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Americans Banned From The Tour de France!
We're shocked and saddened to announce this, but Christian Prudhomme and Jean-Marie Leblanc, directors of the Tour de France, have announced that Americans will be banned from the 2006 and following Tours de France. It appears that recent American domination of the Tour, as well as other European road races has led Tour organizers to offer a French win in the only way possible ? by banning the most dominant competitors!
THE ANNOUNCEMENT
In fact, the Tour organizers have actually banned all riders from nations where French is not the first or second language spoken. That means that riders from France, Belgium, Luxembourg, Tunisia, and the French-speaking part of Switzerland will be allowed to compete. Pro Tour stars such as George Hincapie, Floyd Landis, Jan Ullrich, Ivan Basso, Levi Leipheimer and Danilo Di Luca will not be permitted in the '06 Grand Boucle. Here's what the Tour organizers had to say:
On the 24th of July, 2005 we turned the page on a long, very long chapter in the history of the Tour de France. And one month later, current events made it clear to us that it was just as well that this was so. Does this justify closing the entire book and erasing all the emotions that, for so many years, the Tour and its champions have provided us with? Taken as a whole, judged on its lifelong worth ? like an artist or a poet ? and in particular on its future productions, we want to believe that the Tour de France deserves a better fate. The dream that it embodies, the values that it is capable of generating mean that it has a duty to be able to hold its head up in pride and to allow its host nation to hold its head up in pride.