Favorites Tossed from Tour de France

I'm not a big biking fan, but I did kind of get into the Tour de France the past few years as Lance Armstrong was continuing his win streak. While watching the coverage day after day I began to learn who some of the other top world riders were, and the guys who were the biggest threat to Lance.

This year's event will be Lance-free since he retired, but it will also be missing two of the big names from previous years:

STRASBOURG, France - A doping scandal knocked Tour de France favorites Jan Ullrich and Ivan Basso out of the race Friday and threw the world’s most glamorous cycling event into chaos.

The decision to bar Ullrich, Basso and others implicated in a doping probe in Spain also sent a strong signal that cheating, or even suspicions of cheating, will not be tolerated.

Tour director Christian Prudhomme said organizers’ determination to fight doping was “total.”

“The enemy is not cycling, the enemy is doping,” he said the day before the start of the Tour.

Riders being excluded will not be replaced, meaning a smaller field than the 189 racers originally expected. And that’s not even counting the absence of Lance Armstrong, who retired after winning his seventh straight Tour last year.

The physical demands on the riders are immense, and I'm sure there has to be a lot of hanky-panky in that sport, but it's not going to be as entertaining without the top riders.