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

Rumours circulating in the media indicate that Amaury Sports Organization(ASO),

the company which owns the Tour de France, may not invite Team Astana to the

2008 edition of the race.  That leaves defending Tour champion Alberto Contador

and America's best stage race rider, Levi Leipheimer, on the bench for

professional cycling's biggest show.

One of low points in last year's Tour was Team Astana's Alexandre Vinokourov

testing positive for non-homologous blood doping which resulted in the whole

team being sent home.  The fallout from the affair saw a complete overhaul of

the squad, which is sponsored by a group of Kazakstani government-owned

businesses.  Johan Bruyneel, who directed Lance Armstrong and his USPS/

Discovery Channel team to seven tour wins plus the win last year by Contador,

was brought in to rescue and rebuild the squad.  Gone are almost all of the

team personnel and any rider who had doping problems, including Vinokourov.

Unfortunately, Contador still has a shadow hanging over him with regards to

Operacion Puerto; the initials AC appear on a questionable document.  Contador

has declared his innocence, but in the world of denials by confessed dopers,

such as Marion Jones, the Tour champion's words seem to have had little affect

on the head honchos at ASO.

As I reported in an earlier blog, with the Tour de France dropping out of the

Pro Tour, the organizers at ASO now have complete control over which teams will

ride their race.  At the 2007 Tour, ASO chief Christian Prudhomme told me that

in 2008 the Tour would be run under ASO's rules and not the UCI's and now that

has happened.  Hey, ASO owns the Tour, they can decide to do whatever they

please.  Way back in 1930, Tour boss and founder, Henri Desgrange, didn't

invite the 1929 winner, Belgian Maurice De Waele, to the race supposedly

because he didn't like how he won the previous year.  I guess some people grow

on you as Desgrange invited De Waele back to the Tour the next year.

I think this sends a pretty clear message to Team Astana that the ball is in

their court and they need to take some pro-active steps to assure Contador's

innocence.  The question is, if Contador's words are not sufficient, what does

he and his team need to do to prove their innocence?  Hopefully, the Tour

bosses and Johan Bruyneel can come up with reasonable criteria so that everyone

feels like this issue has been dealt with fairly.  It would be a shame not to

have the defending champion and also our native son, Levi, excluded from the

Tour on scurrilous grounds.

Bruce