July 7, 2007 – The Tour is a parade. Some years it’s a victory procession, a thrilling testament to the strength of one man in overcoming the almost equal strength of many others. Some years it’s a circus parade. Does a fan focus only on who’s in front? No, of course not: the places change, the clowns are in front, or bring up the rear, there’s the strong man, a variety of acts, each bringing a thrill of its own. Some years a procession, some years a circus, some years a war march.

But as parades go, this year’s Tour feels more like a funeral procession. Last year’s winner half-stripped of his jersey, his present situation in a curious limbo of test results and counter-allegations. A team doctor revealing, pre-race, T-Mobile’s doping practices under Walter Godefroot in the pages of German shock-paper der Spiegel. All on the heels of yet another book, From Lance to Landis by Tony Walsh, discussing the doping practices of the previous champ, which have been detailed by the most respected sports newspaper in the world, bar none. A champion whose own former teammates eventually said “Enough.” Lance Armstrong denies all. It is the nature of circuses to leave us out of breath.

The champion before him, Marco Pantani, dead after a career of heavy doping. The champion before him, Jan Ullrich, included in a coded clientele list of a Spanish doping lab. The champion before him, Bjarne Riis, admitted his doping practices during his 1996 Tour win and will watch the race from home this year while under threat of having his win stripped. To give it to who? 1996’s second-place finisher, Ullrich? The third-place finisher, Richard Virenque, whose team was at the origin of modern blood-doping scandals in 1998?

That is the context of this funereal Tour, where the banked-on favorite, Italy’s Ivan Basso, is sitting out with a two-year suspension for blood doping, and the banked on second-favorite, Ullrich, retired when his DNA just didn’t match up. Meanwhile the defending champ is awaiting a verdict, any day now, from the United States Anti-Doping Agency on his failed test of last year. And the riders have signed releases, agreeing to massive personal penalties in case of doping, signed them while complaining because they say they’re just the scapegoats of a system. And they’re right. But they’ve signed anyway… a man’s got to get paid, right? Which is how this whole doping mess started, so many years ago, one might argue. Gotta get paid.

The favorites? Alex Vinokourov, whose strong Astana team (linked to Operacion Puerto last year) gives him the best support of the favorites. AG2R’s Christophe Moreau, who seems to transcend time like a certain Joop Zoetemelk did, oh I guess it’s 25 years ago now. Moreau, 36, is having a tremendous upswing this year, but we’ve learned to read new meaning into renaissances, haven’t we? Other names come up: Discovery’s Leipheimer, Caisse d’Epargne’s Valverde. Who can tell?

But the biggest underdog this year is the Tour itself. For ten years, its longtime skeleton has emerged from the closet with a vengeance, and it has wallowed in the despair of scandals, broken dreams, and is now facing a mass exodus of sponsorship (including T-Mobile, under pressure by German Chancellor Angela Merkel to step away from the leper sport that it has dominated for more than a decade).

But the Tour is all about hope, isn’t it? If she can just survive the English food, make it through the Alps and Pyrenees, make it unscathed through the time trials and the news-hungry rest day, and get to the finish line in Paris, then maybe, maybe!