The Amgen Tour of California(AToC) organizers had the capacity to invite 18 teams to its recent race; it only invited 17. One team noticeably absent was the Canadian Symetrics squad which, in 2007, won the UCI Continental Championship for North and South America an honor which means it was the best team, based on UCI points, on two continents. Add to that, their rider Svein Tuft, not only won the individual UCI Continental Championships as well, but he also pulled off a remarkable win at the US Open, a race televised nationally on NBC TV, last April.

Unfortunately, Symetrics got no love from AToC organizers and was left out of the race. The Vancouver-based squad was on the sidelines as teams they beat in 2007 were racing in the Tour of California. I ran into one of their top riders, Eric Wohlberg, a three-time Canadian Olympian the day before the start of the AToC.  His frustration was evident; there really was no good reason the Symetrics team was left out of the race.

Hey but, Eric is a champion and champions don't get mad, they get even. This past weekend was the first big race on the US domestic calendar after the AToC, The Merco Cycling Classic, and all of the US domestic squads who had competed in the AToC were set to participate. All Eric did was solo off the front for the final 25 miles of the 120-mile road race to win alone. That's an in-your-face move if ever there was one!

You have to know Eric to realize that it wasn't so much as kicking mud in your eye. It was just a case of kicking your butt.  As former US Postal/Discovery Channel rider and fellow Canadian Michael Barry once told me, "Eric has two speeds, hard and harder." Here's hoping that Eric and his Symetrics team can get some love from the other top races in the US.  They deserve to be at all of them, including that Tour of California gig.  Hey, was all that rain some sort of karma payback?

Bruce

The 3rd annual Amgen Tour of California is in the books.  The people from

Amgen were conspicuously absent from the race, but reports are that they are

happy and looking to continue sponsorship.  Let's hope so.  Here are some

random thoughts about the race.

Things I liked:

All the aggressive riding.  It was full-on from day one first with the BMC Team

sending guys up the road on stages 1 and 2 and then with attacks by the likes

of George Hincapie, Robert Gesink, Dominique Rollin, that Hincapie guy again,

Michael Creed, Tom Zirbel, that Hincapie guy again, etc, etc.

The non-Pro Tour teams showing themselves in front of their bigger brothers.

These lesser weights (in UCI classification only?) didn't just hide out at the

back of the pack waiting for another beating, they raced side-by-side to the

finish.

Podium girls.  Hats off to Michael Ball and Rock Racing for bringing some

much-needed feminine touches to the main stage.

Mount Hamilton.  This bump helped create one of the most selective finishes

in the history of the AToC.  When combined with Sierra Road this made for a

very exciting stage.

Mario Cipollini.  Cipo is in his second career as a bike racer and has admitted

that he is playing with house money.  But, ride he did and he was in there when

he needed to be.  Bravo!

Levi's time trial ride.  Guys like David Millar, Christian Vandevelde, Tom

Zirbel and Ben Jacques-Maynes rode extremely well in Solvang, but Leipheimer

delivered the knock-out punch to anyone else's hopes to win the AToC.  Yeah,

he was expected to do well, but not that well.  It was a drubbing.

Things I didn't like:

The AToC organizers bumping three riders from Rock Racing from starting.  I

have still not seen the supposed letter from the UCI stating that there are

active doping investigations on Santiago, Oscar and Tyler.  Anybody else seen

any news on the alleged open doping investigations?

Mother Nature.  Maybe it was payback for kicking out the three Rock Racing

riders, but why penalize all the other racers and spectators with so much

rain?  I was starting to gather a few animals, two-by-two.

Media parking.  Hey, I am a journalist.  I am doing a job at the AToC.  Please

give me a place to park my car and don't trap me in some parking garage with

one attendant to take cash so I have to spend an hour waiting in line to leave

after the race.

Technical manual.  Is it so hard to put a graphic showing the press room on

the map of the finish area?

Bruce

As reported earlier, Rock Racing started only five riders in today's first stage, the 2.1-mile prologue, in the 2008 Amgen Tour of California(AToC). AToC organizers excluded three of Rock Racing's riders supposedly because they had open doping investigations. Rock Racing has maintained that there are no open investigations, but race organizers held firm. Frankly, it is not clear to me that there are any open doping investigations. I haven't seen any public mention that there are any open investigations and none of the Rock Racing riders have been privately notified that they are under investigation.

What is interesting to me is the parallel between what happened earlier this week to Team Astana. In the Astana affair, Amaury Sports Organization (ASO) issued a statement that Team Astana will not be invited to any ASO events, which includes the Tour de France. ASO cited the past history of doping on the team as their reason for the exclusion. However, Team Astana is a completely different team in 2008. Gone are all the riders implicated in any 2007 doping infractions as well as the whole team management.

So, if all the problem riders and team personnel are gone the team should be clean. The only rider on the team with a potential problem is Alberto Contador who has been linked to the same Operacion Puerto affair that AToC organizers used as a reason to exclude the three Rock Racing riders.

I think the decisions to exclude three riders from the AToC and Team Astana from the Tour are unfair. If you are upset that Levi may not get to ride in France, I think to be consistent, you have to also be upset that Tyler, Oscar and Santiago aren't riding the AToC. Would it be fair to allow Team Astana to ride the Tour de France if they don't bring Alberto Contador? How do you all feel about this? Do you all agree that both decisions are unfair?

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On to the racing news, which I hope will shortly eclipse all this talk of doping. My pre-race prediction (and I made that prediction on Thursday), Fabian Cancellara, obliterated the competition winning by a substantial four-second margin in the short, 2.1-mile prologue time trial. Levi Leipheimer, who won the first two prologue time trials in 2006 and 2007, finished fourth, six seconds back.

No big surprises in the race for the overall. All the overall contenders finished within 20 seconds of each other. With several big climbing stages and a 15-mile time trial yet to come, the race is still a dead heat. Cancellara could hold the jersey for the next two days which offers only moderate climbing and flat finishes.  However, come stage 3 on Wednesday, when both Mount Hamilton and Sierra Road are on the agenda, look for the 2006 Paris-Roubaix Champion and two-time World Time Trial Champion to hopefully transfer the jersey to one of his teammates such as Jens Voigt, Stuart O'Grady or Bobby Julich.

Bruce

Less than a day before the start of the 3rd annual Amgen Tour of California (AToC) and there is a huge storm on the horizon. At the center of the controversy is Michael Ball and his Rock Racing Team; the issue being whether certain riders on his team roster will be allowed to start the race. Earlier this week, Ball submitted ten riders names as potential members of his team for the AToC. When race organizers published the team rosters, only five of those original ten were listed as potential starters. Somewhere along the way, race organizers left five of Michael's riders off the list.

On Saturday morning, Michael Ball, just back from a training ride with his team, met with the press in downtown Palo Alto, the scene of Sunday's prologue start, to address this issue. The owner of Rock and Republic clothing was adamant that none of the members of his AToC team are involved in any active doping investigation and he provided written documentation to back it up. Also provided to the media was a written letter to race organizers informing them of the same thing, that no rider on his AToC team is involved in an active doping investigation.

The passionate Ball was firm in stating that the riders named to his team, Santiago Botero, Oscar Sevilla, Tyler Hamilton and Kayle Legrande who have been linked to potential doping practices will start the race.  Micheal strongly denied that he would accept a reduced number of riders if the race organizers refuse to let the aforementioned teammates participate.

At the heart of Ball's insistence is his belief that under the current conditions in professional cycling, riders need to be given the benefit of the doubt, especially if there is no open doping investigation. Ultimately, he would like to form a rider's union, something which is commonplace in most high-profile professional sports.

At the time of this blog, AToC organizers had not issued any statements as to their plans with regards to this situation. Personally, I think we have to allow riders an "innocent until proven guilty" attitude.  This is their job and how they put food on the table. Keeping someone from making a living based on rumor, innuendo or unproven charges is simply not fair.

I am hoping that a solution that is fair to the teams as well as the race can be reached. The AToC has so much to offer to the fans, sponsors and teams that it would be sad to see something like this bring any dark clouds to the race. Hey, it is February in California, we have enough other dark clouds to worry about.

Bruce

On the eve of the America's premier stage race, the Amgen Tour of California

(AToC), the attention shifted across the great pond where Amaury Sports

Organization (ASO) who own the Tour de France announced that Team Astana,

which has defending Tour champion Alberto Contador on it's roster, would not

be invited to any ASO-organized events in 2008.  ASO's decision is in response

to the doping incident at the 2007 Tour which saw Alexandre Vinokourov testing

positive for blood boosting.

Hey, it's my blog and I say that decision sucks big time.  After a very rocky

2007 which saw other doping violations, the Team Astana sponsors basically

kicked out all team personnel and questionable riders.  On paper, the name may

be the same, but the squad and it's management are completely different.  If

the sport of cycling is going to move forward from its current state, the

sport's governing body, the UCI, and the race organizers have to be willing to

give riders and their teams second chances.

Look, we are dealing with people's jobs and careers here. Decisions like this

have to be made fairly and consistently.  Team Rabobank arguably brought the

most disgrace to the 2007 Tour.  When was the last time the yellow jersey was

bounced from the Grand Boucle?  Rabobank hasn't been excluded from all ASO

events.  It just doesn't make sense to me.  Clearly, this is going to be a hot

topic of discussion for a while.  What are your thoughts?

So what does this mean for the upcoming AToC?  Thankfully, the event

organizers, AEG, don't appear to have any hidden agendas so we are going to

have nine of the top European professional teams, including Astana, and eight

US Domestic squads (well, Slipstream and BMC have European racing schedules)

putting on one heck of a show.

Defending 2007 AToC champion and Tour podium finisher, Levi Leipheimer is on

Team Astana.  If he and his mates are shut out of the biggest races in Europe,

that leaves the AToC to make a statement.  Personally, I hope that ASO see the

flaw in their logic (it's so big it is hard not to notice) and invites, Levi

and Alberto to the big show.  But, part of me likes the fact that Leipheimer

will undoubtedly be racing with a rather large chip on his shoulder at the

Tour of California because the guy has the legs and lungs to lay down a very

powerful statement.

Bruce