With the Tour de FRance closing in, what are your predictions?

Question

1. will there be more doping scandals?

2. INdividual winner?

3. Team winner?

how do you feel about Astana being banned to ride?

Answer 1

1: God, I hope not!

2: Alberto Conador

3: Astana

As you can see, I think Astana is going to get back in. You can't have three of the top riders out of the tour!

Answer 2

TBH, I'm looking forward to the Beijing Olympic Track games more. Can't wait to see Mark Cavendish, Wiggins and Hoy do some excellent cycling.

Answer 3

1. No. (I hope not)

2. Cadel Evans

3. CSC seems to have the strongest squad

I think it is tremendously unfair and am really glad to see that the Giro changed their position (at the last second) and invited them.  Contador deserves a chance to defend his (apparently clean) victory and Brunyeel certainly seems to have earned enough credits as a clean and professional coach to earn his high quality squad an invite.

Maybe there will be a last second change and an invite, but the friggin snooty ASO is unlikely to admit they are wrong (even when they are).  Typical French.

Answer 4

I can see another doping scandal. Sorry, I don't have any winners in mind.

Answer 5

1. Yes, of course there will be.

2. No predictions, because plenty of the top riders will be caught doping or will be expelled for suspicion of doping. They may be pros, but it's only been the drugs that has made them nearly as good as we think they are. They can't give that up, or the difference between last year and this, alone, will show they doped in the past.

3. Again, no prediction. The teams still don't 'get it;' they know whoever dopes will win, and nobody wants to be out of the running. Plus, if nobody doped, the times would be so boring that nobody would watch, so the teams are caught in a lose-lose position.

Dope, dope, dope. Maybe the Tour should be renamed the Tour de Dope. I'm convinced that the problem is so pervasive that the only way to clean it up is to banish everyone currently associated with Euro pro racing, including all current teams, forever, and start anew.  Astana is only a start, and even that didn't go far enough..