Teams regroup following expulsions
They’ve gone from being the favorites to scratching their heads about what this Tour de France means.

Powerhouses such as T-Mobile and Team CSC are starting to come to grips with the unprecedented expulsions of pre-Tour favorites Jan Ullrich and Ivan Basso.

The pair’s departure in Friday’s purge - when nine riders from four teams were kicked out of the Tour for alleged links to a blood doping in Spain - left both teams reeling in their absence.

Now, as the Tour rolled into its first road stage, the Tour’s presumptive dominators have taken stock and are prepared to confront the race on startling new terms.

“It definitely reduces the responsibility we have on the race and throws that responsibility on the other teams. (Other teams) have to be careful not let something bizarre happen and let those guys lose the Tour because of some tactical mistake,” said Team CSC’s Bobby Julich. “It’s going to change for all those teams and directors that were just thinking about following T-Mobile and CSC around and attacking us. It’s going to force them to think on their feet a little more and it will be an even more exciting and open race.”

Team CSC riders huddled for nearly two hours Saturday evening with team manager Bjarne Riis and other team staff to discuss the team’s new challenges. The meeting was a wide-open affair, riders said, with Riis giving each team member a chance to say their peace.

“It was a long meeting because it wasn’t just Bjarne saying this, this and this, it was more what do you guys think. That was kind of cool,” said Team CSC’s Christian Vande Velde. “You don’t want to put too much pressure on someone. You can’t just say, ‘Carlos, you’re the man.’ You can’t just become the leader for the Tour de France in one day. It was nice to see that we had a full meeting.”

Over at T-Mobile, the mighty German squad is also regrouping after Ullrich’s departure. Without the presence of the 1997 Tour winner, the team will also take a wait-and-see attitude.

“We cannot just say that (Michael) Rogers or (Andreas) Kloeden is now the team leader. The entire team was working for Ullrich and now he’s gone, but we cannot just point to the next guy on the list,” said T-Mobile manager Olaf Ludwig.

“Right now we will wait and see how the race develops,” Ludwig said. “What’s sure is we won’t be fighting to control the race as if Jan were here. Things have changed and the other teams will have to assume this charge.”

Julich calls Fuentes scandal a ‘shame,’ discounts leadership role
Eight years ago, Bobby Julich survived the tempest of the scandal-ridden 1998 Tour de France marred by the Festina Affaire to finish third in the final podium.

Fast forward to 2006, and the 35-year-old Julich is suddenly facing another scandal-ridden Tour in what he was expecting would be a triumphant victory with Ivan Basso.

“It’s just a shame that we’re going through this eight years later after we should have dealt with this eight years ago, and here we go again,” Julich said. “I’m not happy about this at all.”

Julich was quick to snuff rumors that he was poised to take over leadership duties at Team CSC.

“I am 35 years old, if I am leader of Team CSC, we are barking up the wrong tree,” Julich said.

Bitter Vino vows comeback
A disappointed Alexandre Vinokourov was back at his home in Monaco on Saturday instead of racing in the opening prologue in Strasbourg.

Vinokourov’s Astana-Wurth team was not permitted to start the 2006 Tour after five of its riders were implicated in alleged Spanish blood doping ring, leaving just four riders qualified to race the Tour – two short of the required minimum of six.

“I am really gutted,” Vinokourov told the French daily L’Equipe. “I trained like never before for this Tour. Yesterday, I had my wife on the phone and she couldn’t understand how all my sacrifices have not paid off. I spent weeks away from my kids to train. I imposed on those close to me Draconian conditions to be in the form to win the Tour. And today, the prologue is over and I am already back home in Monaco. It was without a doubt, my last chance to win the Tour, and it’s been stolen from me.”

Vinokourov said he will take a vacation with his wife before regrouping for the second half of the season and reconsider his future with the team.

“I will focus on the world championships to save this shit season,” he said. “And then I have to say there is still the Tour de France to win in the 2007 season. I will come back, that’s sure.”

Vinokourov characterized the decision to bring on Astana to take over for Liberty Seguros was a “mistake.”

“We should have bought out Manolo Saiz then. It’s easy to speak in hindsight, but that would have saved the team before the Tour,” he said. “The solution is that the Astana team becomes Kazakh – no more Spanish. That way, no one will do us harm. It’s going to become our team with our riders. And why not the riders who have nothing to do with the Spanish affair? In two years, I will even be the director sportif.”

A bitter Vinokourov also claimed that 12 of the 20 ProTour teams voted to have the remaining four, but said the other teams over-rode that decision, “because they thought they could gain a few placements. That’s petty.”

“If a boat is sinking with four survivors on board, do you let them go down with it?” he asked.

Discovery Channel won’t talk with L’Equipe
Don’t expect to be reading many quotes in L’Equipe from Discovery Channel riders and staff. Team manager Johan Bruyneel told reporters from the French sports daily this week not to expect much access.

In Sunday’s edition in its daily wrap-up of race notes from each team, an item on Discovery Channel included only a brief note.

“The American team doesn’t wish to communicate information about its riders to L’Equipe,” a short item read Sunday.

Last August, L’Equipe printed allegations that seven-time Tour de France champion Lance Armstrong showed traces of the banned blood booster EPO in urine samples taken from the 1999 Tour, charges that the Texan has vigorously denied.

Garcia Quesada suspended
Spanish rider Carlos Garcia Quesada, one of the riders listed on court documents with cycling’s doping investigation in Spain, has been suspended by his Unibet.com team. Garcia Quesada is a former Kelme rider who turned professional in 2001. This year he won the Ruta del Sol and a stage at the Vuelta a Murcia.