Here’s the line I’d like to be able to use to start this entry:

Saturday marks the beginning of the greatest sporting event on earth, the Tour de France.

There was a time when I’d have had no problem making that statement. Just on sheer numbers alone, Le Tour makes most athletic events pale by comparison.  During the course of three weeks in the July heat, 180 riders will cover 3500 kilometers of French plains and alps.  With only 2 rest days, it’s as difficult and daunting mentally as physically.  These are the greatest athletes in the world … period.

Problem is, like any high-end athletic competition, Le Tour has been plagued by scandal.  Long before there were drug tests, there were drug takers in the Tour.  Amphetamine use was so bad at one point that riders died in the saddle, and some of the most sophisticated designer performance enhancing drugs were created for Le Tour.  The late ’90s were particularly difficult, with entire teams banned from the event for blood doping.

The appearance of a post-cancer Lance Armstrong and his dominant US Postal Service team quieted the storm for the seven Tours he won, but as soon as he retired the controversy returned.  The winner of the 2006 event, Floyd Landis, had his title taken away after a positive drug test late in the event, and Michael Rasmussen was kicked out while leading the 2007 Tour after apparently dodging the drug testers.  So many leading riders didn’t even enter last year’s event that it ultimately came down to a battle of relative unknowns for the prized maillot jaune.

But, as they say, what’s old can be new again, and there’s a “new” rider in the 2009 event – Lance Armstrong himself.  Returned from a three-year retirement, Armstrong is riding for a revamped Astana squad – the very same team kicked out of the 1998 event for doping.  But this is very much Armstrong’s team, led by old friend Johan Bruyneel and populated by faces familiar to fans of the Posties’ Blue Train.  Lance has said that he’s not in the race to win, but rather to continue to raise awareness of the battle to cure cancer, and Astana indeed has a pair of potential podium finishers in Levi Leipheimer and Alberto Contador, the 2007 TdF winner.  But Lance has looked remarkably racy in his comeback events, the Tour of California and the Giro d’Italia, and if he gets his shot you know he’s gonna take it.  If nothing else, it should bring back the star power sorely lacking in the last few years.

As a side note, we’re going to try the Tour de Stance once again this year.  Readers of the SCMO Fishing News back before we calved off the MarlinBlog will recall that about five years ago I mirrored the riding of the tour, getting out on the bike each of the 21 riding days of the event.  Of course, I was a much bigger, less fit person than I am now, so if we’re gonna do this we need to do it right.  I’ll definitely mimic the type of stage – flat, mountain or time trial – but I need to figure out the right way to determine the distance for each day.  And, since I’ll be out fishing this weekend, I need to work in a couple of double days to make up for the two stages I’ll miss.  But those are just details – the key is to get out and ride!

Should be fun …