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"With the competition reduced to an afterthought, the Tour de France was rocked by another drug bust Thursday that left cycling's showpiece event all but synonymous with doping." - Jamey Keaten, AP (found in Eugene Register-Guard, 7/18/2008 p. C3)

With the 2009 Tour de France starting in less than forty-eight hours, the sports world awaits anxiously as the most-tested athletes in the world come under their greatest period of intense public scrutiny. The world's press, usually reticent to follow the sport of cycling except in those European hotbeds where it remains the king of summertime pastimes, descends on the Tour route like so many vultures. Perhaps there is a national favorite to follow. Perhaps a national newspaper feels the need to provide some in-house coverage (which probably means a cycling fan on staff wanted a comped trip to France). Regardless of the stated mission of the assembled reporters, there is always an underlying subconscious searching for any suspicions which could break the story on the next doper in the ranks.

Just looking at the period from Lance Armstrong's retirement after the 2005 Tour de France and his return to the sport last September, fans in America who might've otherwise paid no attention to cycling were given reasons to rejoice and then felt the sting of having the rug pulled from underfoot. The 2006 Tour de France featured a wide-open field. Before the Tour could even start, the lid was blown off Operacion Puerto, an investigation by the Spanish Guardia Civil which blew the lid off a comprehensive doping ring being operated by Dr. Eufemiano Fuentes in Madrid. Over sixty of the purported two-hundred-plus athletes working with Fuentes were cyclists. Among their ranks were Jan Ullrich, the German winner of the 1997 Tour who looked poised to be the one to crack five victories until Armstrong returned on the scene after recovering from his bout with testicular cancer; Ivan Basso, the man who won the 2006 Giro d'Italia but was forced to forgo the Tour despite being viewed as the heir apparent to the Armstrong legacy; and a majority of the riders for Manolo Saiz's Liberty Seguros squad, whose title sponsor - the Spanish division of American insurance giant - soon pulled its investment.

But the ejection of the implicated riders did not end the suspicions. In the end, one of the most exciting Tours in recent history was waged on the road, with American leader Floyd Landis of Phonak defeating Spanish rider Oscar Pereiro,

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