Tour No. 1 bib missing
There won’t be a No. 1 bib in this year’s Tour de France typically handed out to the previous year’s winner.

With the legal status of last year’s Tour winner Floyd Landis still in limbo, the 2007 Tour will start without having an official winner. With runner-up Oscar Pereiro waiting in the wings, the Tour has decided to skip the prestigious No. 1 bib.

“We wanted to make a symbolic gesture,” Jean-Francois Pescheux told AFP. It’s the first time in Tour history there won’t be a No. 1 bib in the race, Pescheux said.

Instead, Tour officials have decided to remove numbers one to nine and start the bibs with No. 11, which will go to runner-up Pereiro’s Caisse d’Epargne team.

Faced with the same problem at the Giro d'Italia, race officials gave the No. 1 bib to current world champion Paolo Bettini. Bettini, however, is not racing at the Tour, so that option wasn't available to Tour organizers.

It’s still not known if Pereiro or Alejandro Valverde will be listed atop the team’s nine-man roster as its team captain. The team will ride with numbers 11 through 19 with Team CSC receiving numbers 21 to 29.

Guerini won’t start Tour
Italian veteran Giuseppe Guerini has been dropped from T-Mobile’s nine-man Tour de France roster and replaced by German rider Bert Grabsch.

Guerini, winner on L’Alpe d’Huez in 1999 despite colliding with a fan who blocked his path, was part of the team’s original nine-man selection, but dropped after nagging stomach problems failed to clear up.

“Giuseppe hasn’t properly recovered from his stomach problems,” said T-Mobile sport director Rolf Aldag on the team’s web site. “Therefore, we had to make this decision because we weren’t sure he had the form and fitness to perform his team duties at a three-week Tour.”

Replacing the 37-year-old Guerini will be 32-year-old Grabsch, who was the team’s first replacement following a string of strong performances, including winning the German time trial national title last week. Grabsch, whose brother Ralf rides on Milram, will be making his fourth career Tour start.

“Bert has been performing very solidly in the past weeks,” Aldag said. “He brings a lot of experience and is definitely a strong replacement for Giuseppe.”

Boonen dreams in green
Tom Boonen will be taking aim for his first green jersey as his top goal for the Tour de France.

The prolific Belgian sprinter has won four career Tour stages in three starts, but only finished once, which he capped off by winning on the Champs Elysées in his 2004 Tour debut. He abandoned with injuries in both 2005 and 2006. Last year, he also wore the yellow jersey for four days but didn’t win a stage before abandoning in stage 15.

“I’d like to win the green jersey, but if I don’t do it this year, I can still do it in the future,” Boonen said during last month’s Dauphiné Libéré. “I am still young. I have plenty of time.”

The Belgian QuickStep-Innergetic team brings a squad to help Boonen in the sprints as well as hunt for stage victories in breakaways.

Spanish rider Juan Manuel Garate – four times in the top 10 at the Giro d’Italia and winner of mountain stage in the 2006 Giro – will be the team’s GC rider. A stage victory would be ideal for the 31-year-old veteran Spaniard making his third Tour start.

Left off the team were Andrea Tonti and Kevin Van Impe while promising Spanish classics rider Carlos Barredo will be making his Tour debut.

Quick Step-InnergeticCarlos Barredo (Sp)Tom Boonen (B)Steven De Jongh (Nl)Juan Manuel Garate (Sp)Bram Tankink (Nl)Matteo Tosatto (I)Sebastien Rosseler (B)Gert Steegmans (B)Cédric Vasseur (F)TBA

Pozzato, Beltrán lead Liquigas
Stage victories will be the primary goal for Liquigas during the Tour de France.

With Giro d’Italia champion Danilo Di Luca skipping the Tour to regroup for a late-season run at the world title, the Italian team will build its hopes stage-hunters Filippo Pozzato and Manuel Quinziato. Pozzato, 25, won a stage in his 2004 Tour debut and claimed Milan-San Remo in 2006.

Spanish veteran Manuel Beltrán – one of Lance Armstrong’s key lieutenants during his final years at Discovery Channel – will be the team’s GC hope. The skinny climber will try his luck for a stage victory and aim for a place in the top 10.

Brazilian sprinter Murilo Fischer will try his luck in the mass gallops while the rest of the team will have freedom to try to sneak into breakaways.

LiquigasFilippo Pozzato (I)Manuel Quinziato (I)Manuel Beltrán (Sp)Michael Albasini (Swi)Kjell Calström (Fin)Murilo Fischer (Brz)Aliaksandr Kuchynski (Blr)Charles Wegelius (GB)Frederik Willems (B)

Astana defends its riders
Astana boss Marc Biver has ruled out an internal inquiry within the Swiss team amid doping allegations against two of their riders, AFP reported.

“What inquiry should I launch? We're a new team and I'm in charge since January 1, 2007. I can't say what happened before,” Biver told the German daily Der Tagesspiegel in their Tuesday edition.

Astana riders Eddy Mazzoleni of Italy and German Matthias Kessler are currently under the cloud of doping claims.

“We have the same controls and have taken the same anti-doping measures as all the other teams. Why should we be punished simply because we have the best riders?” said Biver, who also ruled out making public the results of their riders’ blood tests.

Astana last week dropped Mazzoleni from their nine-man Tour de France team due to the doping allegations.

The team led by Tour hopefuls Alexandre Vinokourov of Kazakhstan and German Andreas Klöden also said that all its riders had signed or were in the process of signing the International Cycling Union's (UCI) commitment to clean cycling, which includes the request for a DNA sample.

Biver also reported that Walter Godefroot, the former Telekom team manager who joined Astana as an adviser at the behest of Vinokourov, will no longer be working with the team.
By Agence France Presse

CSC docs defend practices
Team CSC issued a statement Monday defending its practices in light of recent allegations coming from German rider Jörg Jaksche. Jaksche won Paris-Nice while riding for one season with Team CSC in 2004 and said in a tell-all interview he used banned doping products during all the teams he rode with during his career.

Jaksche admitted he was “Bella” on the Puerto list and said he worked with controversial Spanish doctor Eufemiano Fuentes during the 2005-06 seasons.

Team CSC doctors, however, released this statement in the wake of the interview:

“The medical staff of Team CSC has always been working in an ethical, professional way.

“In case of illness or injury’s we try to help our riders, by treating them according to the rules of the UCI (ie. medication, physiotherapy, etc.). No products were used that are on the Prohibited List. The use of glucocorticosteriods for injuries (local infiltrations) and beta-2 agonists (by inhalation) is part of our treatment possibilities. “We only use these when that treatment is medically appropriate and the use of alternative medications, not on the Prohibited List, would be unsatisfactory for this condition.In those cases, the UCI was always informed, the TUE (Therapeutic Use Exemption) was signed by the cyclist and one of our medical doctors.

“We support the new UCI ProTour Anti-Doping Programme '100% against doping' completely.”

Dr. Joost De MaeseneerDr. Piet De MoorDr. Piet Danneels