News

Tschopp on the march

Though Predictor-Lotto’s Cadel Evans still sits third on the general classification heading into Tuesday’s rest day, the Aussie lost another 56 seconds to race leaders Michael Rasmussen and Alberto Contador on Monday’s stage 15 and is beginning to show signs of cracking. For Evans, the emotional strain of watching his hope to win the Tour slide into a desperate attempt to preserve a podium position landed him in tears following Sunday’s stage and left him expressing doubt after Rasmussen and Contador again rode away from him on Monday’s climb over the Col de Peyresourde.

Astana was a bit testy this morning at the start. Actually, Ivanov was fixing his glasses here, and was screwing around when I took his photo.

Another big day in the mountains and race leader Michael Rasmussen and his nearest rival, Alberto Contador, put more time on their challengers. Still the big story of the day was the resurgence of the man who was nearly left for dead on the roads of stage 14. Once again, Alexander Vinokourov came back from a bad day and took a big victory in Loudenville. Our man Casey Gibson was there to record it all.

The weights under Mayo's seat....

Vino' claims his second stage of the 2007 Tour

...and the bike upon which they are perched

The team bus of yellow jersey Michael Rasmussen gets the once over

Boogerd answers yet more questions about the guy in yellow.

The Astana bus was the most thoroughly searched of the four

Gendarmarie were out in force today, and the Republican Guard, in fact.

Contador and Rasmussen duke it out

The ever persistent Vinokourov about to launch another attack.

Contador launched attack after attack

Rasmussen on the climb.

The action saw other favorites, like Leipheimer, fall further behind

Txurruka gets a lift on the climb.

The Landaluze break

Evans all out on the descent from the Col de Porte

All alone in yellow

Hincapie in the front group, looking at yet another switchback.

Saunier Duval's David Millar has hit out at Tour de France leader Michael Rasmussen, claiming in Monday's edition of L'Equipe that he had ruined the race. Scotland's time trial specialist, who came 20th in Saturday's race against the clock, said Rasmussen's failure to give notice to cycling authorities of his whereabouts for out-of-competition testing had spoiled things for the whole peloton. During the last week it emerged that the Danish Cycling Union (DCU) decided in June not to select Rasmussen for September's world cycling championships and the Olympic

Vino' and the boys

Chavanel hurting on the Bales climb.

French custom agents searched at least four team buses Monday in surprise inspections as the Tour de France wobbles into its final week with yellow jersey Michael Rasmussen dogged by doping allegations. Uniformed French officials waved over team buses as they rolled through a toll station along the A-64 highway, southwest of Toulouse. The team vehicles were driving an off-race route to the finish of stage 15. VeloNews saw buses from Team CSC, Astana, Rabobank and Discovery Channel being searched by French authorities. Bus drivers were told to open compartments, panel doors and other storage

Vino', Cobo and Kirchen

The top of the Port de Bales

Results - Stage 15 (Foix Loudenvielle - Le Louron)1. Alexandre Vinokourov (Kz), ASTANA, 5:34:282. Kim Kirchen (Lux), T-MOBILE TEAM, 0:513. Haimar Zubeldia (Sp), EUSKALTEL - EUSKADI, 0:514. Cobo Acebo Juan Jose (Sp), SAUNIER DUVAL - PRODIR, 0:585. Manuel Juan Manuel (Sp), QUICK STEP - INNERGETIC, 2:146. David Arroyo (Sp), CAISSE D’EPARGNE, 3:237. Bernhard Kohl (A), GEROLSTEINER, 4:258. Christian Vandevelde (USA), TEAM CSC, 4:259. Ludovic Turpin (F), AG2R PREVOYANCE, 5:1610. Alberto Contador (Sp), DISCOVERY CHANNEL TEAM, 5:31 11. Michael Rasmussen (Dk), RABOBANK, 5:3112. George Hincapie

Vande Velde

Saunier Duval rider David Millar has hit out at Tour de France leader Michael Rasmussen, claiming in Monday's L'Equipe newspaper that the Dane had ruined the race. Scotland's time-trial specialist, who came 20th in Saturday's race against the clock, said Rasmussen's failure to give notice to cycling authorities of his whereabouts for out-of-competition testing had spoiled things for the whole peloton. During the last week it emerged that the Danish Cycling Union (DCU) decided in June not to select Rasmussen for September's world cycling championships and the Olympic

Rabobank at work

Davis gets the stage

Antonio Colom tows Klöden and Evans back up to the leaders

Massaglia gets the overall

Contador comes to the front with a pair of chickens in his wake

Vino's Tour is over

Fans applaud the laughing group on the final climb

But Contador's is just beginning

Helicopters signal the arrival of the leaders

Gorge-ous, no?

Vladimir Karpets leads Voigt

COURSE: Not a mountaintop finish, but this stage features five difficult Pyrenean climbs, including one new to the Tour, the frightening hors categorie Port de Balès. This is a very narrow, twisting 19km uphill, with the last 10km having an average grade of almost 10 percent and a maximum pitch of 14 percent. It precedes the 10.5km climb of the Col de Peyresourde just before the last, fast downhill to the finish. HISTORY: Two stages of the Tour have terminated at Loudenvielle. In 1997, Frenchman Laurent Brochard escaped from anelite group on the descent into Val Louron to finish 14 seconds

The break

Levi bears down and holds Sastre's wheel, with Solon behind

Results - Stage 14 (Mazamet Plateau-de-Beille)1. Alberto Contador (Sp), DISCOVERY CHANNEL TEAM, 5:25:482. Michael Rasmussen (Dk), RABOBANK, s.t.3. Soler Hernandez Juan Mauricio (Col), BARLOWORLD, 0:374. Levi Leipheimer (USA), DISCOVERY CHANNEL TEAM, 0:405. Carlos Sastre (Sp), TEAM CSC, 0:536. Andréas KlÖden (G), ASTANA, 1:527. Cadel Evans (Aus), PREDICTOR - LOTTO, 1:528. Antonio Colom (Sp), ASTANA, 2:239. Andrey Kashechkin (Kz), ASTANA, 2:2310. Yaroslav Popovych (Ukr), DISCOVERY CHANNEL TEAM, 3:06 11. Michael Boogerd (Nl), RABOBANK, 3:0612. Mikel Astarloza (Sp), EUSKALTEL - EUSKADI, 3:0613.

Millar driving the chase

Forty-one years' worth of musettes make a fine car cover

Weather: Partly cloudy throughout most of the stage, with temperatures in the 70s in the flats and cooler on the summits, moderate winds on the summit. Stage winner: Alberto Contador (Discovery Channel) confirmed his status as Spain’s next big star with his first Tour stage win of his career. Contador and Michael Rasmussen (Rabobank) traded jabs on the HC Plateau de Beille and he darted ahead of the maillot jaune in the final 200m to take the victory. Juan Mauricio Soler (Barloworld) came through third at 37 seconds back with Levi Leipheimer (Discovery Channel) fourth at 40 seconds. Contador

Popo' popped, but got back on and drove

Sastre leads Levi

Michael Rasmussen's continued presence on the Tour de France, in the wake of revelations that he has missed several random doping controls in the past two years, is starting to grate with some teams. Rasmussen reinforced his grip on the race lead with another commanding climbing performance on the first of three days in the Pyrenees on Sunday. However for some, his march towards victory is an affront. "I'm angry," said Cofidis team manager Eric Boyer. Française des Jeux team manager Marc Madiot added: "I've gone past being angry. I just don't want to talk about it anymore.

Soler has a dig

Wegmann heads through a tunnel of fans

Michael Rasmussen may be leading the Tour de France, but he’s not winning any friends in either the peloton or the court of public opinion. Rasmussen has fallen out of favor with fans, team managers and race officials after claiming he made an "administrative error" — by missing two random UCI doping controls — on March 24, 2006, and June 28, 2007. It later emerged that Rasmussen had also been warned twice by Denmark's anti-doping agency. And on Friday VeloNews.com reported on allegations by a former amateur mountain-bike racer that in 2002 Rasmussen attempted to trick him into bringing

Colom on his own

This morning's guests were very excited to meet the riders

Alexander Vinokourov was already laboring in the gruppetto Sunday after losing all hope of winning the 2007 Tour de France when he suffered one more insult on what was an already demoralizing day. Vinokourov – who vaulted back into contention following Saturday’s stunning time trial victory in Albi - fell badly on his already-injured left knee after an overzealous fan’s flag became entangled in Astana teammate Serguei Ivanov’s wheel on the upper reaches of the Plateau de Beille climb, dumping them both to the tarmac. “Because of the stupidity of a spectator, who put something in the wheel

Rasmussen and Contador dueling on the steeps

McConneloug: Work little, attack perfectly

It was a wild day in the Tour de France on Sunday, with all the spectacle a shooter could desire — one yellow chicken chasing another, a battalion of Basques, and a car cover made entirely of old musette bags. Our man Casey Gibson was there and brought it all back home to you.

Did the two strike a deal or not?

High five, dude!

Discovery Channel’s stage 14 winner Alberto Contador was standing on thepodium atop Plateau de Beille before the gruppetto had crossed the finishline. Cadel Evans had already broken down into tears as he explained whyhe had exploded in the final kilometers of the climb, and race leader MichaelRasmussen was denying that adeal had been made between he and Contador to trade the stage win foradded time on stronger time-trialist GC contenders such as Evans and AndreasKlöden.Sunday’s stage 14, from French hero Laurent Jalabert’s home villageof Mazamet to the hors-catégorie summit finish at Plateau

Astraloza tries to catch the leaders on the final climb

Stage 15- Foix to Loudenvielle (196km)

A young U.S. photog with some very friendly Basques

Stage 15- Foix to Loudenvielle (196km)

Nice house; the garage is a mess, though

Contador outsprints the race leader

Sylvain Chavanel leads Hincapie

COURSE: Following right after the time trial, this is the first of three demanding stages in the Pyrénées. It opens with an immediate 9km climb over the Black Mountains, but the first real obstacle is three hours down the road: the hors-catégorie Port de Pailhères climb (17km at 7.2 percent). Then, following a tumbling descent to Ax-les-Thermes, the riders race 16km down the Ariège valley before reaching the fi nishing climb to Plateau de Beille (16km at almost 8 percent). HISTORY: The only men to win Tour stages atop the Plateau de Beille have been Lance Armstrong (in 2002 and 2004) and

Chechu Rubiera takes out Stage 8.

Bet these guys have seen a few Tours

A good look at the new carbon fiber finish.

The Tour is one big moving circus. The smallest portion of the whole thing is the peloton; 180-or-so guys on bikes. Even when you add all of the staff and gear from the teams themselves that still only makes up only 10 percent of the Tour caravan. Add in journalists, police, publicity caravan, the dudes who put up the barriers... and you easily bump that to more than 5000 people who cover the Tour from start to finish. Some are more visible than others and some are taken for granted. Like the guys who put up the signs for race? When do they do that? Or the guy who paints the finish line

China's Haijun Ma became the new best Asian rider.

Rain, schmain: Vive le Tour! Allez, allez, allez!

The new seatpost.

The yellow jersey should take on a significantly more sporting hue on Sunday when the Tour de France peloton tackles the first of three stages in the feared Pyrénées mountains. Denmark's Michael Rasmussen has worn the race's fabled yellow jersey since his stage victory at Tignes in the French Alps last Sunday, but in recent days the Rabobank climber has been subject of doping suspicions. Following three days in the Alps, the race's 14th stage will herald the second segment of climbing in this year's race, and Sunday's 197km race from Mazamet to Plateau de Beille

Victory a virtual certainty for Gabriele Massaglia.