theres nothing wrong with him starting it thatfguy. he wants to ride

What I see wrong with it is that he's playing people's opinions, trying to pass this off as a personal attack on him when it's actually about the whole team.

The team may or may not deserve to be there, but the organisers are entitled to choose.

I see a lot of people here who seem to have not been "around" cycling during the pre-ProTour era, so for those people, be warned: this happens every single year. Teams that a lot of people think are shoo-ins won't get invited.

Ruben? Is that you?

...the main problem, according to me, is Bruyneel. In ASO's eyes, Bruyneel is doping his riders and have been doing so for a long time. First there was the ongoing controversy with Lance. Andreu, Riley etc. etc. and finally the L'Equipe story proving EPO in Lances bloodstream in 1999, which actually made Le Blanc state dissapointment, and the fact that Lance was nowhere in the 2006 presentation of le Tour, tells us that ASO conciders Lance to have doped throughout his 7 wins.
With Lance out of the game, then what happens!? A former Bruyneel rider not only wins le Tour, but also gets caught doping! And this happens after a Tour tormented by Operacion Puerto. And speaking about Puerto, Bruyneel decides to hire Ivan Basso, and I bet you many chairs were kicked around in the ASO headquarters, with the perspective of having Basso riding le Tour in 2008. Faith had it though, that Basso is italian and not spanish, but before ASO could get their hands down from cheering, Bruyneel had won le Tour yet again, and again with a tainted rider.

Of course there's also the power struggle with ASO, the frightening story with Astana in last years edition, the perspective of having a former Saiz protege winning le Tour again, but I believe that the main reason Levi isn't riding le Tour this year is Johann Bruyneel.

Thank you god! someone that agrees with me!

That makes three of us.
Let's just let Levi cry.

Well Armstrong won the World Championships, Dauphine Libre, Tour de Suisse, Tour of Georgia, Tour DuPont (used to be fairly big), stages in Paris-Nice and a slew of other minor or now defunct races.

He was definitely a specialist in the tour once he came back from cancer... in many ways he started the trend that people have now of focusing on just one or two big races each season.

As for Leipheimer... he has won the Deutchland tour, Dauphine Libre, Tour of California and Tour of Georgia as well as several smaller races. Looking at the results of say... Valverde or Cadel Evans... I don't see much of a difference.

Yeah! I eagerly await my Tour de France invitation. You can't stop me riding just because I'm not good enough, world.

Indurain really started that trend...

Well... not really. Indurain won the Tour from 1991-1995, and finished 11th in 1996. In 1991 he was second in the Vuelta. In 1992 and 1993 he won the Giro. In 1994 he was 4th in the Giro and in 1996 he competed in the Vuelta.

Lance never rode more than one Grand Tour in his TDF winning years. He was a TDF specialist.

As long as Levi is associated with Bruyneel, he should never be able to ride the Tour... Simple as that...

There are some people that should just be boicoted by every race organizer... And Bruyneel is certainly one of them...

I personally dislike Levi but the truth is that deadpool's arguments are somewhat moronic...

But it's Levi's own fault that he's not ridding the Tour... He knows what kind of reputation Bruyneel and Astana have so why join them? There's something missing in that whole story...

And, about that petition story, I have to say: Way to go Levi... Yõu just disapointed most of your fans... For a cyclist that has always been categorized as "clean" to pull off such a deceiving lie, makes me wonder if you really are clean...

Induráin started the trend, yes. In 1994 He stopped competing for the Giro and instead only went all-out at the Tour. the result? instead of holding ground in the mountains and destroying the opposition in the TTs he started to destroy them in the mountains as well.

I personally think Levi should ride Le Tour, but he is a complete buthead that he joined Astana, he should have known that Astana, because of their other dopeheads last year, isn't a team most tour organisators want on their startlist becuase it's a fairle suspicious team. But I dont think he would have done as well as last year, he will never be able to follow Contador and co.