown away that theory.
Last year's Tour plumbed new depths. At its outset, a raid on a Spanish doctor — Operation Puerto — turned up a vampire's hoard of 200 bags of blood, 58 of them linked to pro riders.
Thirteen riders were thrown out days before the race, including the two favourites, Jan Ullrich and Ivan Basso.
Another contender, Alexandre Vinokourov, was unable to start as more than half his Astana team had been implicated. Worse was to come.
Floyd Landis — the 'winner' courtesy of an outlandish race-winning breakaway across the Alps — scored another first when he tested positive for testosterone just as everyone was going home.
And then this year, as that case rumbled on, Team CSC's sporting director Bjarne Riis admitted to using drugs for his Tour victory in 1996 in a scandal that fingered the whole of his 1990s Telekom team.
Seven of that squad — including legendary sprinter Erik Zabel but not Ullrich — admitted doping. What should we make of the fact that many of those pros are now installed as team managers?
Of the last five Tour winners, four — Riis, Ullrich, Marco Pantani and Landis — have all either failed drugs tests, been heavily implicated in a drugs scandal or admitted drugs use.
One — Pantani — joined Simpson by paying with his life. But a growing band of teams, led by T-Mobile, CSC and some of the French squads, are now making a big point of riding clean.
An initiative demands that each rider at this year's Tour signs a document committing them to the loss of one year's salary if he tests positive.
Millar — back from a two-year ban for EPO use — refuses any kind of injection and is trying to prove it is possible to get results on 'bread and water'.
And our young Brits command attention because they are 'guaranteed clean'.
This is a sport that could go either way but as Wiggins says: "It has got to a point where there are enough of us out there to sway the balance."
Whatever the future holds, the latest drugs busts have blown this 2007 Tour wide open. Into the vacuum left by Basso, Ullrich and Landis swirls the aggressive and unpredictable Kazakh, Vinokourov, the closest thing the race has to a favourite thanks to his previous podium placing in 2003 and his super-powered Astana squad. But make no mistake, Vino is no Lance Armstrong.
While Vinokourov has unquestionable strength in time trials — as does his team-mate and possible top challenger Andreas Kloden of Germany — there will be no shortage of riders looking for signs of weakness when the Tour hits the mountain passes of the second and third weeks.
First among these is the super-talented Spaniard Alejandro Valverde. Questioned interminably about alleged links to Operation Puerto, Valverde has had a nightmare run-up to this race after he took ill in the Dauphine event. But if he makes it he will be dangerous.
If not, his Caisse d'Epargne team have plenty to offer in the shape of last year's 'runner-up' Oscar Pereiro and the up-and-coming Tour de Suisse winner Vladimir Karpets of Russia.
Karpets joins Discovery's Alberto Contador, AG2R's John Gadret and Astana's Andrey Kasheschkin on a list of young riders who could make the step up this time.
Behind these lie the usual clutch of thirtysomethings still hoping cycling's pain will gift them an opportunity to escape the tag of eternal also-rans. In addition to Kloden — the most dangerous of the lot — this group comprises Australian Cadel Evans, Spanish climber Carlos Sastre, American Levi Leipheimer and France's Dauphine winner Christophe Moreau, all experienced riders looking to learn how to lead the Tour rather than follow.
Regrettably, there will be no British Tour champion. Of our five starters, all have targets for the three-week race which do not include winning it.
For Millar and Wiggins, of course, the first 7.9km of the 3,554km will matter more than all the rest put together. As for the others, only the seasoned Charly Wegelius should make Paris.
And yet Cavendish and Geraint Thomas — at 21 and 22 respectively — have a much more important role to play.
They may not see Paris but as two clean riders at the very outset of their professional careers, they carry on their shoulders nothing less than our hopes and dreams for the future of this troubled sport.
THREE TO WATCH...
ALEXANDRE VINOKOUROV
33, Astana
The aggressive, unpredictable Kazakh missed last year's race when half of his Astana squad were thrown out for alleged connections with Operation Puerto. Third in 2003, he put in a mixed performance at the Dauphine Libere, winning the time trial and staging two impressive breakaways, but disappointing in the two high mountain stages. If his form is not there, teammate Andreas Kloden will take the reins.
ALEJANDRO VALVERDE
27, Caisse d'Epargne
Spanish sensation who made his name in 2005 when at Courchevel he became the only rider to take on Lance Armstrong head-to-head on a mountain stage and win. Highly aggressive and will be a handful for everyone in the mountains if he can recover from illness at the recent Dauphine. Time trials let him down and dogged by alleged links to Operation Puerto, which he denies.
ROBBIE McEWEN
35, Predictor-Lotto
Brash Aussie speedster who takes no prisoners in the final kilometres when he's jostling for position at 50mph. Unable to ride well in the mountains but will be looking to add to his 11 Tour stage wins and three green jerseys for best sprinter. Disadvantage is that half his team will be riding for the American team leader Cadel Evans in the overall, unlike sprint rivals Tom Boonen and Thor Hushovd.
BEST OF BRITISH...
MARK CAVENDISH
22, T-Mobile
Track star brought up through the Olympic programme who has enjoyed a sensational debut season with five wins. Fearless sprinter but he will be going into unknown when he mixes it with Robbie McEwen and Co for the 50mph sprint into Canterbury. Will not complete Tour due to his young age.
DAVID MILLAR
30, Saunier Duval
Won the World Time Trial championship in 2003, only to be banned for two years after admitting taking EPO. Now riding on 'bread and water' and aiming to repeat crushing prologue victory of 2000 and then go for stage wins.
BRADLEY WIGGINS
27, Cofidis
Olympic track star who has had difficulty converting awesome power from the track into road success. Victory at the prologue in the Dauphine Libere has given him a huge confidence boost. Is in the form of his life.
GERAINT THOMAS
21, Barloworld
Another track rider brought up through the GB Olympics. The first Welsh rider in the event for 40 years, and another rider guaranteed clean. Hopes to have a good prologue and gain experience for the future. Too young to complete Tour but will just take it day by day.
CHARLY WEGELIUS
29, Liquigas
Seasoned Italy-based pro who specialises as a mountain domestique. Will shepherd team leader Danilo di Luca.
dailymail.co.uk
