Tour de France: Daniele Bennati wins stage 17

July 26, 2007

Daniele Bennati of Italy has won stage 17 of the 2007 Tour de France in a time of 4h 14' 04".

Alberto Contador of Spain, who finished with the peleton gets the yellow jersey since Rabobank pulled the previous leader, Michael Rasmussen from the Tour.

The 188.5 km road stage, from Pau to Castelsarrasin, leaves the mountains behind and turns north towards Paris. This stage has a series of small climbs, but should give those sprinters who have survived the chance to earn some points.

Cofidis team leaves Tour after Moreni fails blood test
High blood levels of testosterone were found in the blood of Cristian Moreni, and his team Cofidis consequently decided to pull all their riders out of the Tour after yesterday's stage.

Media sources in France and other countries are discussing whether or not the Tour should be canceled. France Soir called the last 48 hours "a living nightmare" in a mock obituary of the 104-year-old Tour de France.

Alexander Vinokourov and the entire Astana Team on Tuesday because Vinokourov failed a blood doping test conducted after Saturday's stage.

Rabobank pulled overall-Tour-leader Michael Rasmussen on Wednesday after winning that day's stage for violating team rules on reporting whereabouts during training. The rest of the Rabobank team is still in the Tour.

"Obviously this gives a disastrous image of the Tour de France, but at the same time, if we encourage the organizers, we can clean up French sports and in particular cycling," said French PM François Fillon.

Bradley Wiggins, a British rider for the Cofidis team said, "I don't want to continue in the Tour de France anyway, it is not supposed to be like this."

A public network in Germany has stopped broadcasting the Tour de France, and a Swiss newspaper no longer covers the event. World Anti-Doping Agency vice president Jean-François Lamour said on Wednesday that maybe cycling should no longer be an Olympic discipline.