Doping scandals leave Tour without top stars

BREST, France -- Here's what victory will look like for Tour de France organizers: the riders reach the finish line in three weeks with no doping scandals.

Cycling's most prestigious race begins Saturday, trying to shake its history of drugs and cheating. The turmoil has left this year's race without many of the sport's biggest names. The loss of glamour, however, gives a new crop of riders a chance to step forward.

Cadel Evans, Alejandro Valverde, Carlos Sastre, Denis Menchov and Damiano Cunego are among the most likely to prevail in the 2,175-mile trek.

"I'd rate myself as a pretty good chance to win," said Evans, who has improved from eighth place in 2005 to fourth the next year and runner-up in 2007.

The race begins with a 123-mile flat ride through Brittany. For the first time since 1967, the Tour will begin without an opening-day prologue.

It also starts without a defending champion for the second consecutive year. The team of 2007 winner Alberto Contador, Astana, wasn't invited because of doping scandals in the past two years. Floyd Landis was stripped of his 2006 title after testing positive for synthetic testosterone.

Other big names out this year are Kazakhstan's Alexandre Vinokourov, who was removed from the Tour last year for a positive test for a blood transfusion that led to the ouster of his entire Astana team, and Astana rider Levi Leipheimer of the U.S.

Ivan Basso, the 2006 Giro d'Italia winner and two-time Tour podium finisher, also is absent. The Italian is serving the last few months of a two-year ban he received after acknowledging involvement in the Spanish blood-doping investigation known as Operation Puerto.

"People are talking about the ones who are absent, but once the race starts, people will stop talking about them and start talking about those who are here," said Patrice Leclerc, head of Tour organizer ASO.

Some are making a statement about drug use. Cunego, winner of the 2004 Giro d'Italia, has a tattoo on his left arm that reads, "I'm doping free," the Lampre team said.

Lance Armstrong likes Evans' chances to win and ruled out Cunego, saying he is not a strong enough climber or time-trial racer.

"He'll never win the Tour ... and that's not a slap at him," the seven-time champion told cyclingnews.com. "He's a little guy. I just don't think he's a Tour rider."

This year's 95th edition of the Tour takes riders from Brittany through the Massif Central range. The race then moves through the Pyrenees, across Provence to the Alps and into Paris for the July 27 finish on the Champs-Elysees. Time trials await in Stage 4 and the next-to-last Stage 20.