Tour De France 2008!?

Question

Can someone please give me a list of all the teams and riders (not a link to a website though because someone did that and I couldn't find anything) also is Levi Leipheimer and that Vinokourov guy in it this year?

Answer 1

Well, I'd say that most of the team's rosters for this year's TdF are not yet set.  The rosters most likely will be set after le Dauphine, which ends on 6/15.

The teams invited as of 3/20/2008 from the official web-site are:

Gerolsteiner (GST)

Team Milram (MRM)

Quickstep (QST)

Silence - Lotto (SIL)

Team CSC (CSC)

Caisse d’Epargne (GCE)

Euskaltel - Euskadi (EUS)

Saunier Duval - Scott (SDV)

High Road (THR)

Slipstream Chipotle (TSL)

Bouygues Telecom (BTL)

Credit Agricole (C.A)

Cofidis Le crédit par téléphone (COF)

Française Des Jeux (FDJ)

AG2R - La Mondiale (ALM)

Agritubel (AGR)

Barloworld (BAR)

Lampre (LAM)

Liquigas (LIQ)

Rabobank (RAB)

Vinokourov is out of the sport in discrace, for ever, since last year's incident.

Lepheimer (and the entire Astana team including last years winner and this year's Giro winner Contador), at this point is not invited.  This is a direct result of Vinokourov's drug charges last year and Liberty Seguros' drug involvement over the past years (right or wrong as it is.)

Answer 2

As of yet, the Astana team (Levi's) has not been invited.  Vino is no longer racing.  He received a two year suspension for testing positive in last years Tour, couple that with his age, it is doubtful he will ever race at the protour level again.

Currently, the tour organizers do have a spot to invite one more team, but I can not believe Astana would be ready to go.   However, they did get a last minute invite (6 days) to the recent Tour of Italy (also a 3 week tour and properly called the Giro d' Italia).  The Astana rider, Alberto Contador, won, and is also the reigning Tour de France winner.

The current list of teams invited to the 2008 Tour;

AG2r-La Mondiale

Bouygues Telecom

Cofidis

Credit Agricole

Française des Jeux

Agritubel

Caisse d'Epargne

Euskaltel-Euskadi

Saunier Duval

Gerolsteiner

Milram

Quick Step

Silence-Lotto

Lampre

Liquigas

Team High Road

Slipstream

Team CSC

Rabobank

Barloworld

For more info check www.velonews.com.  click on "road race" and look for upcoming races.  I would think they might have the list.  Also, the channel "Versus" website might have that info, they broadcast the tour daily.  Also, a more indepth site is www.cyclingnews.com.  But may be more info than the average fan wants.

I tried to be brief (I could talk for a long time about bike racing), but I hope that helps.