Cycling Tour de FranceThe Tour de France's annual route launch has gradually turned into the sport's biggest gala occasion, reflecting the pre-eminence of the race in the sport's calendar. But with cycling in unprecedented crisis this year the gathering in Paris's Palais des Congres today is about far more than a list of stage towns on an overhead projector and a lavish buffet lunch.
The ongoing drugs case involving this year's first finisher, Floyd Landis, means that for the first time since the route announcement gained such importance, the Tour's parcours will be revealed before we know the identity of the defending champion. The Tour's director, Jean-Marie Leblanc, accepted yesterday that repeated doping scandals meant that "cycling has lost a large part of its credibility".
The 2006 Tour may or may not be awarded to the runner-up, Oscar Pereiro, and it will depend on the outcome of Landis's disciplinary action, which, with its appeals, may take until July to resolve. Matters have not been helped by the publication in France last week of another book questioning the ethics of the seven-times winner Lance Armstrong, who strenuously denies all allegations, by the authors of the best-selling LA Confidential.
Because of the ramifications of the Spanish blood-doping inquiry which disrupted this year's race before it had even started, it is unclear whether two of the race's biggest stars, Jan Ullrich and Ivan Basso, will even be competing next summer. Basso recently received clearance from the Italian Cycling Federation to race again and is looking for a team, although the International Cycling Union has said it will appeal against the decision.
Ullrich, the 1997 winner, does not even have a racing licence at present. He returned it to the Swiss federation recently in protest at their inquiries into his involvement in Operation Puerto and was photographed in an overweight condition at his home in Switzerland.
A lengthy dispute with the ICU merely adds further confusion to the picture. The ICU and the Tour organisers, ASO, are at loggerheads over the Tour's inclusion in the ICU's ProTour calendar, which ASO suspects may be an attempt to tap into its lucrative television rights.
The battle has crossed over into the war on doping, with the ICU hinting that it may take steps to cut the length of the Tour to reduce the pressure on riders.
ASO sees this as a reprisal for its refusal to participate in the ProTour.
This week the ICU upped the ante by accusing ASO of failing to collaborate to combat drug-taking and noted that its president, Ireland's Pat McQuaid, had not been invited to today's jamboree. Given that he walked out last year when the Tour said anti-doping measures were not strong enough, that is perhaps not surprising.
The president of the Tour organisers, Patrice Clerc, responded by accusing the ICU of failing to react quickly enough following Operation Puerto.
"At the start of the Tour this year along with the teams we were one of the members of the cycling family who responded. The teams dismissed some riders; the (ICU) took no measures but left it to other parties within cycling to act."
The Tour organisers are bound to use today's public platform to continue hostilities and, amid all the polemics, the host of the 2007 Grand Depart, London's mayor Ken Livingstone, will be present.
After England's capital and the stage through Kent, it seems that the 2007 route will head via Belgium south to the Alps and a possible stage over Mont Ventoux to commemorate the death in 1967 of the British champion Tom Simpson.
Unfortunately, the issue today is not where the Tour goes, but rather the direction in which it and the sport it represents are headed.
