Tour de France - Riis: It's good to be back

Eurosport - Fri, 04 Jul 16:53:00 2008

Team CSC manager Bjarne Riis of Denmark was one of the main absentees from last year's Tour when he decided not to show up after confessing that his victory in 1996 had been obtained with the help of doping.

CYCLING 2007 Bjarne Riis CSC - 0

Back one year later at the start in Brest, he said: "I'm very happy to be back on the Tour again.

"Everybody remembers that last year, I was not in a condition, mentally and because of the circumstances, to help Team CSC on the Tour.

"This year I'm hoping to be able to bring my experience of the race and the sport to one of the best teams in the race."

Following his confession, organisers deleted Riis's name from the winners' list.

Reuters

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  1. With out ASTANA this TDF is not existing and not intresting.The strongest must be there!

    From Alex S, on Sat 5 Jul 6:26AM

  2. With out ASTANA this TDF is not existing and not intresting.The strongest must be there!

    From Alex S, on Sat 5 Jul 6:25AM

  3. ASO stands exposed for the manipulative cheats they are, again. The won't let Johan's team race who has done nothing but win with no scandal. Yet they let a tam in with a director that admotted he won the tour on EPO. Just goes to show the real reason Astana wasn't invited. They win too may times.

    Frankly...Who gives a horses patootie about this years Tour de Farce. ASO is nothing but the biggest cheat of all by trying to manipulate who wins. That makes them worse than *any* drug cheat. They can kick a cheater out of the race during the race...but they can't put back last years winner in the race to defend his title. If they truly were penalizing Astana (which by the way is not the same peope as last year...just the same name... they would have "uninvited" Rabobank, the ex t-moble, and Cofidis.) ASO looks like a bunch of race-fixing thugs by leaving off the team with the last years champion and the Giro winner.

    It's like MLB telling the New York Yankees they can't be in the World series becasuse they have won it too many times. After Atana's showing in the TdS and the Duaphine and the Giro, ASO stands *again* exposed to the entire world as the bunch of nationalistic cheats they really are. Boycott the Tour de Farce. Whoever wins has not beaten the best stage racing team on the world nor last years champion. Put an asterick by the name of the Tour de Farce winner this year because he's no winner in my book. ASO has fixed the race by not allowing the best team and the previous winner of the Tour and the Giro to race. ASO is just pathetic and deserves any fair minded fan's utter scorn.

    ASO should not penalize Johan for winning the TSF too many times. After all that is what real champions do. Real champions don't need the race organizers fixing the outcome for them. And if ASO don't want the Tdf to become a joke like wrestling is in the USA, they better let the best race...no matter how many times they win.

    From mercurycu, on Fri 4 Jul 11:21PM

  4. Ya pa catar macacos

    From p_godinho, on Fri 4 Jul 6:56PM
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