Friday’s "cleansing" of the Tour de France continued to resonate as the reduced peloton of 176 riders lined up for Saturday’s opening prologue.

The doping controversy continued to broil below the surface following the unprecedented expulsion of pre-race favorites Jan Ullrich (T-Mobile), Ivan Basso (CSC), Francisco Mancebo (Ag2r) and the entire Astaná-Würth team.

The riders were taken out of the Tour just 24 hours before Saturday’s start after excerpts from some 500 pages of court and police documents of Spain’s ongoing doping investigation were presented to UCI and Tour officials late Thursday evening.

Others not being allowed to start are Oscar Sevilla (T-Mobile) and five members of Astaná-Würth: Sergio Paulinho, Isidro Nozal, Allan Davis, Alberto Contador and Joseba Beloki. T-Mobile sport director Rudy Pevenage was suspended by his team.

Because the reduced Astaná-Würth was down to four riders, it fell short of the six-man requirement to start Saturday. That meant Alexandre Vinokourov, fifth overall last year and one of the top favorites to succeed retired champion Lance Armstrong, was out of the race despite not being implicated by the damning documents.

Astaná-Würth packed its bags and made tracks for Spain. Sport director Herminio Diaz Zabala said sponsor Astaná – a consortium of large Kazakhstan companies – is waiting to see if there is any further fallout from the ongoing police investigation.

"Yesterday was very surreal for the team. Every 30 minutes the situation would change. One moment we were in, another moment we were out," Diaz Zabala said. "Missing the Tour is very hard on everyone. Now all we can do is wait until what happens with the police investigation. Not everything that’s been printed is true, not even close."

Speaking to a reporter from La Gazzetta dello Sport, Basso once again proclaimed his innocence and said he will come back to the Tour with the goal of winning.

"[Team director Bjarne] Riis still believes me. I told him I have nothing to do with the [doctor Eufemiano] Fuentes story, but he said I was suspended until all this business is over. Now my lawyers will be doing the talking for me," Basso said. "I have had no contact from any judge, any investigator, no one from the UCI. I left because of the Ethics Code, there was no other option, but I have nothing to hide."

Sponsors of the teams involved are standing by their respective sponsorship deals. Riders from T-Mobile, CSC, Ag2r and Astaná-Würth were among those implicated in an ongoing doping investigation in Spain.

Basso’s team sponsor, CSC, issued a statement on its web page Friday confirming that the computer software giant will support the team.

"As a matter of policy, Computer Sciences Corporation generally does not comment on pending investigations or legal proceedings. We will say, however, that we are shocked and saddened by the unfolding events surrounding cycling’s premier event, the Tour de France," the statement said. "While we hope that Ivan Basso will be able to clear his name and return to professional cycling, we support the decisive action taken today by Team CSC under the ethical charter applicable to pro cycling teams."

T-Mobile officials said there’s been no talk of ending the long-running sponsorship with the team despite the decision to suspend Ullrich, Sevilla and Pevenage.

"We have never said we believe Jan has been doping, but it looks very clear that he has lied to us about his connection with Fuentes and we are very disappointed about that," Christian Frommert, T-Mobile’s sport marketing director, told journalists ahead of Saturday’s start.

"We already suggested to Jan during the Giro and again in the past weeks and days that he should take steps to prove his innocence. Now we have to wait for the investigation."

The Tour, meanwhile, rolled on.