On July 4 cyclists from around the world will begin the 102nd Tour de France, the prestigious three-week stage race — or "grand tour"— that happens to be the world's largest annual sporting event. All told, that's 2,087 miles of pedaling for this year's race.
Each day participants ride, on average, about 110 miles and burn some 6,071 calories, according to Inside Science, a science news site run by the American Institute of Physics.
To give you a better idea of just how many calories that is, we've teamed up with the folks at Inside Science, which originally calculated how many jelly donuts you'd have to eat to generate enough energy to keep up with a Tour de France cyclist on race day. Turns out it's 32!
Here are some more popular foods, and how many of each you'd have to eat to compete. Of course this is not what Tour de France cyclists actually eat while competing!
DON'T MISS: Take this quiz to figure out what you should be eating on a daily basis
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NOW WATCH: The cycling world can't stop talking about this new superfast bike going into the Tour de France
The world's most grueling high-speed endurance contest, the Tour de France, is about to get much more interesting for viewers after organizers announced Wednesday that on every stage at least eight bikes will be equipped with onboard cameras.
GoPro struck the deal with Tour organizer ASO and Velon, a group of 11 cycling teams "working together to grow and evolve through a growth in fan excitement and technology."
While most of the bike-cam footage will be edited and published after the stages, organizers said they'll be testing live images from the bikes on stage two during the neutral start.
"By mounting cameras to the fastest cyclists in the world as they take on the 21-stage race, GoPro will be capturing immersive, never-before-seen content, bringing cycling fans inside the peloton," GoPro said.
The race starts in the Netherlands on July 4 and finishes in Paris on July 26.
Here's how the bike cams should give us a new perspective on one of the biggest sporting events in the world.
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DON'T MISS: I just tested out the 'world's most advanced fitness device' for cycling — here's what it was like
On July 4, while the US is busy celebrating its Independence Day, three Americans will join 195 other top cyclists from around the world as they start the 102nd Tour de France in Utrecht, the Netherlands. About 2,000 miles later, those still in the race will reach Paris on July 26.
One rider will be declared champion and have his name written in the history books alongside some of the greatest athletes in all of sport, including Jacques Anquetil, Eddy Merckx, Bernard Hinault, and Miguel Indurain, all of whom won the greatest bicycle race fives times.
The American with the best shot at winning this year's race is Washington native Tejay van Garderen, but he'll have to beat Colombia's Nairo Quintana, Kenyan-born UK rider Chris Froome, Spain's Alberto Contador, and defending champ Vincenzo Nibali of Italy. Florida's Andrew Talansky could ride high up on the general classification as well.
Here are key numbers for this year's Tour, the world's largest annual sporting event:
SEE ALSO: GoPro is about to forever change how we watch the Tour de France
DON'T MISS: WHERE ARE THEY NOW? The Lance Armstrong team that dominated the Tour de France
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NOW WATCH: The cycling world can't stop talking about this new superfast bike going into the Tour de France
Bikes are a great way to get around the city in the summer; putting your pedal to the metal is a cheaper alternative to subways or Ubers. Riding to and from work is also a seamless way to integrate exercise into your jam-packed schedule.
While metropolitan staples like Citi Bike are convenient, daily riders will be better served financially if they buy their own. The Solé Single-Speed Bike has a larger upfront cost of $279, but over time, it'll cost less than an annual Citi Bike membership, which runs for $149.
The cruiser's collection of fixed gear cycles are specifically suited for city streets, giving it the functionality you need for your morning commute or for cruising the beach or your local bike path. And, it'll sure beat the sweltering, 2o-minute wait for the L train on the hottest of summer days.
Solé Bicycles Single-Speed Bicycle, $279 (originally $399), available at Stack Social. [30% off]
READ THIS: This is the most practical wallet you'll ever use
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The world's premier bicycle race, the Tour de France, starts July 4, and there are four big favorites to win it.
Three of them have won the Tour before: Spain's Alberto Contador, in 2007 and 2009; Kenyan-born UK rider Chris Froome, in 2013; and Italy's Vincezno Nibali, the defending champion.
The fourth favorite has never won the race: Colombia's Nairo Quintana. But for many he's still the man to beat, which is remarkable considering it's only his fifth time riding a grand tour, or three-week stage race.
The Tour de France route changes every year, and this time there is only one individual time trial, and it's just 13.8 kilometers long.
Quintana is a pretty good time-trial rider, but he would more than likely lose valuable time against the likes of Froome and Contador if the ITT were longer. Good for him it's not.
The only other TT is a team time trial, and Quintana's Movistar Team is strong in that discipline, so he shouldn't lose much time, if any, there. So most of the Tour should come down to the battles in the high mountains, which bodes well for the compact Colombian and not so well for his chief rivals, who are great climbers but essentially more all-rounders than climbing specialists.
While many may not know the name Quintana as well as they do, say, Froome or Contador, the quiet Colombian has made his mark in pro cycling over the past few years, and he's now very much a marked man in the peloton.
Nairo Alexánder Quintana Rojas, 25, is a climbing specialist on the Spanish Movistar Team. At five-seven and 130 pounds, he goes up mountains faster than just about anyone, and that makes his rivals nervous. He has shown in previous races that on the steepest gradients he can attack, attack, and attack again until he drops everyone.
Last year he became the first South American to win the Tour of Italy, or Giro d'Italia, the second most prestigious stage race after the Tour.
And he finished second in his very first Tour de France, in 2013, to Froome. (Quintana skipped the Tour last year after winning the Giro.) That was the highest place a South American rider had ever finished in the Tour.
This year Quintana looks to go up a step on the podium and win, and make more history for Colombia as its first Tour champion.
Physically, Quintana is just very tough to beat. As The Wall Street Journal reports (emphasis added):
His local athletic trainer tested "Quintana’s VO2 max, a key performance indicator that measures the maximum amount of oxygen an athlete can use. Elite cyclists often register a VO2 max in the 60s or 70s. Quintana scored an 86, about the same as [Lance] Armstrong, who won the Tour de France seven times before being stripped of those titles for doping."
During past races, memes about Quintana have gone viral on cycling Twitter — essentially showing his expressionless killer look even under pressure and when attacking rivals:
Nairo Quintana's six faces of pain pic.twitter.com/lW0U9cpT1a
— Mikael Almstedt (@mikaelalmstedt) May 30, 2014The unassuming Quintana has a background that's vastly different from that of his rivals in pro cycling, a sport that's been dominated by Europeans for a century.
As NPR reports, Quintana was raised on a farm 10,000 feet high in the Andes near the village of Cómbita. As a toddler, he nearly died from a bad case of diarrhea. Growing up, he didn't play sports but instead helped his dad with the farm and did his chores, often getting up at 2 a.m.
According to the Colombian cycling blog Alps & Andes, Quintana was raised by peasant parents in "precariously difficult economic conditions," and yet it was those challenging times that helped bring cycling into his life. His family got him a bike so that he could travel to the nearest school, which was nine miles away.
From Alps & Andes on Quintana's introduction to cycling:
His father bought a used mountain bike for the equivalent of $30. Nairo treasured the bike, and slowly began to daydream during his rides to school. Every time he rode the bike, he pictured himself racing, and winning a stage that always ended on a mountaintop (which was actually his home), after a lengthy 8% climb. Once there, his parents were always there to greet him when he arrived.
NPR also notes that as a high-schooler Quintana grew so strong as a rider that he'd sometimes attach a cable to his sister's bike and tow her up hills. He'd go on to win his first races on a secondhand bike, and the rest is history.
Asked two years ago about winning the Tour de France one day, the ever-chill Quintana just said, it's possible.
So far this year he's been mostly quiet on the bike. His lone win was a good one, at March's Tirreno-Adriatico, a weekong stage race. Last month he finished second to Contador at the mini stage race Route du Sud, where the two went mano a mano on the climbs. Contador ended up pulling out the win with some aggressive descending.
For Quintana fans, though, it was a sign that his legs are right where they need to be to win the Tour. As for Contador, he won the Giro this May, and many are wondering if he'll be able to keep top form throughout the grueling Tour.
At 25, Quintana finds himself a five-star favorite. Not bad for someone who didn't even play sports as a kid.
In the coming three weeks we'll see how he fares against the world's best.
The race finishes in Paris on July 26.
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NOW WATCH: The cycling world can't stop talking about this new superfast bike going into the Tour de France
If you're a cycling fan and it's July that means it's time for the Tour de France, which this year runs July 4-26.
The Tour is the world's largest annual sporting event and one of the most grueling physical and mental endurance tests for the fittest athletes on the planet.
The 102nd edition of the race takes 198 of the world's best cyclists over 2,000 miles. They'll race from Utrecht, the Netherlands, around France, and then finish in Paris three weeks later.
The best way we know of to watch the Tour de France from the US is on NBC Sports' live stream.
Note, we don't have cable TV — we're "cord cutters"— so we're watching the Tour on a laptop.
We just bought the "Full Tour Access" option for $29.99.
That gives you every stage of the race live in HD on your computer. It's for US residents only, the website says.
If you don't want to buy the entire Tour access, you can buy stage-only access for $4.99.
We have not tried the mobile version — not yet anyway — but we are hearing it's good, too.
To sign up, you go to tourdefrance.nbcsports.com, where you see this screen:
We chose "Web Access Only" and then got this screen:
We signed up for full access, and right away we were able to start watching the Tour. There is commentary in English.
If you know of another good way to watch the Tour live in US, share it in the comments.
So far so good. We're seeing a nice, clean, crisp stream with no buffering.
We'll update this post if anything changes with our NBC Sports stream.
—
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NOW WATCH: The cycling world can't stop talking about this new superfast bike going into the Tour de France
Australian Rohan Dennis rode the fastest time trial in Tour de France history on Saturday.
He averaged 55.45 kilometers an hour — about 34.5 mph — for a stage-winning time of 14 minutes and 56 seconds over a 13.8-kilometer course.
It was the fastest individual stage ever ridden in the history of the century-old race.
Dennis blitzed around downtown Utrecht, the Netherlands, host of the Tour's "Grand Depart."
Dennis beat the 21-year-old mark set by Britain's Chris Boardman over a course that was just over half the length, AFP reported.
"It was nerve-racking watching the screen,"Dennis said. "I didn't except to go that fast time-wise. When I get to back to the bus, I was told that it was the quickest time trial by my friend back in Adelaide. So that was a nice little bonus, you could say.
"It is possible to win and I'm not just a second-place rider. On my day I'm the best in the world," he said via AFP.
With that winning ride he also donned the first leader's yellow jersey of the race.
"It worked out perfectly. Tour de France … yellow jersey … it's a dream. I have always wished to be in this position and now I am.
"I left it all out there. I went off harder than what I thought I should have and I came back harder than what I thought I could," he said.
Dennis, 25, rides for the US-based BMC Racing Team.
His teammate, Tejay van Garderen, the No. 1 American rider in the race who's hoping for a podium spot himself, tweeted congratulations:
Couldn't be more proud of my boy @RohanDennis. Filthy mouth, strong legs, short temper, best teammate you could ask for. #BMCracingteam
— Tejay van Garderen (@tejay_van) July 4, 2015Dennis is the seventh rider from Australia to lead the Tour, the world's premier bicycle race, which runs July 4-26.
You can watch video highlights from the opening stage of the Tour below:
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NOW WATCH: The cycling world can't stop talking about this new superfast bike going into the Tour de France
On Monday's stage three of the Tour de France a massive crash took down a number of riders and forced three top cyclists to abandon the race — race leader Fabian Cancellara, third-placed Tom Dumoulin, and Simon Gerrans — NBC Sports reported.
William Bonnett, Dmitry Kozontchuk, and Daryl Impey also had to quit the race after crashing. Gerrans was a favorite to win the stage, which finished in Belgium on the steep Mur de Huy.
The crash took place while the peloton was riding at about 26 mph on a slight downhill, the race reported. The peloton had 33 miles to go in the stage at the time of the crash.
According to AFP: "On a straight road in clear conditions with bright sunshine, FDJ rider William Bonnet clipped the wheel of Warren Barguil in front and went down suddenly, causing a ripple through the peloton that took down scores of riders."
Here's Cancellara, in yellow, going down:
Update: Cancellara later tweeted that he "broke some bones" and that his Tour was over:
Just left the hospital with a huge disappointment #TDF2015 is over broke some bones on my back again as in spring. #L3/L4right side
— Fabian cancellara (@f_cancellara) July 6, 2015In a very rare move, the race organizers stopped the Tour de France, or "neutralized" it.
Veteran cycling commentator and former pro Paul Sherwen said on NBC Sports that he could not remember a time when Tour organizers stopped the race because of a crash.
According to one cycling official, the race organizers reportedly halted the race because there were not enough doctors or ambulances left at that moment to care for the riders.
The official race website, at LeTour.fr, said:
Due to the extraordinary circumstances of the crash at a very high speed, the race was neutralized to allow the injured riders to be back in the peloton. Twenty five minutes after the crash, a new start was given at the top of the côte de Bohisseau with 50km to go.
One rider, Laurens Ten Dam, seen lying in the middle of the road in the photo below, dislocated his shoulder, had it put back in, and finished the stage, his team said.
Several riders were left with injuries, broken bikes, ripped jerseys and shorts, and road rash:
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NOW WATCH: The cycling world can't stop talking about this new superfast bike going into the Tour de France
Germany's Tony Martin took the lead in the Tour de France on Tuesday by attacking late on stage four on an ill-fitting bike that he borrowed on the fly from one of his teammates.
On the last of several cobblestoned sections, Martin got a flat tire. Normally he'd just grab his spare bike from his team's car, but the car was stuck in traffic behind the select group of about 35 riders he was racing with.
Martin's teammate Matteo Trentin was with him at the time of the puncture and told him to just take his bike.
Trentin's bike is a few centimeters larger than Martin's and the brakes are reversed — the rear brake is on the left side of the handlebar and the front on the right.
But it didn't matter as Martin pulled out one of the biggest wins of his career after attacking with 3.3 kilometers to go to the finish line, just holding off Paris-Roubaix winner John Degenkolb by 3 seconds.
With the win he donned his first yellow jersey, one of cycling's most coveted prizes.
He said it was "super difficult" to pull it off as he was trying to deal with the borrowed bike and his rivals for stage victory.
"I think I put out more watts than I ever did," said an exhausted and emotional Martin.
Martin, a three-time world time-trial champion, now leads the Tour by 12 seconds over previous leader Chris Froome, the Kenyan-born UK rider who won the 2013 Tour.
"Pure happiness! All the pressure and all the sadness from the last days has come off now," said the Etixx-Quick-Step rider, AFP reported. "It's a really emotional day and stage for me, I'm super happy for that. Everything went well and I'm super happy for this team."
The Tour started on July 4 in Utrecht, the Netherlands, and finishes in Paris on July 26.
You can watch the finish in the video clip below:
Dutch cyclist Laurens ten Dam suffered a dislocated shoulder in a massive crash during the third stage of the Tour de France on Monday. Rather than quit the race — as some riders were forced to do — Ten Dam told his team to pop his shoulder back into place and finished the stage.
"I said that they had to pop my shoulder back in," Ten Dam told Cyclingnews. "I have trained very hard, so I don't want to abandon the race even before we enter France."
The crash occurred while the peloton was traveling at about 26 mph on a slight downhill, according to the event's Twitter account. One cyclist clipped the wheel of another in front him, which caused a ripple effect:
The crash was so devastating that at least six riders were forced to pull out of the race, including race leader Fabian Cancellara and third-placed rider Tom Dumoulin. Ten Dam's team director, Nico Verhoeven, said he initially thought the Dutch cyclist was going to have to quit as well.
"His bike was already on top of the car," Verhoeven said. "We thought that he was out of the race, but he said that he didn't want to leave the Tour and that his shoulder had to be popped back in. When we knew that the race was neutralized, he was able to return quietly. He was chatting quickly afterwards. Laurens is a tough one."
Ten Dam's team uploaded a video to YouTube capturing the aftermath of the crash through the eyes of their mechanic. In the video, Ten Dam's team initially finds him curled up on the ground in serious pain:
After switching out the damaged bike for a new one, the mechanic returns to find Ten Dam sitting up talking to a medic, but still clutching his injured shoulder:
I must admit I am not looking forward to the cobbles now.. But hey. We'll manage.
— laurenstendam (@laurenstendam) July 6, 2015Join the conversation about this story »
NOW WATCH: The cycling world can't stop talking about this new superfast bike going into the Tour de France
During the Tour de France, which kicked off on Saturday, the cyclists get all the attention—rightfully so. But fans might also want to keep an eye on the support cars that trail close behind.
That's because those support cars, which carry spare parts and coaches, can reduce the wind drag on a cyclist, according to new research. The effect provides an inadvertent boost—an unfair advantage that could've been especially important in Saturday's first stage, an individual time trial in which cyclists raced alone against the clock, followed by their support cars.
The idea that a vehicle can cut down drag on a cyclist in front of it certainly goes against common sense. But in 2012, Bert Blocken, an engineer at Eindhoven University of Technology in the Netherlands, found that a cyclist doesn’t even need something as big as a car to get this kind of a boost—just another cyclist close behind.
Using computer simulations, Blocken discovered that during a race, the rear cyclist can reduce the aerodynamic drag on the one in front by as much as 2.5 percent. That's a lot, considering that 90 percent of a cyclist's total resistance results from drag.
In general, a cyclist feels drag while speeding along. That’s because air gets pushed forward and squeezed into a small region of high pressure, leaving a pocket of low pressure in the wake behind the bicycle. The high-pressure region pushes back on the cyclist while the low-pressure region pulls, creating resistance.
But the simulations showed that a second cyclist close behind would sweep air forward, filling the gap that the first cyclist created. The air pressure behind the first cyclist isn't as low anymore, so the wake pulls on the first cyclist less, decreasing the aerodynamic drag.
Blocken then wondered what would happen if you replaced the rear bicycle with a larger vehicle—such as a cyclist's support car. To find out, he and graduate student Yasin Toparlar ran more computer simulations. Lo and behold, they found the same effect—only bigger, since a car is larger and can push more air.
To confirm their results, which have been accepted for publication in the Journal of Wind Engineering and Industrial Aerodynamics, the researchers conducted experiments inside a wind tunnel, measuring airflow around a plastic model cyclist and car. The data matched the computer simulations almost perfectly.
The researchers calculated that if a car is within 10 meters (about 33 feet) of the cyclist during a typical time trial that is 50 km (about 31 miles) long, and if they are traveling at a speed of 54 km/h (about 33 mph), then the car would shave 3.9 seconds off the cyclist's time. If the car were within 5 meters (about 16 feet), the cyclist would save 24.1 seconds.
These numbers only apply for individual time trials, when a car directly follows a lone cyclist. But when the total time difference between winning and losing is often mere seconds, a trailing car could offer riders a big advantage. "With this information," Blocken said, "you could influence the outcome of the race."
For safety, a support car must always be more than 10 meters away, according to the International Cycling Union (UCI). But, Blocken said, those rules are rarely enforced, and cars often do get much closer. And as the analysis showed, even 10 meters can give an advantage. Instead, he thinks cars should stay 30 meters back, a distance far enough such that they will have a negligible influence.
He has sent his analysis to members of the UCI, but hasn't received a response yet, he said.
This year, Australian Rohan Dennis won the first stage, a short, 8.6-mile circuit through the streets of Utrecht, Netherlands. But did his support car help with the victory?
Given the length of this particular trial, according to the researchers, a car within five meters could cut a cyclist's time by six seconds. Dennis won by five seconds, and the top four finishes were within eight seconds of one another.
But despite the seemingly close times, the cars probably didn't influence the results, Blocken said. The route featured many curves, so the cars wouldn't be directly behind the cyclists. The cars also didn't drive as close as they had in the past—not close enough to have a big effect. In fact, given the stage's relatively short distance, the time differences between the top riders were actually larger than he expected.
Instead, Blocken thinks the heat was the biggest factor. The starting time of individual time trials are staggered, so one rider could experience higher or lower temperatures than another.
The significant influence of a support car isn't too surprising to researchers, said Nathan Barry, an engineering graduate student at Monash University in Australia. He's done his own wind-tunnel experiments that show the same phenomenon with multiple cyclists, and has also wondered about the effect of a support car. "It's good to see that it's actually being quantified," he said.
What he'd like to do next, Barry said, is to measure the effect of camera-carrying motorcycles, which sometimes follow the cyclists even more closely than the cars to capture the dramatic footage you see on TV.
"That offers potentially a very real bias to certain athletes," he said. "In certain time trials, at least, the more high-profile athletes get a chase motorbike. Others don't. If you have a motorbike effectively giving you a push forward, that's certainly a disadvantage to those without one."
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When pro cyclists in the Tour de France need a quick bike or wheel change to get back into the race as fast as possible, they count on a trusty, experienced support staff to be at the ready.
So when a rider gets a flat or has a "mechanical" or decides, for whatever reason, that he wants a different bike, he alerts the backup crew in his team car via his radio and pulls to the side of the road.
For the guys in the car it's an intense moment, one that's often broadcast around the world on live TV, especially if it's a top rider. It's easy to mess up and take too long, which can put a rider at risk of never rejoining the peloton or, worse, missing the time cut. These unsung heroes are trained to spring into action and carry out a series of steps in rapid-fire succession, all in hopes of getting their man back into the race quickly.
Members of the staff don't always get the credit they deserve, yet their actions are critical to the success of every team. What they do might look easy on TV, but ask anyone who's tried to do what they do and they'll tell you it's tricky work.
One Tour mechanic posted a first-person video with the help of a chest-mounted GoPro camera. It shows him helping two riders get fresh bikes, and it gives you a good idea of how good these guys are at what they do.
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NOW WATCH: The cycling world can't stop talking about this new superfast bike going into the Tour de France
The Tour de France peloton will ride 190.5 kilometers from Livarot to Fougeres on Friday without a yellow jersey after Chris Froome opted against donning it.
Tony Martin would have been the yellow-jersey wearer for Friday's stage seven but he crashed in the finale of Thursday's sixth stage, breaking his collarbone and forcing him to abandon the race.
The jersey thus should have passed to new leader Froome, the 2013 champion, but he decided to decline the honour as a mark of respect for Martin.
"For those asking, I won't be wearing yellow today! All the best to @tonymartin85 with his op & recovery," said Froome on his official Twitter page.
There is precedent for such a move by Froome.
In 1980, Dutchman Joop Zoetemelk turned down the opportunity to wear yellow after race leader Bernard Hinault quit following stage 12 due to tendinitis in his knee.
American Greg Lemond did likewise in 1991 after Dane Rolf Sorensen crashed just before the finish in Valenciennes.
But the most famous such incident was when Belgian great Eddy Merckx refused the jersey after Spain's Luis Ocana crashed in 1971.
Most recently, Alberto Contador declined to wear the jersey in 2007 after Denmark's Michael Rasmussen was forced out of the race due to a doping scandal.
Martin was the 15th yellow jersey wearer to crash out of the Tour de France.
The Etixx-Quick Step rider caused the spill as he wobbled to his right, bumping into France's Warren Barguil.
"I hit the rear wheel of the rider in front of me. I thought I almost could stay upright, but then I went into a rider of Giant-Alpecin and I had no balance anymore," explained the three-time world time-trial champion.
"I crashed at relatively low speed, with my full weight on the left shoulder. I felt directly that something was broken. We went to make an X-ray directly after the finish because I was thinking 'OK, maybe I am wrong. Maybe I can start tomorrow.'"
"But now it is confirmed my (collarbone) is broken. This has been like a movie, an emotional roller coaster at this Tour. Now I am really sad."
Martin inadvertently caused a spat between reigning champion Vincenzo Nibali and Froome, with the Italian initially blaming the Sky rider for the crash.
Froome went straight from the finish to Nibali's Astana team bus to straighten things out with the Sicilian.
"There was some confusion as to who caused the crash, wanted to clear that up with @AstanaTeam @vincenzonibali (definitely wasn't me!)," Froome tweeted after a picture was shared of him at the Astana bus.
Nibali revealed he had apologised to the man he succeeded as Tour champion.
"After the crash I thought it was @chrisfroome, but then he came to me we sorted things out and I apologised to him," the 30-year-old winner of all three Grand Tours said on Twitter.
Nibali also explained why he had initially been so upset.
"I need to recover from a few bumps and bruises, it's never pleasant to hit the deck with the entire peloton on top of you!!"
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NOW WATCH: The cycling world can't stop talking about this new superfast bike going into the Tour de France
Italian cyclist Luca Paolini tested positive for cocaine at the Tour de France on July 7, French sports daily L'Equipe reported Friday.
He has been thrown out of the race.
It was the first positive doping test of this year's Tour (July 4-26).
Cocaine is actually not banned out of competition, AFP reported, but it is on the World Anti-Doping Agency's list of doping substances in competition.
Here is the official statement from the UCI, world cycling's governing body:
The Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI) announces that it has notified Italian rider Luca Paolini of an Adverse Analytical Finding of Cocaine (Benzoylecgonine metabolite) in a sample collected in the scope of an in-competition control on 7 July 2015 during the Tour de France.
The rider has the right to request and attend the analysis of the B sample.
In accordance with UCI Anti-doping Rules, the rider has been provisionally suspended until the adjudication of the affair.
At this stage of the procedure, the UCI will not comment any further.
This is the official statement from Paolini's Katusha team:
Team Katusha has been informed tonight by the UCI that Italian rider Luca Paolini has been notified of an Adverse Analytical Finding. The presence of cocaine has been detected in a sample collected on July 7th.
According to the UCI Regulations the rider has been provisionally suspended with immediate effect. In application of the Team policy the rider has been immediately withdrawn from the Tour de France.
Bearing in mind the anti doping regulations, the team will wait until the analysis of the B sample has been conducted before taking any further action or making any further comment.
Team Katusha is fully determined to collaborate with the anti-doping agencies in order to resolve the matter.
This spring Paolini won the prestigious semi-classic one-day race Gent-Wevelgem.
His Katusha team has a sorry history of doping, AFP reported:
"Christian Pfannberger and Antonio Colom tested positive for the banned blood-booster EPO in 2009. Alexandr Kolobnev tested positive for the diuretic hydrochlorothiazide in 2011 while a year later Denis Galimzyanov was caught taking EPO."
The last rider to test positive for doping during the Tour, AFP added, was Luxembourg's Frank Schleck on July 17, 2012.
The 38-year-old Italian is one of the most experienced riders in the pro peloton and widely known as one of the most colorful characters in the sport.
Last year Paolini was caught using his cellphone during a stage of the Tour de France.
For that he was given a warning.
A Katusha press officer reportedly said that Paolini denied taking cocaine, according to a tweet from a reporter with Eurosport:
"Paolini has told us he has never taken cocaine", says presa officer Katusha. "Of course if the B sample is positive we will fire him"
— Laura Meseguer (@Laura_Meseguer) July 10, 2015One time during a race he threw his $10,000 bike in view of TV cameras:
SEE ALSO: GoPro is about to forever change how we watch the Tour de France
DON'T MISS: WHERE ARE THEY NOW? The Lance Armstrong team that dominated the Tour de France
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NOW WATCH: We bought a half-kilo of pure caffeine on the internet — the equivalent of 5,000 cups of coffee
If it's July we're glued to the Tour de France, and if we're not watching the race live we can still satisfy our passion for two-wheeled action and adventure with new and classic movies about cycling, the Tour, coming of age, deception, romance, and more.
There are dozens of good flicks out there, but here are a handful we're watching this July.
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PAU, France (AP) — Stunning the Tour de France on its first rest day, doctors diagnosed a tumor in the left testicle of two-time Giro d'Italia winner Ivan Basso on Monday, forcing him out of the showcase race.
His former rival Lance Armstrong, who survived testicular cancer that spread to his lungs and brain, immediately tweeted his support.
At age 37, Basso wasn't a contender to win the race, as the Italian was in his heyday before he was banned for doping. But his experience and pedigree — Basso finished second at the 2005 Tour and third in 2004 — meant his withdrawal was keenly felt by his team leader Alberto Contador.
The 2007 and 2009 champion must now tackle the most arduous two weeks of the Tour, with decisive climbs in the Pyrenees and Alps, without the assistance and moral support of his veteran teammate and training partner.
On what is often an uneventful day of rest and relaxation when riders recharge their batteries before the high mountains, a visibly shaken Basso appeared with Contador at a news conference and announced that just two hours earlier, doctors diagnosed a tumor in his left testicle that had been painful since he crashed on Stage 5.
Contador put his arm around Basso and vowed, his voice cracking with emotion, to do his best to win the race to honor his teammate.
Basso said he has cancer.
"I have a small cancer in the left testicle," he said. "I have to stop and go back to Italy."
But his Tinkoff-Saxo team said more tests are needed to be certain the tumor is cancerous.
"Probabilities are very high," Pierre Orphanidis, a team spokesman, said in an Associated Press interview. "We still need the further analysis to be 100 percent sure."
Tumors can be benign, meaning they're not cancerous and don't spread to other parts of the body, or malignant, which means they are cancerous and can spread.
Armstrong, who came back from cancer to win the Tour in seven victories later stripped from him for doping, tweeted: "Thinking about @ivanbasso and wishing him the very best as he embarks on his cancer journey. #IvanSTRONG!!"
He and Basso had memorable battles on the Tour's roads when both were in their prime, long before Armstrong eventually confessed to doping. Basso served a two-year ban for his involvement in a blood-doping ring.
In what he called "a moment of weakness," Basso said at the time that he "attempted doping" but never actually went through with it. His wins at the Giro, one of cycling's three biggest stage races along with the tours of France and Spain, came on either side of that suspension, in 2006 and 2010.
Now dedicated at this 102nd Tour to helping Contador win, Basso was in 158th place — out of 185 remaining competitors — and trailing race leader Chris Froome by more than 50 minutes after nine stages.
His team said Basso will have surgery to remove the tumor and that other treatment will depend on the findings of more checkups.
"It has been a blow to all of us," said Contador. "The entire team will give its best in order to get the yellow jersey and enjoy it in Paris with him."
Contador, who won his second Giro d'Italia this May, is attempting to become the first rider since Marco Pantani in 1998 to win that race and the Tour in the same year. But he heads into the Pyrenees already trailing Froome by 1 minute, 3 seconds.
The time gaps will force Froome's main rivals to attack him in the mountains. Unlike last year, when the-then defending champion had to pull out injured on Stage 5, he safely negotiated bone-breaking crashes, peloton-splitting winds and, on Stage 4, teeth-rattling cobblestones on this Tour's opening swing from Utrecht in the Netherlands, through Belgium and across northern France.
"If nobody attacks, we've won the race," the manager of Froome's Sky team, Dave Brailsford, said Monday.
Tuesday's 15-kilometer (9-mile) final ascent to the Stage 10 finish at La-Pierre-Saint-Martin is sufficiently long and arduous to provide the first acid test of which riders are genuine contenders for victory in Paris. The ski station perched high in the Pyrenees is known for its underground network of caves. The climb up there, with leg-burning 10-percent gradients in parts, could swallow the podium ambitions of contenders who struggle.
It's the first big chance for lithe, lean climbers to shine. Froome, a human toothpick in Lycra, looks to be the strongest of them and seemed to actually be looking forward to the pain. His closest challenger, Tejay van Garderen of the BMC team, is 12 seconds back.
"This is the heart of the race," Froome said Monday. "All the action is going to be happening. We are going to see who has done their homework, who has got what in the mountains. This is where the real race for yellow truly starts. "
___
Jamey Keaten in Pau contributed to this report.
Copyright 2015 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
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Disgraced global sports icon Lance Armstrong took to Twitter on Tuesday to question whether the leader of the Tour de France, Chris Froome, his teammate Richie Porte, and their team, Sky, are "too strong to be clean."
Here's Armstrong's tweet:
Earlier on Tuesday, Froome, Porte, and Sky destroyed Froome's Tour rivals on the first summit finish of the race.
As a select group of favorites climbed to the finish at La Pierre-Saint-Martin, Froome attacked on the steep gradient and no one could keep pace.
This was the moment Froome attacked and dropped his chief rival, Nairo Quintana (in the white jersey):
- Bébé viens me voir !- Je peux pas je fais le tour de France...- Mais je suis seule à la maison..- OK !! :pic.twitter.com/3DrFV1Pihu
— Le Duc (@NonoGodignon) July 14, 2015With his dominating performance Froome extended his lead and put his stamp on the world's premier bicycle race as the strongest man and clear favorite to win in Paris on July 26, even though there are several tough mountain stages still to go.
One Twitter user replied to Armstrong's tweet:
@lancearmstrong you destroyed the reputation of this great race and now you try to harm it further by accusing others? Please stop
— Daniel Castille (@danieljcastille) July 14, 2015To which Armstrong shot back:
. @danieljcastille I'm not accusing anyone In fact, quite the opposite. I'm not interested (nor do I have the credibility) to opine there.
— Lance Armstrong (@lancearmstrong) July 14, 2015"I am not a student of Lance Armstrong or that period in cycling. He doesn’t interest me and that era doesn’t interest me."
And this:
"You think I’m guilty. Can you prove it? No. I know I’m clean. Can I prove it? No. You heard it all before from Lance Armstrong. Well, I’m not Lance Armstrong. You won’t get fooled again. Not by me you won’t, ever."
After Tuesday's stage, Froome tweeted:
Amazing job by the team today, set it up perfectly, 2nd for @richie_porte, 6th for @GeraintThomas86 (& 5th on GC) #Proud@TeamSky
— Chris Froome (@chrisfroome) July 14, 2015Also on Tuesday, the BBC reported that, according to Sky, Froome's computer files with his performance data had been hacked.
"Team Sky believe their computers have been hacked by critics convinced Tour de France leader Chris Froome is using performance-enhancing drugs," the BBC said.
"Froome has been subjected to sustained scrutiny since his Tour win in 2013, with some sceptics using power data to justify their case against him.
"The 30-year-old Briton has always insisted he is a clean rider."
Before the US Anti-Doping Agency found that his team ran "the most sophisticated, professionalized and successful doping program that sport has ever seen," Armstrong won the Tour seven times, and he did so consecutively from 1999 to 2005. His victories were aided by a variety of performance-enhancing drugs.
Armstrong is facing a $100 million lawsuit from a former teammate, Floyd Landis, which could bring him financial ruin.
Related to that lawsuit, USA Today reported Tuesday that the "federal government has received the green light to ask additional questions about Lance Armstrong's sex life" and "to confirm or clarify the nature of his personal relationship with former business associate Stephanie McIlvain, a key witness in the Armstrong doping scandal."
Armstrong is returning to the Tour this week to ride his bike for charity.
SEE ALSO: WHERE ARE THEY NOW? The Lance Armstrong team that dominated the Tour de France
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This week, disgraced sports icon Lance Armstrong controversially returns to the Tour de France, a race he won a record seven times from 1999 to 2005 before the US Anti-Doping Agency stripped him of titles in 2012 for using performance-enhancing drugs.
This time he's not competing but pedaling for a UK-based leukemia charity, riding two stages of the Tour route, this Thursday and Friday, a day ahead of the actual race with fellow cancer survivor and ex-England soccer player Geoff Thomas.
Armstrong's mere presence at the world’s premier bicycle race has met with disapproval from many. The manager of one of the top teams in cycling, Sky's Dave Brailsford, said Armstrong had "done enough damage," the BBC reported.
"For the sake of all clean riders in the peloton, who've already suffered enough from that era, leave them alone — enough's enough," he said.
Brian Cookson, the president of the UCI, the sport's governing body, doesn't want Armstrong back either, saying it's "completely inappropriate and disrespectful to the Tour, disrespectful to the current riders, and disrespectful to the UCI and the anti-doping community."
(On Tuesday, Armstrong took to Twitter to question whether the Tour leader, Chris Froome, and his team were "too strong to be clean.")
Another critic is Betsy Andreu, who, with her husband, Frankie, was once close to Armstrong before becoming embroiled in a protracted, litigious battle that ended up exposing what USADA called "the most sophisticated, professionalized and successful doping program that sport has ever seen."
In an interview with Business Insider, Andreu cautioned against the cycling world accepting a man she calls "a self-interested sociopath, a conman, and a manipulator" back into the sport.
"The thing is, I would prefer if he just shut his mouth and go away forever so we don't have to deal with him again," she said. "Because saying sorry is easy. Acting sorry is hard."
Frankie Andreu was a teammate of Armstrong's on the US Postal Service Pro Cycling Team when Armstrong won three of his Tour titles. He later admitted he used PEDs at one point in his career, and he eventually quit racing.
One critical point along the Armstrong-investigation timeline had to do with the Andreus' sworn testimony. Both Betsy and Frankie Andreu testified under oath that they were present in an Indiana hospital room with Armstrong when, they say, he told two doctors about a number of PEDs he had been using, including cortisone, testosterone, growth hormone, steroids, and EPO. Armstrong denied the Andreus' story.
When Armstrong finally confessed to doping during most of his career on "The Oprah Winfrey Show" in 2013, Winfrey asked if all was well between him and Betsy and if they had "made peace," to which Armstrong said, "No ... because they've been hurt too badly."
Also in that interview, Winfrey asked about comments he'd allegedly made about Betsy Andreu— namely, that he once called her a "fat crazy bitch."
Armstrong answered, referring to Betsy, "I called you crazy, I called you a bitch, I called you all these things, but I never called you fat."
At Denver airport headin 2 the @TdF1DayAhead, having dinner, & run into some journalist. Good to see you @ReillyRick. pic.twitter.com/RxjayOUKfQ
— Lance Armstrong (@lancearmstrong) July 15, 2015
Following are excerpts from Business Insider's recent interview with Betsy Andreu.
BUSINESS INSIDER: Does Armstrong deserve to be forgiven?
BETSY ANDREU: This whole forgiveness, forgiveness, forgiveness thing — I don’t want his apology. In America we like to forgive, right? But I think to do this would be a horrendous mistake, if he remains a self-interested sociopath, a conman, and a manipulator who will do anything — anything and everything — to benefit himself, but also to seek revenge on people now working hard to raise the shipwreck that is cycling from the depths of the sea, one that he wrecked and pillaged.
We're just sick of hearing the b.s. Let's try to reform the sport. To be sorry means I will face the consequences of my actions, even if I don't like them. And that's something he refuses to do. He still thinks the rules don't apply.
Look, when you hurt somebody, you go to them and say, "I wanna show you how sorry I am. What do I have to do to make it right?" Instead, he doesn't do that. He doesn't do that with me or with the LeMonds or with Bob Hammond or with USADA or with the government. He doesn't do that with the millions of people out there who are disgusted and were swindled by him and gave money to his foundation. He doesn't do that. Instead, he does what he wants, for himself. How will this benefit him. This is not about benefiting him.
BA: If you know the details of the story, he’s not going to grant you an interview. That’s why when all the stuff happened, the Europeans knew and they were outraged, but the Americans were betrayed. When the American public felt betrayed by him, they said, "We don't want anything to do with him at all." So it was, like, let's just forget about it.
Again, he’s using a tactic from times past — who will be sympathetic to me and give me the platform? Not one British journalist called me just to ask, ‘Oh, so he’s sorry?’ Are you kidding me! And then I get mad at myself for caring. The world knows he’s an a------ and a liar, you know? But then I got kids who are teenagers, and a son who follows this, and I’m not going to teach my children that you can be a doormat. So I get mad.
BI: Armstrong still owns multimillion-dollar properties, though he's facing a $100 million lawsuit from Floyd Landis, a former teammate. What has life been like for you and Frankie financially?
BA: When Frankie wasn't working full-time we really had to tighten our belt financially, not unlike a lot of people who have to tighten their belts if they lost their jobs or when the economy took a downturn. Ours was a little different, because Frankie was blacklisted and he was told time and again he was too controversial and that I'm a liability. But couples go through hard times. I respected that he was quiet and he respected me that I didn't want to be a doormat.
But for a while there we were definitely dipping into savings, and we don't live a lavish lifestyle by any means. It's not like Frankie made that big, huge money that we see these other guys are making. We could be sitting on millions but we decided — he decided actually — that we'd go that different route. And it cost us financially, but it also cost us mentally, emotionally. But in the end I can't imagine having the kids know that we lived in a mansion and took lavish vacations because Daddy was injecting blood into his veins. You gotta do what you gotta do, and you can't buy peace within.
Frankie doesn’t like to talk about it. We’re different. Frankie’s more laid-back and doesn’t like confrontation. I say, bring it on. I’m not afraid. We complement each other that way. But then there’s always the financial aftermath, because there’s no money in telling the truth, really. But I honestly think Frankie has a passion for the sport, and I think he’s slowly but surely hopefully making his way back in where people will hire him. But let’s be realistic, it does not pay to derail the gravy train.
That said, would we want the financial glory or want know that we did the right thing and did not waver? So you choose the peace within or you choose the financial. We could have had a lot of money had Frankie become a junkie and had Frankie lied for Lance under oath.
I’ve always said, ours is a story that’s twofold. For me and Frankie, it’s standing up to the bully. And for Frankie it’s riding along before the gun is put to your head, and he did that and he paid the price. He was persona non grata when he wouldn’t get on the doping program.
BI: Is there anything Armstrong could do to earn genuine forgiveness?
BA: Stop lying.
BI: How are you treated when you're out in public these days?
BA: It’s so incredibly positive. The overwhelming support by strangers is amazing. The people I get who spew their hatred is very few. What’s interesting is the people who outright name-call, you can't reason with them and I don’t care to. But if people say, Why would you do this? How did it concern you? And when I explain it, just with the facts, a lot of people engage in civil discussion.
Back about 10 years ago, I would have people just look at me with contempt — people would just look at me and close their eyes and look away. I would get a lot of that. This one lady came up to me and said, "I just wanna let you know, there are a lot of people out there who support you, but they’re quiet." Her name was Libby, and it's stayed with me. She was a stranger and I never saw her again. She just said, "Keep at it."
SEE ALSO: WHERE ARE THEY NOW? The Lance Armstrong team that dominated the Tour de France
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Cauterets (France) (AFP) — Tour de France leader Chris Froome has challenged his detractors to prove he has been doping before making unsubstantiated accusations against him.
The 30-year-old has had to put up with a barrage of questions about doping since a stunning victory on the Tour's 10th stage on Tuesday, when he decimated his rivals to open up an almost three-minute lead over the rest of the field.
With several other mountain stages still to come, some people believe Froome could end up winning this year's race by a landslide.
It means he's had to fend off questions about his legitimacy while someone allegedly hacked his Sky team's computers and stole some training data which was then published on the internet.
"Those people should come and see us train, see how hard we work and see how I live my life," said a defiant Froome following Wednesday's 11th stage, in which he maintained his lead.
"Then tell me I'm not clean!"
He added: "People should have some proof before they start making accusations."
A video of Froome's famous victory on Mont Ventoux during his 2013 Tour-winning year was published on the internet showing that his heart-rate remained stable at 160 beats per minute despite him accelerating away from his rivals.
Many people reacted incredulously to that, believing it to be impossible.
But Froome dismissed any such concerns.
"I've put that data out there myself in my book. I said my maximum heart-rate is only 170," said the Kenyan-born rider.
"After two weeks of the Tour on Ventoux it's quite surprising it's 160, it's normally a bit lower than that.
"That's normal, two weeks into a Grand Tour, 10 beats off my maximum when I'm going as hard as I can -- for me anyway."
Sky manager Dave Brailsford has been at pains to try to demonstrate that his team is clean but, like Froome, he said the suspicions were to be expected.
"I think with the past we've had in cycling, it's reasonable," he said.
"My job is to be here, be open, speak to everyone, take responsibility.
"We're a team trying to be at the front of everything (anti-)doping.
"It's normal that people ask questions, my job is to be here, be open and answer those questions."
Brailsford also pointed out that the gaps between Froome and some lesser lights on Tuesday's stage were nothing to be alarmed about, quite the opposite in fact.
Tony Gallopin, a Frenchman not noted for his climbing ability, and Adam Yates, a 22-year-old Briton riding his first Tour de France, both finished just two minutes behind Froome.
But because the likes of reigning champion Vincenzo Nibali and two-time former winner Alberto Contador lost 4min 25sec and 2min 51sec respectively, tongues started wagging.
It was perhaps exacerbated amongst the locals by French hopes Jean-Christophe Peraud, Thibaut Pinot and Romain Bardet -- second, third and sixth respectively last year -- losing between five-and-a-half and ten minutes.
"The surprise was the performance of the others, which wasn't to the level we expected," said Brailsford.
"It's true Chris had a good day but the others weren't really on top form."
And in a pointed remark to French accusers, he added: "The big performance (on Tuesday) was Gallopin coming seventh (actually ninth, he's seventh overall).
"He had a great performance, or young Adam Yates did great (finishing seventh). We didn't see a great Contador or Nibali but (Nairo) Quintana was ok, if not brilliant."
Quintana finished just over a minute behind Froome to leave him third overall at 3min 09sec -- maybe be leave he is the only rider with any chance of denying Froome a second Tour crown.