The Amaury Sports Organization (ASO) has banned Team Astana from participating in any of the races that it organizes during all of 2008. These races include Paris-Nice, Paris-Roubaix, Paris-Tours, and most importantly, the Tour de France. The first- and third-place finishers in the 2007 Tour are thus barred from defending their titles in the 2008 even.
After the Discovery Channel Team was dissolved at the end of the 2007 season, Tour winner Alberto Contador and third-place finisher Levi Leipheimer were forced to find a new team. Both of them signed with Astana, a team which experienced major doping scandals in 2007 but which promised to ride clean in 2008. Later, ASO decided to ban Astana from all of its 2008 races, thereby barring these two riders from from competing in the Tour.
Supporters of both riders have set up Web sites to permit cycling fans from around the world to petition the ASO to let these two riders participate in the 2008 Tour. The Web site set up for Leipheimer is www.letleviride.com/. Contador's site in four languages is www.contadoraltour.com/. The English version isn't quite grammatical, but let's overlook that and support the initiative. After all, this site isn't always a literary masterpiece, either. :) -- Jack Quinn
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