Armstrong gone, it's time to turn a yellow page at Tour
STRASBOURG, France -- The official poster for the 2006 Tour de France shows several gloved hands tugging on a yellow jersey, an apt way to illustrate the fact the race is finally up for grabs again.
Lance Armstrong's dominance during his run of seven straight Tour wins with the US Postal Service and Discovery Channel teams made for compelling moments, but few suspenseful finishes. His retirement amounts to a huge tailwind for the rest of the peloton.
As the three-week endurance test gets under way here tomorrow with a 4.4-mile prologue time trial, questions abound not only about who will succeed Armstrong, but about whether the sport has made progress in solving its chronic, insidious doping problem.
Details of a Spanish police investigation into a doping ring run by a Madrid doctor were leaked last weekend and threaten to blow up into the worst cycling scandal since the 1998 Festina affair that nearly derailed the Tour. The doctor allegedly provided performance-enhancing drugs and facilitated illicit transfusions for several dozen elite riders.
Although only a handful of riders were named in Spanish media reports and none have been criminally charged, the stories prompted Tour officials to eject one team. More expulsions could follow in the coming days if Spanish authorities release specific information on riders.
On the road, many things will be new and different this year: the tactics, the faces getting airtime, and the optimism of more than one team leader. Six or eight riders have at least an outside shot to win, and the race likely will be decided in the last few days rather than halfway through, as it was so often during the Armstrong era.
``This will open up the psyche of a lot of these guys," said ex-pro Davis Phinney, the first American rider to win a road stage at the Tour, 20 years ago. ``They tried everything and it all came to null and void when Postal/Discovery went and did their work.
``It'll be nice to go back to the era of more wide-open racing, where the best guys were left at the front with a couple of [mountain] passes to go. Those days where you had five or six guys riding their leader to the final climb, having dropped 80 to 90 percent of the field, I don't think you're going to see that anymore."
Two riders sit above the rest. Italy's Ivan Basso, last year's runner-up, crushed the field to win the Tour of Italy last month. Germany's Jan Ullrich, the lone former Tour champion in the field, is seeking a second title nine years after he stormed to victory as a 23-year-old with seemingly limitless potential.
Ullrich is the better time trial rider, Basso the more agile and explosive climber. Basso has a muscular, experienced team that might rival some of Armstrong's supporting crews. On paper, the course favors Ullrich, with two long and largely flat time trials and only three uphill finishes.
That would seem to make strategy simple for the two front-runners. Basso needs to climb well and limit his losses in the time trials. Ullrich will want to open up as much of a gap as he can in the first time trial, hold his own in the mountains, and seal the win in the time trial on the Tour's second-to-last day.
But it would be a mistake to view this Tour as a match race, said former US Postal Service rider Jonathan Vaughters.
``It's not going to be formulaic like before," said Vaughters, now the coach of a US-based team, TIAA-CREF. ``Luck is going to play a part. The last few years Lance and his team have basically taken luck out of the race."
Longtime Tour commentator and ex-pro Paul Sherwen concurred.
``It's going to be a strange Tour that could see a surprise winner," Sherwen said. ``My big favorite is still Ivan Basso. The negative is that he raced the Giro [d'Italia] to win. Not that many guys can do both. But the guy has improved physically and mentally so much. Ullrich is at the same level he was in '96."
Ullrich also will have to deal with speculative reports connecting him to the Spanish doping probe. He has denied any link.
If Basso's CSC and Ullrich's T-Mobile teams are overly focused on each other, Vaughters and Sherwen said another man could sneak into contention by making a well-timed breakaway, forcing other teams to decide whether to do the grunt work of chasing him down.
``The other guys will all wait for each other to make a move," Vaughters said. ``There will be that moment of hesitation where they say, `I'm not expending my energy, you do it.' And then someone's two or three minutes up the road and it's too late. Who that's going to be, I don't know."
Two accomplished Americans are strong podium candidates: Floyd Landis of Switzerland-based Phonak and Levi Leipheimer, the laconic Montanan who rides for the German Gerolsteiner team.
Landis, raised in a Mennonite family in Lancaster County, Pa., is a former mountain biker and Armstrong lieutenant who finished ninth in his first Tour as the point man last year. Leipheimer has placed in the top 10 in all three Tours he has finished. Both have significant European stage race victories this year -- Landis at Paris-Nice and Leipheimer at the recent Dauphine Libere, a traditional Tour tuneup.
Other riders capable of challenging for the overall title include Australian Cadel Evans, who finished eighth last year; Russia's Denis Menchov; Italy's Damiano Cunego; and Alejandro Valverde of Spain. Valverde sprinted from Armstrong to win an uphill finish in the Alps last year, but hasn't proved he can be consistent in a three-week Grand Tour.
Armstrong's former team is poised to play a spoiler's role -- or better. Team director Johan Bruyneel has said the team will make in-race decisions about whether to support one rider or go after solo stage wins or the team classification, determined by the lowest combined, cumulative time.
Discovery's four-pronged attack features Armstrong's longtime wheelman, George Hincapie; Ukrainian rider Yaroslav Popovych, winner of last year's Best Young Rider jersey; two-time Tour of Italy winner Paolo Savoldelli; and nimble climber Jose Azevedo of Portugal.
It's unclear whether Armstrong, a part owner of the team, will make a cameo appearance next month.
This Tour also marks the return of confessed doper David Millar of Great Britain in his first race after a two-year suspension. Millar confessed to having used the banned blood booster EPO after police, who raided his home, found used syringes containing the substance. The repentant Millar will be racing for the Saunier Duval team.
Two decades after Greg LeMond shattered stereotypes by becoming the first US rider to win the Tour, Americans are firmly entrenched in a number of roles with top teams.
CSC veterans Bobby Julich and Christian Vande Velde, along with 2005 prologue winner Dave Zabriskie, will ride in support of Basso. Freddie Rodriguez is the lead-out man for Aussie sprinter Robbie McEwen on Davitamon-Lotto, and Chris Horner of Bend, Ore., who also rides for the Belgian team, will work for Evans and try for the stage win that just eluded him last year.
``I can't wait," said former US Postal rider Frankie Andreu, who will be roadside doing commentary for OLN. ``All the Americans are riding so well. This is their chance to step up and grab some glory. There's a lot of opportunity there."
