...and They're Off!!

Let the accusations begin. The 94th Tour de France began today with the 7.9km prologue in London(yes, the Tour de France started in England this year) with Swiss rider Fabian Cancellara, riding for Team CSC winning this years first yellow jersey. Americans George Hincapie(Discovery Channel Team) finished third.

In this years race, here at the Copperhouse, we'll be rooting for fellow Montana native Levi Leipheimer from the town of Butte where our namesake, the actual Copperhouse still stands at the corner of West Copper St and North Henry Ave. Leipheimer finished the the prologue in 26th place. Leipheimer, also riding for the Discovery Channel Team has finished in the top ten 3 times in the Tour de France, and last year finished 13th. He comes into this years race after already winning the Tour de California earlier this year. To track results and stories, check out the Tour website

The story of the race the last 8 years has been the 7 straight wins by American Lance Armstrong followed by the contested win last year by fellow American Floyd Landis. During this time, as with most other professional sports, the Tour has been desperately trying to control the growing performance-enhancing drug use.

Landis became involved in a heavily debated drug scandal last year after he tested positive for synthetic testosterone following an amazing ride on the 17th stage that put him in the yellow jersey for good. Landis' case is currently in arbitration. Lance Armstrong was also often accused of drug use during his reign as champ, but despite their best efforts, the French were unable to falsely prove anything against him. Both Armstrong and Landis have fiercely defended their innocence.

The French anti-doping lab at Chatenay-Malabry handles the drug testing during the Tour and is the source of much of the controversy surrounding the American riders. The lab has mishandled and mislabeled drug tests. They have also leaked names and test sample information(including Landis' tests last year) to the notoriously anti-American sporting newspaper "l'Equipe." This is even more scandalous when you consider that as part of the drug testing process the Chatenay-Malabry lab is not supposed to have access to what samples belong to what riders. The lab is so embroiled in scandal and apparently inept at what it does, that during this years French Open tennis tournament, drug samples were sent to a lab in Montreal, Canada for testing rather than being tested in France.

The French paper l'Equipe has gone after Lance Armstrong several times as well, even printing allegations that Armstrong's urine samples from 1999 had later tested positive for the drug EPO. The International Cycling Union investigated the claim and accused the rporters of underhanded methods and said there was no case.