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Following the latest round of reports intimating possible links between CSC’s Ivan Basso and the Spanish doping ring called Operación Puerto, team doctor Joost De Maeseneer addressed the press at the Tour de France stage 4 start in Huy. While Maeseneer maintained he never saw anything that indicated Basso may have been involved in illicit activities, he conceded that there’s no way he and the team’s other two doctors can keep an eye on all the riders all the time. Maeseneer also said there is no reason for Basso or anyone else to seek services outside the confines of the team. "If Stuart

The day's break

From the morning sign-in at the start to the podium at the finish, Casey Gibson covers it all. Here's what he saw between the lines today.

Fans are still enthusiastic, and today's crowds were very large. Big day for hay bales too.

Weather sunny, very warm again, brisk crosswinds Stage winner Robbie McEwen (Davitamon-Lotto), 4:59:50, 41.423kph – McEwen earned his second win in three days to make it an even Tour 10 on his career. Second-place Isaac Galvez (Caisse d’Epargne) shook up a late crash to finish second, but was no match for McEwen’s top-end speed. Thor Hushovd (Credit Agricole) was relegated for dangerous sprinting. Race leader Tom Boonen (Quick Step-Innergetic), 19:52:13, 42.445kph – The world champion could only muster a disappointing fifth in the sprint, but he retained his one-second lead to Michael

Landis and crew stayed near the front.

Five-time Tour de France winner Eddy Merckx likes American Floyd Landis' chances to win this year's race. Merckx says Landis seems to be in top form after wins this year so far at the Tour of California, the Tour de Georgia and Paris-Nice. "He's in very good shape, he has a very good team," said Eddy Merckx, stepping out of the team bus before Wednesday's fourth stage. "I think he could win the Tour." Merckx may not be totally impartial, though, since his son Axel, is a Phonak teammate of Landis. Besides Landis, Merckx said he also likes American Levi Leipheimer,

Boonen wants a stage win...

Stage 4: Huy to Saint Quentin - 207km

... but McEwen wins another

Stage 4: Huy to Saint Quentin - 207km

... and the world champion has to settle for another yellow jersey.

McEwen claims his 10th career Tour stage win

The fans are happy to get a look at whomever makes the podium

Boonen had hoped for a stage win, but keeps the jersey

VeloNews ventures into video...

Martinez is just one of Bruyneel's many options at this Tour

... but these guys don't seem too concerned.

Quick Step had a lot of responsibilities on Wednesday

CSC doctor Joost De Maeseneer

1. Matthias Kessler (G), T-Mobile2. Michael Rogers (Aus), T-Mobile, 00:053. Daniele Bennati (I), Lampre, 00:054. Tom Boonen (B), Quick Step-Innergetic, 00:055. Erik Zabel (G), Milram, 00:056. Luca Paolini (I), Liquigas-Bianchi, 00:057. Oscar Freire (Sp), Rabobank, 00:058. Eddy Mazzoleni (I), T-Mobile, 00:059. Georg Totschnig (A), Gerolsteiner, 00:0510. Fabian Wegmann (G), Gerolsteiner, 00:05 11. Alexandre Botcharov (Rus), Credit Agricole, 00:0512. Mirko Celestino (I), Milram, 00:0513. Rubiera José Luis (Sp), Discovery Channel, 00:0514. Cadel Evans (Aus), Davitamon-Lotto, 00:0515. George

Voigt at the start: He had plans for a busy day

He's got the jersey. Now he wants a stage.

Weathersunny, very warm again, light windStage winnerMatthias Kessler (T-Mobile), 4h57:54, 43.605kph – The 27-year-oldGerman earned back some pride for his tarnished team to win in a bold attackon the Cauberg. He held off a late charge to win his first Tour stage withteammate Michael Rogers coming through second.Race leaderTom Boonen (Quick Step-Innergetic), 14h52:23, 42.788kph – TornadoTom finished fourth at five seconds back to slip into the maillot jaunefor the first time of his career. Three-time world time trial championRogers is just one second behind the world road champion. Overnight

Good luck... and don't dope.

Stage 4: Does this one suit Boonen?

A day after celebrating Robbie McEwen’s stage2 win, the Davitamon-Lotto team was left battered and bruised following the crashed marred stage 3 run from Esch-Sur-Alzette to Valkenburg. McEwen’s lead-out lieutenant Fred Rodriguez got the worst of it after he and Rabobank’s Erik Dekker went down with about 50km to go on Tuesday. Dekker’s injuries included broken teeth and cuts and bruises to his face. Rodriguez injured his right shoulder. Both were taken to the hospital in Verviers, Belgium, for further examination. “It’s a possible broken collarbone and wrist, but we don’t know for sure,”

Hushovd's second day in yellow

CSC's Stuart O'Grady is doubtful for the fourth stage of the Tour de France after fracturing a vertebrae in his back here Tuesday. The Tour de France veteran was among several riders who crashed on the undulating 216.5km third stage which played host to a hectic finale. A CSC team spokesman said a CAT scan at a hospital in nearby Genk had shown that O'Grady fractured a vertebrae in his lower back, but that a decision would only be taken on Wednesday morning. "He has fractured it in a way that means he may still be able to race," team spokesman Bryan Nyygard told AFP. "Stuart is

Hincapie may aim for another jersey

From start-line caravan to finish-line chaos, Casey Gibson covers it all. Here's what he saw between the lines today.

On the road

At this point in the 2005 Tour de France, Tom Boonen had already given his Quick Step team a couple of stage wins and taken the green jersey. Twelve months later, he again leads the points competition and he starts Wednesday’s stage 4 in Huy, Belgium, wearing the yellow jersey of race leader — but without winning any of the opening stages. The world champion would like to change that win-less record as soon as possible. But, first, let’s see what has kept Boonen from adding to his list of 17 season victories. After coming an excellent 12th in Saturday’s prologue, the tall Belgian was the

Doing the day's voice over

Stage 3: Esch-sur-Alzette to Valkenburg - 216.5km

Kessler wins

Stage 3: Esch-sur-Alzette to Valkenburg - 216.5km

and has reason to celebrate after Monday's heartbreaker

A tough route that covered some Classic terrain

and his T-Mobile teammate, Rogers, leads the field in.

If at first you don't succeed: Kessler wins by 50 meters after missing a win by that same margin on Monday

Fourth-placed Boonen gets the jersey

Arrieta: The most aggressive

Valverde knew the truth the moment he stood up

Stage Stats: Stage 3

Rodriguez and Dekker

Stage Stats: Stage 3

Arrieta tried to hold off the field but fell victim to the Cauberg

World Champion gets a new jersey for Wednesday's stage

Kessler's win was that much sweeter after Monday

Course: This is another long stage (216.5km), which starts in Luxembourg,passes through Belgium and finishes in the Netherlands. The first halfof the course is mainly on straight, wide highways, while the second half,from where it joins the Liège-Bastogne-Liège classic routeat Vielsalm (107km), is mostly on winding, often narrow, back roads. Withsix climbs in the last 90km — starting with L-B-L’s Haute-Levéeand ending with the Amstel Gold Race’s Cauberg 2km from the finish — thepeloton is almost certain to be split by attacks. History: An almost identical finish to a stage came in 1992,the

Voigt says he expects an early break to succeed one of these days

The cycling gods were both generous and horribly cruel in dealing out their judgments on the Tour de France peloton in Tuesday’s stage 3 from Esch-sur-Alzette to Valkenburg. Generous to those like stage winner Matthias Kessler (T-Mobile) and Belgian world champion Tom Boonen (Quick Step-Innergetic), whose fourth place and time bonuses earned him the overall lead. Fittingly, Boonen’s feat has come in time for him to wear the yellow jersey in Wednesday’s stage through his home country before the Tour re-enters France. “[Wearing the yellow jersey in Belgium] is something that might happen once

Rodriguez and Dekker are both out of the Tour

Boonen wears yellow into Belgium tomorrow

Stage 2: Obernai to Esch-sur-Alzette - 228.5km

Casper spent one day in green, before fading and conceding the jersey to McEwen.

Stage 2: Obernai to Esch-sur-Alzette - 228.5km

McEwen wins; Hushovd reacts

McEwen wins a mad dash to the line... Hushovd pops a pedal, but wins the jersey back

After 11 Tours, most agree that Hincapie's shot at yellow was well-deserved

A team mechanic makes final adjustments to Leipheimer’s Specialized Tarmac SL.

Culture clash: Publicity caravan in Obernai

The timing chip makes sure Leipheimer and the rest of the Tour peloton are precisely tracked.

Chris Davies, 69, who rode from Portsmouth, England,to Strasbourg for the Tour

Course: The Tour’s second longest stage (228.5km) opens with two significant Cat. 3 climbs in the forested hills of the Vosges and closes with two shorter Cat. 4 climbs on the France-Luxembourg border just before the finish. In between is 150km of rolling terrain through the agricultural Lorraine region. There’s bound to be an early breakaway on such a long stage, but the straight wide roads favor the sprinters’ teams in pulling things back together before the final 20km. The two Cat. 4 climbs with 16km and 13.5km to go, followed by two smaller, unrated ones in the last 5km, could spawn a

Leipheimer’s Specialized Tarmac SL

'Hey, Thor, need a hand?' 'Already had one, thanks.' (Actually, Hushovd says he was cut by a camera.)

After suffering a stroke of bad luck in a finishing sprint for the second straight day at the Tour de France, it might seem like the gods are against Thor Hushovd. If that’s the case, they’ll have to try harder to hold back the big Norwegian, who snatched the yellow jersey back from American George Hincapie with a third-place finish behind Robbie McEwen (Davitamon-Lotto) and Tom Boonen (Quick Step-Innergetic) in the 228.5km stage 2 from Obernai, France, to Esch-sur-Alzette in Luxembourg. In a long jaunt north from the Alsace region of eastern France to the industrial mining and steel

Carbon bottle cages help keep things as light as possible.

The depart in beautiful Obernai

1. Robbie Mc Ewen (Aus), Davitamon-Lotto2. Tom Boonen (B), Quick Step-Innergetic, 00:003. Thor Hushovd (Nor), Credit Agricole, 00:004. Oscar Freire (Sp), Rabobank, 00:005. Daniele Bennati (I), Lampre, 00:006. Luca Paolini (I), Liquigas-Bianchi, 00:007. Stuart O’Grady(Aus), CSC, 00:008. Bernhard Eisel (A), Francaise des Jeux, 00:009. Erik Zabel (G), Milram, 00:00 10. Peter Wrolich (A), Gerolsteiner, 00:0011. Cristian Moreni (I), Cofidis, 00:0012. Inaki Isasi (Sp), Euskaltel-Euskadi, 00:0013. Michael Albasini (Swi), Liquigas-Bianchi, 00:0014. Francisco Ventoso (Sp), Saunier Duval, 00:0015.

The ever-popular Shimano Dura-Ace crankset.

Riders heading for the start

When it comes to having things just so, few riders in the ProTour peloton can match Levi Leipheimer. Gerolsteiner’s No. 1 Tour hope often makes his own mechanical adjustments, wanting to make sure his bike is exactly the way he wants it. For the second year in a row the American is aboard the Specialized Tarmac SL, a lightweight full carbon steed from the Morgan Hill, California-based company. The bike has a claimed weight of 895 grams for the frame and 300 grams for the fork. Here’s a closer look at Leipheimer’s bike on the morning of stage 2 of the 2006 Tour de France.

The full drive train

Levi at the start

Normally the peloton would have looked forward to a day like this. The sun was shining brightly over the three country corner between Germany, France and Luxembourg and 228km through a lovely landscape of vineyards, sun flower fields and lush forests lay ahead of the riders. Instead, the atmosphere was tense at the start in the Alsatian town of Obernai on Monday morning. Especially the German teams Gerolsteiner and T-Mobile seemed nervous. Just when most thought doping was off the agenda and they could focus on cycling, the riders and team directors were confronted with unpleasant

Highlights from Monday's route marked out in low tech fashion