- Alberto Contador was coming down with something at the finish of the Tour, and states that he "was no longer the strongest rider on the team." We also learned today that the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) has opened an investigation against Contador related to his alleged involvement with the Operation Puerto affair. This overturns the UCI's earlier decision to acquit Contador of any involvement in the case.
- Floyd Landis will be riding in the Leadville Trail 100 Mountain Bike Race this weekend. Lance was scheduled to appear, but at this point seems to have backed out. Floyd will have to settle for racing against Lance's coach, who had been training to compete against him at the race.
- Another nail in the coffin for the Astana team: Craft, their apparel sponsor has cancelled their contract with the troubled team. This follows an announcement last week that their bicycle sponsor BMC dropped them. Vinokourov continues to claim innocence.
- The up and coming Slipstream Sports/Chipotle team has added Magnus Backstedt to their squad. He joins David Millar, Dave Zabriskie, Christian Vandevelde, Julian Dean and Danny Pate in what is looking to be a very strong team. The Slipstream team is being built around a very strong anti-doping environment. They are hoping for wild-card invitations to the 2008 Paris-Roubaix and Tour de France with the eventual goal of securing a Pro Tour license in 2009.
- German team T-Mobile heads into this weekend's Deustchland Tour unsure of continued sponsorship. There is a press conference scheduled for August 9th at which it is expected T-Mobile will announce whether they will keep supporting the team.
Yahoo Sports reports that Michael Rasmussen is looking for a new team to finsish the season. He has his sights set on the Giro di Lombardia, the final single day race of the season. He met with the director of the Acqua & Sapone team on Wednesday for about 30 minutes. Director Palmiro Masciarelli states, "He wants to finish the season with us. He showed me all his papers. The problem is with the Danish federation." You'll recall that Rasmussen was kicked out of the Tour and off of his team for allegedly lying about his whereabouts to evade doping tests. Masciarelli states that Rasmussen should not have been dismissed because he missed two tests, but if I recall correctly, the dismissal was over the lying, not the missed tests. If I was a team director, I would be very reluctant to add a rider who was under such heavy scrutiny. In today's environment, one bad egg could bring down an entire team.