The Tour de France post

This weekend the Tour de France starts its annual trip around France in Brest. As far as I can see, this years edition - the 95th has all the makings of the most boring in years.

When Lance Armstrong was winning year after year then there was always the excitement of seeing Jan Ullrich turn himself inside out trying to get the better of LA, sometimes he got close but somehow the race was interesting if predictable. Then we had a couple of years of scandal, in 2006 I was really happy to see Floyd Landis win, only for him to be found guilty of doping and have the title taken from him.

Floyd fell on his arse doing a wheelie at the end of the race and has more or less been on it ever since.

That was a shame for the sport, but at least there was some great racing that year.

Last year Michael Rasmussen was within sight of the finish line when his team sent him home essentially for being too stupid to communicate his whereabouts during the year when he was training. They didn't have to do it, but they did and I feel sorry for the guy because he had his life's dream taken out of his hand at the last minute. Not too many people feel sorry for him though, he seems to have few fans in Denmark despite being danish and he makes little effort to be likable. Alberto Contador inherited the leaders jersey and went on to win the race but frankly by that stage I didn't really care.

Rasmussen was given a 2 year ban yesterday, I don't really understand why he got one now when he was cleared to ride last year and nothing has changed since then.

This year, the Astana team has not been invited to the race so the 1st and 3rd spots on the podium from 2007 will not be present meaning that last years runner up is hot favourite. Unfortunately that is Cadel Evans on of the most tedious men in pro cycling. Unusually for an Aussie he does not revel in the sound of his own voice, in this case though that is a blessing because when he does talk he has nothing of interest to say.

I think I'll be supporting Damiano Cunego, the little Italian guy who has focused on the TdF this year instead of the tour of Italy and may be able to get onto the podium, otherwise, I just hope that the racing is more interesting that I fear it may be. Not caring who wins is one thing, but if people stop caring who wins and the racing is boring then it starts to look like Formula 1 and that can't be a good thing...