Le Tour de France will have one team less than it was supposed to. Or, better say, at least one team. Comunidad Valenciana was excluded by the French organizers because of it's involvement with the "Manolo Saiz affair". Actually, the decision caught no one off guard, since Jean-Marie LeBlanc - the Tour general manager - stated, less than two weeks ago, that everyone involved, or suspected to be involved, in the doping scandal will have to watch Tour de France on TV.

Today, though, it all became official. Although the sporting director of Comunidad Valenciana (Jose Ignacio Labarta) resigned a few weeks ago, the French organizers decided to keep out the Spanish team from this year's edition of Le Tour: "The suspicion of assistant sporting director of the team Comunidad Valenciana, even if he has left his job, led the organizers to withdraw their invitation at this stage".

After the doping scandal in which Eufemio Fuentes and Manolo Saiz were dragged into, Jean-Marie LeBlanc warned that Astana Wurth - formerly known as Liberty Seguras - will better step off the July competition. That would only indicate the fact that it's just a matter of time before Astana will also be excluded from the Tour de France.

"Today, we're still waiting on the UCI Pro Tour's licensing commission, knowing full well that the owner of the team remains Manolo Saiz", said Christian Prudhomme, the Tour de France organizer. He insisted on the fact that, even if the competition may be in danger of starting off with only 15 or 16 teams - last month, 22 teams were registered for the Tour - no other teams will receive an invitation to participate instead.

"That won't be the case, but the number of teams at the start is not a problem for us. Be there 150 or 200 riders in no way taints the prestige of the Tour. The peloton will always be the peloton and there will always be escapes and heroes. We were 22 yesterday, we're 21 today. And we'll be what we need to be to take the start", said Prudhomme.