No Armstrong, No End to Controversy

Tour de France officials were happy when seven-time champion Lance Armstrong retired. “The Lance Era is rightfully over,” race director Jean Marie LeBlanc said. “Now the race will be competitive.”

And while it might, as the 93rd version of the Tour begins Saturday with a 4.4-mile prologue in Strasbourg, the race is being overshadowed by stories of doping involving Armstrong and current riders.

Italy’s Ivan Basso of CSC, a Danish team whose sponsor is based in El Segundo, and Germany’s Jan Ullrich, a former winner, are considered the favorites along with a trio of Americans -- Floyd Landis of Murrieta who rides for the Swiss team Phonak and who won three big spring races including the Tour of California; Levi Leipheimer of Santa Rosa, Calif., who rides for German team Gerolsteiner; and George Hincapie of Greenville, S.C., who rides for Armstrong’s Discovery Channel team.

Other contenders -- in a field that for the first time since 1998 won’t include Armstrong -- are young Spaniard Alejandro Valverde and Alexandre Vinokourov, whose Astana-Wurth team was almost thrown out of the Tour in the wake of a Spanish newspaper investigation that alleges a doctor associated with the team has been supplying cyclists with illegal drugs.

On Friday the Court of Arbitration ruled that the Tour can’t keep Vinokourov or his team out. “There is no reason to throw the team out,” Vinokourov told journalists in Strasbourg before medical tests Thursday. “These charges are from the past.”

Discovery Channel director Johan Bruyneel says that even if Ullrich or Basso seems about to dominate, “The other contenders have experience beating those two in the past and have more confidence against them. The pack will be more ambitious and daring than it was against Lance. It is extremely hard to ride as the identified favorite.”

Dave Zabriskie of Salt Lake City, who rides with Basso for CSC, is considered the favorite in the prologue. He won the same stage last year, edging Armstrong.

Most experts say the form of the favorites won’t be determined until the second week when the race, after the first of two rest days, heads into the Pyrenees.

The race will end in Paris July 23 after riders have covered 2,270 miles.