Boonen abandoned! *cries* Not that he's done anything at all for the entire gorram Tour, of course. But still, after his team went to fucking *court* to get him back into the Tour in the first place after his second out of competition positive for cocaine, I sort of expected him to bring *some* sort of game. And, you know, stick it out. Apparently that was crazy talk.

Australian sprint star Robbie McEwen has ruled himself out of taking part in the Tour de France after undergoing surgery on a fractured tibia.

The 36-year-old Katusha rider underwent surgery on Thursday after suffering
a heavy fall on the second stage of the Tour of Belgium in Knokke-Heist.

"I had an accident today in tour of Belgium, broke my tibia," McEwen said
on his Twitter account late Thursday. "Operation, two screws in it. Luckily the tendon is ok. Hit a barrier.

"Thanks everyone for your support. I promise you this, I will be back."

Speaking to Belgian television station Sporza on Friday, McEwen effectively
ended any hopes he or the Katusha team might have had for him to compete in
the July 4-29 Tour de France, a race in which he has been the green jersey
winner on three occasions.

A scheduled Lance Armstrong press conference at the Interbike cycling trade show in Las Vegas turned tense Thursday morning when three-time Tour de France champion Greg LeMond questioned his plan to disclose his blood and urine values during Armstrong’s 2009 comeback season.

[...]

LeMond, who has been at odds with Armstrong for years going back to the Texan’s relationship with controversial Italian doctor Michele Ferrari, sat in the front row and was granted the first question by Armstrong.

LeMond immediately brought Catlin’s methods into question, claiming that VO2 max, oxygen intake and power output can be used as indicators of whether a rider has used illicit performance-enhancing methods.

Catlin, whose background is in laboratory testing for banned substances, answered LeMond by saying, "that’s not my area of expertise."

LeMond told Catlin and Armstrong that it might not be Catlin’s area of expertise, but it is an area that Australian researcher Michael Ashenden has studied.

Armstrong, who was joined on the podium by Catlin and American teenage cycling phenom Taylor Phinney, then interjected, telling LeMond, "We are here to talk about a few things — the global cancer campaign, my comeback to cycling... I appreciate your being here, but it’s time for everyone here to move on."

Lemond replied, "So the whole history has just been passed over?"

Armstrong then moved on to the next question.

LeMond drew a similar line of questioning later in the press conference, and after several minutes Armstrong quipped, "Greg, I almost feel like we should have a fourth chair up here" before cutting LeMond off and again taking other questions.

Greg Lemond was in the front row, and jumped in with the first question, and then wouldn’t shut up. He tried to turn this conference into an ad-hoc trial / referendum. It was stupid and obnoxious, and it wasn’t the right time for that kind of ambush. As soon as I get home tonight, I’m going to steam the decals of my Fillmore.

12:45 PM: Our apologies
Many of you may have had difficulty in reaching VeloNews.com yesterday, following Carlos Sastre's stage win atop L'Alpe d'Huez. We have received a detailed explanation from our server provider, regarding the technical issues that cropped up, partially due to the heavy demands generated by one of the most interesting stages in the Tour de France.

There were technical issues and those have been corrected... but the Live Update Guys have also found a developing scandal involving the very core of our computer network, the creature you know as Herbie the Hamster. More on that as the story develops.

01:03 PM: Yesterday's technical issues
While our server issues have been resolved, the Live Update Crew appears to have found another reason for the problem.

Ever the self-appointed anti-doping crusader, Charles Pelkey, our Senior Live Update Guy - we call him "SLUG" - discovered a suspicious link between Herbie the Hamster and a Milan-based veterinarian, Doctor Michele "Mickey" Lamborghini. The SLUG has demanded Herbie's blood profiles, results of which will be made available later today.

01:34 PM: More on Herbie
It appears that our problems yesterday were, indeed, rooted in SLUG's suspicions about our Hamster's relationship with the mysterious Dr. Lamborghini. Right after the conclusion of yesterday's stage, testers showed up at our server farm, looking for samples. Herbie, forewarned of the tests, apparently scampered out of his wheel, leaving a text message that he was training in Mexico.

We don't blame Herbie... we blame SLUG.

03:10 PM: Meanwhile ...
To bring you up to speed, Herbie the Hamster, the power source for the VeloNews.com web site, disappeared suspiciously, soon after yesterday's stage, leading to a server crash.

Herbie has been in touch with SLUG, the Senior Live Update Guy, via text message. His tone is becoming closer to confessional.

"LOOK," he texted. "im not admitting nothing, but u dont no the pressure we are under. if you think we can power 1 mill page views on water and crackers, ur crazy. I mean, lol."

03:32 PM: More news from Saunier Duval
Leonardo Piepoli has been fired from the Saunier Duval team for a "violation of team's ethical code." We may assume that the results of his tests won't be all that good, either.

Sigh.

And so it goes.

05:18 PM: Cobra venom?
It appears that Ricardo Rico has been formally arrested on the charge of "using poisonous substances," a part of France's anti-sporting fraud law. The penalty is pretty heavy, too. He could face up to five years in a French prison.

Having covered the Festina scandal in 1998, we can assure you those are not pleasant places to be.

French anti-doping authorities and Saunier Duval team officials confirmed Thursday that Italian climbing sensation Ricardo Ricco (Saunier Duval) has tested positive for the blood booster erythropoietin (EPO).

Informed of the positive just an hour before the start of Thursday’s 12th stage of the Tour de France, Ricco was taken by gendarmes to a local police station for questioning. Within minutes of Ricco’s departure, his entire team voluntarily withdrew from the Tour.

01:30 PM: Off they go
the peloton is on route, albeit without the company of Riccardo Ricco, Juan Jose Cobo, David De La Fuente, Josep Jufre Pou and Leonardo Piepoli.

Ricco was leading in the best young rider competition, while he and De la Fuente held the top two spots in the KOM contest. As a result, Sebastian Lang (Gerolsteiner) now leads the KOM with 57 points and Vincenzo Nibali (Liquigas) is now the Tour's best young rider. Helluva way to shake up those standings, eh?

01:33 PM: At 8km
we see another dig, with six riders off the front of the field by about 30 seconds. We have yet to get IDs... although we're pretty darn sure none of them is wearing a Saunier Duval jersey.

At some point in the process, the second-placed rider would be awarded the stage win, at least for the record books. We don't think we are getting too far ahead of ourselves to bring this up ... So in stage 6, Alejandro Valverde was second behind Ricco, and in stage 9, Vladimir Efimkin was second.

Now, it will get a bit more dramatic if Ricco's teammates Piepoli and Cobo are implicated directly. They were one-two on stage 10 atop the Hautacam, with Frank Schleck the first non-Saunier Duval rider to cross the line.

On a disappointing note, the peloton will have one less rider today, as Barloworld's Moises Duenas has been pulled from the Tour de France after a urine sample provided after stage 4 showed signs of (what else?) EPO.

02:27 PM: Prize money
We get frequent questions about prizes at the Tour.

Here's a quick summary:
Yellow jersey - 450,000 euros (about $690,000)
Green (points) jersey - 25,000 euros (about $37,500)
Polka dot (KOM) jersey - 25,000 euros (about $37,500)
White (young rider) jersey - 20,000 euros (about $29,500)

The most aggressive rider, too, is awarded an overall prize of 20,000 euros (about $29,500).

Stage winners earn 8000 euros.

02:32 PM: Reader question
Neil from Wisconsin writes

What is the general feeling there about Rico's stage win yesterday? Should we expect another Vino/Landis catastrophe?

Man Neil, we sure hope not. Ricco is under scrutiny anyway, according to a couple of French newspapers. The Tour shouldn't have to go through that again. We hope that in his idolization of Marco Pantani, Mr. Ricco opts to select carefully from the list of characteristics he cares to emulate, eh?

03:15 PM: Speaking of money
We mentioned prize money earlier. There is a special prize to offered to the rider who summits the Tourmalet first today. Of course there are climbing points, but there is also the Jacques Godet prize of 5000 euros (about a million-billion dollars if our devaluation continues at its current speed) in honor of cresting the high point of this Tour de France stage.

A new rule for the 2008 Tour: Rider IDs on splits in the group are not announced until the gap(s) reaches 30 seconds.
Which makes it, um, hard to ID some of these riders.

I can see, Mr. Prudhomme, that you have been working overtime to bring us a Tour unlike anything we have ever seen before. A Tour that defines the premier road racing event on its own terms. A Tour that takes charge of the racers, rather than letting the racers take charge of the race. A Tour that clamps down on excess and eliminates rash behavior. A Tour with dignity above all.

A Tour, in short, that looks and feels as if it were produced by America’s Public Broadcasting System and moderated by Jim Lehrer.

[...]

Your zeal for reducing the unnecessary excitement that normally surrounds this race is admirable, Mr. Prudhomme, but I think there’s more that can be done to design a Tour de France that will — at long last — let the citizens of France (and other countries, though I do not necessarily approve of the TdF ever exiting France or even approaching its borders) be able to have some peace and quiet, even as the cyclists pedal by.