American Dave Zabriskie crossed the finish line in Montpelier alone, 31:26 behind the field. The CSC rider missed the time cut and abandoned the race. Zabriskie has been struggling with knee pain since the Tour began, attributing it to a team-mandated decision to switch shoes during the Giro d’Italia in May.

“The pain is in my left knee, the one that was damaged in a car accident [in May 2003],” Zabriskie said. “The screws in there are just too sensitive to change.”

Zabriskie had hoped to recover during the flat stages between the Alps and the Pyrenees, but found the pace too difficult.

“After the Galibier day I really struggled to try to get better,” Zabriskie said. “I was hoping these few flat days I could nurse it back to health, but the Tour is not the kind of race where you can fix yourself. Today was a really hard day and my knee couldn’t handle it. I came off when Astana finally did their rotation in the wind.”

Zabriskie was racing his third Tour, all for Team CSC. He made history by winning the prologue in 2005 ahead of Lance Armstorng and taking the yellow jersey, only to crash mysteriously in the team time trial several days later. Last year Zabrsiskie finished the race for the first time, in 74th place. The Utah native was headed back to his home in Girona, Spain, as early as Thursday night.

Before Zabriskie crossed the line, VeloNews caught up with CSC sport director Kim Anderson.

“For us it’s too bad that Dave is not at his best,” Anderson said. “He has to try and make himself useful, and there hasn’t been too much of that so far. We hoped he would get better. He’s also disappointed that he hasn’t been able to help the team like he’d hoped.”

Zabriskie had been working on daily video diaries with VeloNewsTV. Look for a final diary entry shortly.
By Neal Rogers

‘Sinkwitz Affaire’ puts German teams on ropes
Could the “Sinkewitz Affaire” sink Germany’s two ProTour teams?

The future of T-Mobile and Gerolsteiner are both on the brink thanks to the failed doping test of German rider Patrik Sinkewitz in an out-of-competition control June 8.

German public broadcasters ARD and ZDF took the unprecedented step Wednesday to cancel coverage of the 2007 Tour, turning the heat up on a sport already under the microscope.

“Without television, our team has no currency,” Gerolsteiner team manager Hans-Michael Holczer told VeloNews before Thursday’s start. “The hard reaction from German TV is speeding up the death of cycling.”

In light of the television blackout, officials from T-Mobile and Gerolsteiner said both teams will huddle with respective sponsor representatives in the coming weeks to reconsider their team’s immediate futures.

Holczer said he has a contract with Gerolsteiner through the end of the 2008 season, but the German water bottler is conducting intensive customer surveys during this year’s Tour and the 2007 Tour of Germany to gauge the value of its sponsorship.

“If we had been in that same position (a team rider positive), our sponsor would say come home,” Holczer said. “We have to teach the (riders) that it’s not possible anymore (to dope). C’est fini. It’s no longer acceptable.”

German cycling has been reeling following doping revelations this spring from just about every major Telekom star in the 1990s, including Erik Zabel, Udo Bölts, Rolf Aldag and Christian Henn.

Bjarne Riis – winner of the 1996 Tour while riding on Telekom – became the first Tour winner to admit to doping. Riis is staying away from this year’s Tour, but the cloud of doping scandal continues to haunt German cycling.

Despite an intensive housecleaning and a strict, no-doping policy that includes ground-breaking internal controls, T-Mobile was thrown into turmoil when it learned through media leaks that Sinkewitz failed out-of-competition control for elevated levels of testosterone.

The Sinkewitz case - a follow-up ‘B’ sample has yet to be tested, but most observers have been quick to judge him as guilty-as-charged - simply threw a match on an already combustible situation.

T-Mobile said it will reconsider its commitment to the cycling team through 2010, but team manager Bob Stapleton said he will meet with corporate sponsors following the Tour.

“I think T-Mobile and I both knew when we made the commitment to try to make change in the sport that this was not going to be easy, and that setbacks were possible. This is a part of that. I think they will remain committed,” Stapleton said Wednesday. “I understand their concerns about this incident completely. I share those concerns. So I think we will have to talk through and see how we both feel about it.”

Stapleton told VeloNews the team isn’t considering withdrawing from the Tour following the Sinkewitz scandal.

“These guys want to race their bikes,” Stapleton said. “We’re not going to take that away from them.”
By Andrew Hood

Timeline of Germany’s dark daysApril 3 – DNA tests match nine bags of blood rounded up in the Puerto raids match German Tour winner Jan Ullrich.April 28 - Jef d’Hondt, chief soigneur at Telekom between 1992-96, makes allegations of organized doping within the teamMay 3 - T-Mobile suspends two team doctors over the doping allegations.May 11 - T-Mobile suspends Serhiy Honchar after irregular blood tests.May 21 - Bertz Dietz becomes first Telekom rider to admit that he took EPO and other banned substances during his time on the team. Rolf Aldag, Erik Zabel, Christian Henn, Udo Bolts and Bjarne Riis all come forward with doping admissions.June 19 - Honchar is fired from the team for “violating the team’s code of conduct.”June 27 - Astana suspends German rider Matthias Kessler for a testosterone positive from April 24.July 2 - Jorg Jaksche admits in a paid interview with Der Spiegel that he’s on the Puerto list and makes further allegations of doping at Telekom.July 13 - Astana fires Kessler.July 18 - T-Mobile suspends Sinkewitz; German television suspends Tour broadcastssource: L’Equipe