Between Tour happenings

So, the countdown to the Tour de France continues and the pre-Tour news keeps trickling in. The one week, Critérium du Dauphiné Libéré started in France on Sunday, and even though he says he's still not at his best, Alberto Contador easily won the prologue time trial on a fancy new bike. He's still leading after 3 days of racing, although he said he didn't want to win it. If I was him, I would be less worried about the leader's jersey and more worried about the shorts he's wearing, which seem to be giving him a severe "camel toe".

Most of the Tour contenders that aren't riding the Dauphiné, will be lining up the Tour De Suisse that starts on Saturday. Lance Armstrong will be there, and he's been showing some reasonable form of late......... I'm hoping he'll shit out and get a good shoeing from the Schlecks.

Rabobank have revealed their Tour line-up, with Menchov and Gesink as joint team leaders. I picked Gesink for my team last year and he lasted less than a week before quitting with a broken something-or-other, earning me precisely null points. Menchov has kept a very low profile this year and only had a few day's racing, so his form is any one's guess. Also worth considering on the Dutch squad are sprinter Oscar Friere, (if he isn't injured) and young Lars Boom, who I might pick for my team, if only because of the possibilities for puns.

Columbia HTC have also revealed their Tour team long-list of 15. It's got both Cav and Andre Griepel on it though, so they'd better decide which sprinter to take, or there could be some inter-team tension.



2008 Tour winner Carlos Sastre is currently on the "will he? won't he?" list. He had a tough time of it at the Giro D'Italia, and has a bad back after crashing a lot. Currently he's not sure whether to batter himself in the Tour, or take it easy and rest a while before a tilt at the Tour of Spain in September. I like Carlos, so I hope he's better soon, and I hope he has a good ride in a grand tour this year - preferably when he's on my fantasy team.

The fallout from those Flandis allegations rumbles on, but there's been no more juicy revelations as of yet. In my experience, the Frenchies usually like to make with a scandal about a week before the start of the race. I seem to recall there being some questionable medical waste being thrown away by the Astana team last year, which the authorities were looking into. The French only work a 30 hour week or something, and have loads of holidays, so the kind of lab tests most of us could knock out in a couple of weeks, take them a year or so to do. Therefore, we can expect some headlines in LeMonde at the end of the month to put the willies up Lance and Bertie before the start of the race.