Contador's Team Barred fromm Tour de France

by Jordan Yerman | February 14, 2008 at 12:19 pm

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Alberto Contador, Tour de France winner and this year's favorite, will not be riding in this year's flagship cycling event. Astana, Contador's team, has not been invited to participate in any of Amaury Sport Organization's ("owners" of the Tour de Trance, among many other cycling races) events.

Tour de France champion Alberto Contador likely won't get to defend his title after Tour organizers excluded the Astana cycling team from this year's race.

Astana, with Levi Leipheimer of Santa Rosa, is one of the favorites in the Tour of California that begins Sunday in Palo Alto.

The team, who Contador joined in a two-year deal last October, have already been omitted from the list of 21 teams due to compete in this year's Giro d'Italia.

Astana has changed its structure after the team were forced to pull out of last year's Tour in July when Kazakh rider Alexander Vinokourov, who has since retired, tested positive for blood doping.

"Astana have appointed a new leadership and their manager Johan Bruyneel has asked us to trust them but we can't," Prudhomme told Reuters.

Astana took over from Liberty Seguros, a team that was left out of the 2006 Tour after several of their riders were barred from taking part in the race because of their alleged implication in the doping investigation named Operacion Puerto.