Drama Kings

Cycling is a beautiful sport on the road, but recently the real drama has been held in the laboratories, the press rooms, and sometimes the court rooms.

With reports that 2007 Tour de France champion, Alberto Contador (Discovery Channel; photo: Agence France Presse), will be releasing a statement in response to doping accusations from German anti-doping activists Werner Franke [without answering any questions afterwards mind you], there has been more suspense, intrigue, and hand wringing than during the final Tour ITT.

The manner in which Contador approached the accusations was Lance-like, in control and cut-and-dry. And that's exactly what we got from his statement, nothing more:

"I won the Tour with clean means. I do not understand the attacks against me from people that don't even know me. I never doped and never participated in any doping scandal."

Contador has never tested positive for any performance enhancements, but neither did a hand full of riders, Ivan Basso and Michael Rasmussen included. Is this just another case of deny, deny, deny? Or is he truly believable? Is there still room for giving riders the benefit of the doubt?

Whether you believe in Contador's accomplishments at this moment or not, the way people are digging around for proof of guilt it won't be long before he's confirmed or implicated.

ALSO:
-- AP: Tour de France winner Alberto Contador denies doping allegations
-- Ian Austen of the NYTimes: Tour de France Winner's Team Will Disband
-- LA Times: Discovery Channel cycling team to disband
--Cyclingnews: Discovery disbands
--Charles Pelkey of the VeloNews: Discovery gives up sponsor hunt

--Sal Ruibal of USA Today: Armstrong's Discovery team shutting down

Last Stop

But the real drama was with the man sitting next to him, Johan Bruyneel. Although he was at Contador's side for support and translation, he could have easily swept away all of our thoughts about doping.

According to the LA Times and confirmed by Tailwind Sports, American cycling will indeed take a step backwards [hopefully to take two steps forward in the future], as Discovery Channel Professional Cycling has failed to produce a sponsor for next year and beyond.

The European peloton will be without an American team for the first time in two decades; when Team 7-Eleven first touched down on the Charles de Gaulle tarmac. Yes, the news of Team Slipstream does take away a bit of the sting from the announcement, but as a Professional Continental team, they are not secured a spot in any of the top European races. If organizers choose, Slipstream could meet a similar fate [albeit by different circumstance] as Unibet.com, who despite being a Pro Tour team was excluded from all the major races. Will that happen? Most likely not, but with what's transpired over the past year in cycling, its anyone's bet.

The Discovery disbandment also means that a Pro Tour license will be available. If they choose to, Slipstream has the opportunity to buy into the Pro Tour this year rather than wait till 2009 as planned. But according to Jonathan Vaughters, who had been advised several times to build a team up slowly, engaging in the Pro Tour may be too daunting a task at present.

"The ProTour requires that teams race the Giro, the Tour and the Vuelta -and that's a huge undertaking."

For Discovery Channel, the team once partly owned by Lance Armstrong, it marks the end of an amazing run. The Big Blue Train was arguably, the greatest cycling team of all time [where's a young Muhammed Ali when you need him?]. In fact, who could reasonably argue with their overall palmares?

So what happens next?
George Hincapie seems poised to tackle the cobbles in pink with a T-Mobile signing imminent. As for the rest, look at the prominent names suddenly available for the pickings:

Alberto Contador, Levi Leipheimer, Stijn Devolder, Yaroslav Popovych, Vladimir Gusev, Benjamin Noval, Volodymyr Bileka, Tom Danielson, Jani Brajkovic, Chechu Rubiera, Pavel Padrnos, Egoi Martinez, and Tomas Vaitkus.

Also suddenly on the waiver wire:

thepaceline.com

Special Photography Contributors - Graham Watson & Liz Kreutz

Director Sportifs - Johan Bruyneel, Dirk Demol, Sean Yates

Armstrong's reaction to the end of the era:

"I do not think you have seen the last of this organization in the sport,but clearly things need to improve on many levels, with a more unified front, before you would see us venture back into cycling."