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This starts on Saturday in Monaco.  Alberto Contador is the favorite, however if Armstrong is as fast as in previous tours, will he be allowed to compete against Contador or will team orders come into play?

Should be a great tour 

Armstrong will be riding for publicity. He hasn't shown, this year to be a threat to the top guys.

Contador will have to come into form to win it. He will, however have the world's most deorated domestique

cant wait for this to start

this year is the first year i havent watched any cycling due to all the drugs scandals for past few years

but i love the TdF

bring on the mountains so i can watch all day live

Andreas Kloden is one of my favorite riders as well,  hope he does well.   I am looking forward to this.   

yep should be great, Contador seems to short for me at 2.16, worth laying...

Would love Armstrong to do well, don't believe that he doesn't want to win, this is one of the most focused sportsman ever, anyone who weighs his pasta in the morning down to the last gram must be  :D

Lance will support Contador to the hilt, only if he knows he is the best rider to win as the race reaches the important stages.

What better way to promote LiveStrong than to win though...

Looking forward to it, hope it doesn't get tainted by drugs again. As it is truly one of the sporting events of the year imo.

Lance Armstrong is one of the all time greats and he has never failed a drug test, however he still has to put up with accusations.  I just read this link,  how can she be allowed to single out an innocent rider and get away with it?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2009/jul/03/lance-armstrong-tour-de-france

Dunno about the drugs but Lance Armstrong is defo a kiddy fiddler

i used to absolutely love the tour but i just feel cheated after every scandal so can't really be bothered with it. I respect them for trying to truly purge the sport of cheats though, just a shame that it takes the shine off for the public so regularly.

LA looking good, why is Cav 115 out of 119 at the split?

He only does sprinting and flat short time trials... Hills are his enemy!

Of course, forgot it had a tincy wincy hill at the start    :D

How can it not be tainted by drugs given it's history?

Is there a spread for how many days it takes for the first scandal?

interesting story about the guy whose name escapes me who tested positive for coke so was asked by the tour organisers not to ride but he is anyway and they can't stop him as it was in the off season

It's not that, it's becasue he had no chance of the stage, and will be going for sprint stage wins and the green jersey, today was about saving energy for him.

He was caught using cocaine, not a performance enhancing drug, and as 'social' drugs cannot lead to a ban, they had to let him

and Andy Schlek ftw  ;)

Wasn't Jan Ulrich banned for taking coke or speed?

amphetamines, but not to enhance perfomace, so he only got half the ban he should have  ;carlocitrone;

I hate drug takers, however I was an Ulrich fan so let him off for this more than I did with David Miller.  Miller appeared so smug when he was caught.  At least Ulrich showed regret.  I have never been a David Miller supporter. 

Easy peasy win for the MAnx Missile. Hard to see him not taking the Green by a mile, seems like 'all' he has to do is make Paris.

and again  ;tightend;

Interesting team dynamics in th Armstrong/Contador team too

Shaping up to be a classic tour

didn't see today's but assume it was the same old story. you've got the world's best sprinter with the best lead out train I've ever seen, they are just so well drilled. it really looks so easy and you can't see the green going anywhere else

It was bit more interesting than a standard Cav win, as the pace at the front split the peloton and lead group of 25ish including Cavendish, Armstrong and Cancellara (sp?) finished 40 secs ahead of the rest including Contador.

and Armstrong took two from his faction in the team in the lead group, but didn't take Contador with him

It's like Eastenders on two wheels

LA on Twitter:  At dinner with the team. Despite what some might think, morale is sky high. We're psyched for tomorrow. Gotta love the TTT.

It will be interesting to see what he says in a few weeks time.   

The TTT should put him into yellow. He did intimate at the end of today's stage that Contador was stupid, and should have been riding up front to cover any splits caused by changing winds.

Could you explain for us non cycling followers what Lance has to do to win this? Get a big enough lead that the team have to back him over the other lad or just stay with the other lad until the end and hope the team say "you can race each other"?

That was from the Beeb. Mean anything big?

These big 3 weeks tours, are always decided on either mountain stages or indiviual time trials (everyone races against the clock going out at 3 minute intervals). In this tour the big question is how Lance will fare in the mountains, Contador is a more of a natural climber than Lance.

Astana seem totally split, with Armstrong certainly having "friends" within the team and Contador doesn't like this one bit. They seem to be taken the policy of seeing what happens in the Pyrenees and then backing the stronger candidate for winning the lot after that. If I had to guess what will happen I predict Contador drops Lance in the mountains and the team fall behind Contador.

have to agree with longy

But.. with Lance you never know.

lance was 9-1 before yesterdays stage, down to 5-1 now...  Thats too much of an overreaction I think, Contador still too short for me though at 1.94...

  Unbelievable! It is still not clear whether Lance Armstrong has taken the yellow jersey. He and Fabian Cancellara have exactly the same time. It's going to come down to 100ths of seconds and countbacks from previous stages - I'll let you know as soon as I find out!

bbc

Cancellara has held onto yellow, official result already confirmed.

Loving it...

I must say i'm already loving this years tour and not even into the mountains yet, cracking last 30km yesterday, topped off by Cavendish taking the stage (82% win rate for sprints contested this year) and a great story (possibly) within the Astana team, then today's TTT leaving Cancellara and Armstrong separated by bits of a second.

fantastic stage

proper com at the first corner, so many crashes there it was like watching F1 and the team driving into a field was great

abs awesome effort from the 5 garmin boys

Incredible, but must have been planned surely?  No way they do so well with only 5 guys, seems like they got the weaker members to pull early, then drop off to leave the 5 specialists to push for the line?

they may have planned to go with 6 or 7 riders but no way they planned to go with 5. you'd only need one to have a problem and the whole team's tour is screwed

another notable effort was from cavendish who for a sprinter rides one helluva good ttt

great stuff from voeckler

I remember well when he took yellow before, very similar to today, a long breakaway also the day after the ttt and just wouldn't give up the jersey through the mountains even though he can't climb

This really is shaping up to be a great race this year.
Hope they dont get too many failed drugs tests to spoil it.

Hmmm here we go Contador has attacked on the first mountain finish.

Impressive stuff by Contador at the end there, whether Lance could have responded to the break it he wasn't Contador's team mate is a matter of interest. My guess would be that he couldn't, wouldn't put my money on anyone but Contador now.

He absolutely could have responded, whether or not he would have stayed right with him i'm not sure

Bradley Wiggins' ride was a hell of an effort too, didn't know he could climb

Just before Contador made his break,  I thought Armstrong looked a bit tired.  I wasn't surprised when Contador managed to leave the bunch.  Hopefully Armstrong will be able to keep the gap at a reasonable distance after tomorrow.  Contador did look awesome though today.  Wiggins is very talented, on the track and TT , now also in the mountains.  Great stuff.

Going delibrately slow today to show no radios doesnt lead to excitement?   :dontask:

Looks like it.

You can kind of see their point in that, with no radios, a puncture or fall could basically knock one of the leaders right out of contention.

Still, the TdF riders seem more heavily unionised that the Tube drivers.

Cavendish wins again, but the Norwegian in the green jersey was second so Cavendish doesn't get the jersey back yet.

very harsh declaring a split in the peleton there. wiggins dropped 15 seconds to armstrong but only finished about 2 behind him

cavendish just immense again

another stage win!

The guy is a machine, back in green. This wasn't an easy finish for him either.

Isn't the Green jersey just a bit of a sideshow?  Is it that important?

''Lets win all the flat stages & finish 25 min behind in the mountains''

Well it is a sideshow but it is important, Cavendish's whole team is built around him winning stages and winning the green jersey. Your quote is exactly how sprinters for as long as I have been watching the Tour, treat it. In fact finishing 25 minutes behind is an achievement in the mountains.

the english don't understand cycling, they are not sideshows at all, they are treated with almost as much kudos as winning the overall classification in cycling interested countries. it's not possible for every rider to compete for overall classification simply due to different physiology's and to deny great athletes like cavendish a chance to shine in the sport would be madness.

how boring would the tour be if they just rode for 3 weeks with only 1 thing to compete for?

good to see this overturned today, a nice bit of common sense

Today I spent 30 mins trying to explain why getting the green jersey was a great achievement to a few people at work.  In the end I gave up as they only wanted to focus on who was leading overall. 

The green jersey is staggeringly unimportant in the context of the race. Quite literally Yellow Jersey FTW

which is pretty com seeing as the guy in yellow only has it because the main contenders didn't particularly want it this early as they'd have to get their whole team working too hard to defend it on stages when they'd rather just sit back

completely wrong imo. The yellow may be the Champions League to the Green's Carling Cup, but it is still a big achievement, as is the polka dot. The white jersey I would concede to be staggeringly unimportant though.

You're right, I should have said relatively unimportant, not staggeringly unimportant.

Leipheimer out, not good news for lance I'd say...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/other_sports/cycling/8156974.stm

fascinating finish today, columbia could've ended the day with 2 jerseys, got it wrong and ended it with none

green was never really likely today though, they really should've slowed it up and gone all out for yellow imo

Tricky one, i think they did slow it up a bit but that had to give Cav some form of lead out for the sprint. Hincapie would only have held on to it for the day, as tomorrow is a proper mountain stage. Should be facisinating, Astana's rivals must attack if Lance can respond it will be interesting to see if Contador attacks on his own again.

Lance sounds really peed off on twitter that Hincapie is not in yellow, he said the peloton rode at a moderate tempo to guarantee him the yellow 'by at least 2 mins', the teams agreed, then sped up near the end!

I suppose this reveals my bias, but fk it I going to say it. I think Armstrong is a nasty piece of work who will say a lot of things as long as it benefits himself, he has very cleverly got himself with a chance of winning this tour through pure politics. If Contador was on opposing team there is no chance he would be able to follow in the mountains imo.

I hope Contador embarrases him tomorrow, that will be true justice.

I think Contador will be ahead of him, but don't think it will be 'embarrassing'.

Why the hate Longy?

martin bruin is an arse.

when asked if columbia could appeal cavendish's disqualification he said 'they can appeal but I will not accept that appeal'

so the commisaires were shown up once when they had to reverse a decision and to stop them being shown up again they've effectively removed the right of teams to appeal anything

Cos I was drunk and don't like Armstong, obv.

I used to really like armstrong but there is something that just seems to irk me about him now and i can't put my finger on it.

Well that sorted things out a bit, Contador must be massive fave now. Even if he loses time on the time trial later this week, he will get it back on Mont Ventoux.

What a ride by Wiggins, very impressive.

certainly no more doubts over who's no. 1 at astana

astonishing transformation from a track specialist by wiggins

drugs are wonderful things.

I think Armstrong will get killed on Mont Ventoux. I am a massive Armstrong fan, but the Armstrong that raced with Pantani on that climb a few years ago is no longer around.  I think his age is starting to show.  Hopefully I am wrong and he can turn things around, but this years race is over. 

http://www.youtube.com/v/2p6P52q0JrY&rel=1

LoL

Why did contador attack and decdie to drop Kloden?   Leipheimer not happy in an interview

I don't think anyone knows the answer to this apart from the fact it was very stupid. The only plausiable reasons imo are, that Kloden told Contador on the the climb that he was shot and he might as well attack. Or Contador was sticking two fingers up at the rest of the Astana team for not fully supporting him earlier in the tour.

bbc commentary not working, pain

everyone seems to have missed the fact that contador and kloden were chatting immediately before the attack so I'm guessing longy's right and he told him to go

contador abs immense today yet again. if he'd been allowed to ride last year he'd probs now be looking at his 3rd tdf on the spin

Very impressive, takes a great cyclist to win in the mountains & the TT's

First time i watched a whole stage. Hope i get to see Cav win.

Great to watch. He destroyed them.