I awoke Friday morning checking my usual websites. Soon after, I was completely amazed at what I read. Not only was my favorite to win the tour tossed out (Basso), but so was Jan Ullrich, Francisco Mancebo, and a few others. With the others that were tossed out, that forced Alexandre Vinokourov to withdraw because he didn’t have the mandatory amount of riders on his team to start. Wow! It seems from some other sites that I’ve read and friends I’ve talked to, many consider cycling to be the dirtiest sport around. I think what’s so shocking about all of the riders being tossed out, is that right now there seems to be no actual proof of them doping. They are being forced not to race just because they are said to have contact with a Spanish doctor linked to an on going doping probe in Spain called Operación Puerto. What ever happened to innocent until proven guilty?

Unlike the rest of the world, most Americans don’t really know the World Cup is actually going on. This is the biggest sporting event in the world! The event started last Friday and will continue into July. I don’t watch a lot of Football (or soccer as we call it for some strange reason) but I usually tune into the World Cup to watch a few matches. It’s pretty interesting once you know a little about the game and the rules. Much like the Tour de France is quite interesting once you know the strategy involved. You should check out the USA match tomorrow if you can. Hopefully they will show up more than they did against the Czech Republic.

The Tour de Georgia started yesterday in Augusta, Georgia. I’ve missed it the last few years but I’m hoping to make it out to a stage this weekend. With Discovery, Phonak, and CSC this will be a very competitive race. I suspect Floyd Landis, Tom Danielson, and Dave Zabriskie are among the race favorites. Coverage can be found at VeloNews.

Though Endurance Radio has been around at least since January 2005 (according to their archives) and I’ve seen their website before, I recently just got into listening to some of their podcasts. Endurance radio publishes about two podcasts per week with people in endurance related sports. Each podcast is a telephone interview and last around 15 minutes. The podcasts include amateur athletes, endurance coaches, race directors, and even professional champions like Xterra Champion Melanie McQuaid. It seems many of the podcasts are triathlon podcasts, but there are some for ultra runners, adventure racers, and more. I recently listened to the podcast with Xterra creator Dave Nicholas. Who knew that Xterra was an idea by the guy that parks the cars at one of Dave’s events!

This weekend, tomorrow to be exact, Lance Armstrong begins his defense of the Tour de France. Since I’ll be in Tennessee on a canoe trip, I won’t be able to listen or watch the Tour until I get back. I’m really excited about watching the Tour this year though! Last year I listened to most of the Tour online, but this year I have OLN so I get to watch it too. I think Ivan Basso of Team CSC will be his biggest threat. He was the only rider last year who could stay with Lance in the Mountains and this year I’ve read he learned to time trial better. His poor time trialing skills were the reason he lost second place last year. Good luck Lance!