Latest News: 

• The big news for today is the announcement of the teams that have been invited to the Tour de France. As expected, Astana has been excluded and defending champ Alberto Contador will be blocked out. Rabobank, who kicked out Michael Rasmussen during the race over lying about his whereabouts will be back.
  • The ASO says that Astana is exluded because of doping violations in the last two years. Even though Astana is essentially an all new team, they are excluded, while the High Road team, basically a re-badged T-Mobile, is in. It’s all about the name game it seems. This in spite of recent allegations that Freiberg University physicians are suspected of helping T-Mobile team members to dope.
  • No salvos from the UCI yet about possible sanctions for teams that participate in the TdF. Stay tuned.
  • Big news for American fans in this announcement is that Slipstream-Chipotle got one of the wild card spots. Michael Ball of Rock Racing is on the phone right now to the ASO asking why he wasn’t included.
  • The 20 teams are:
    • Gerolsteiner
    • Team Milram
    • Quick Step
    • Silence-Lotto
    • Rabobank
    • Team CSC
    • Caisse dEpargne
    • Euskatel-Euskadi
    • Saunier Duval-Scott
    • High Road
    • Slipstream Chipotle
    • Bouygues Telecom
    • Credit Agricole
    • Cofidis
    • Francaise Des Jeux
    • AG2R-La Mondiale
    • Agritubel
    • Barloworld
    • Lampre
    • Liquigas
• Seems like it has been forever, but Floyd Landis’ final chance to get his 2006 Tour de France title has begun. A five day hearing with the Court of Arbitration for Sport started yesterday in New York City.
  • Apparently, the WADA is upset with the UCI because they have denied a request for helping to fund the legal battle against Landis. Maybe McQuaid is pulling a Pontius Pilate move.
• Mario Cipollini has ended his on-again, off-again relationship with Rock Racing. It’s not yet clear what pushed him over the edge. It’s been widely reported that he wanted to race in Saturday’s Milan-San Remo race, but it’s highly unlikely that he will be able to break his contract with Rock Racing in time to get onto a new team. Cipollini himself has now stated that he is still looking for a team management position and racing Milan-San Remo would only be done as part of a larger management commitment.
• The UCI has scheduled a meeting with the riders on March 25th over their participation in Paris-Nice. What will happen is anyone’s guess.

Results:

• Nokere Koerse (Belgium), March 19th: Quick Step takes another win at home as Wouter Weylandt takes another of the Spring Classics. Fellow Belgian Jurgen Roelandts of Silence-Lotto took second.
• Tirreno-Adriatico (Stage 7/Final): Francesco Chicchi of Liquigas wins the day, but Fabian Cancellera takes home the overall leader’s jersey for his 27th birthday.

Tech News:

• Good luck finding anything official about this from Shimano, but more riders are showing up on pre-production versions of the Electronic Dura-Ace group.
• Road Tubeless grows just a little as Shimano adds additional wheels to their line and IRC comes on as a tire supplier.
• Scott Nydam’s BMC Pro Machine SLC 01
• Phillipe Gilbert’s LaPierre HM X-Lite
• Paolo Bettini’s Specialized S-Works Tarmac SL2