Cycling/ Tour de France: Asked his thoughts about yesterday's crossing of Brittany, Tyler Hamilton raised his eyes to the slaty skies. "Wind and rain, as usual."
Muffled in Gore-Tex jackets, peering nervously from the peaks of racing caps under their crash hats, the peloton squelched past serried ranks of umbrellas to the finish, where the Norwegian Thor Hushovd made up for his loss of the yellow jersey last Tuesday by taking a coolly calculated stage win.
It was not, as the French say, the type of weather to put a dog out in. Unfortunately, the Bretons are a hard-hearted breed, and five miles from the finish a local canine that should have been in its kennel crossed the road just as the peloton was passing. The day's chute duly followed, with the Frenchman Samuel Dumoulin left nursing an injured wrist.
To add to the gloom and the grazes, the doping theme remains an undercurrent to this tour. It was revealed yesterday that four teams from outside France have not declared the medicines in their baggage, laying them open to a visit from the customs men.
There was also a reminder that Lance Armstrong's current libel suits against the authors and publishers of the revelatory biography LA Confidential are not the only defamation cases in which the Texan is currently engaged.
The Italian Filippo Simeoni, who is currently 169th out of 176 riders in the Tour, spoke publicly about the law suit he began against Armstrong last year, claiming that the Texan called his honesty into question in two press interviews.
Simeoni was the principal witness from within the cycling world against Armstrong's trainer, Michele Ferrari, during the latter's interminably protracted trial on drugs charges in a court in Bologna, claiming that the trainer had instructed him on how to use banned substances. His testimony was published in 2001 in the magazine GQ.
Armstrong intervened in March 2002, when he told RAI television that Simeoni's word was "worth nothing", and again in April 2003, when Le Monde newspaper reported him saying that Simeoni was "an absolute liar". Simeoni filed for defamation during last year's Tour.
"Armstrong was trying to defend his own image by defending Ferrari," Simeoni said. "I have never accused Armstrong personally, I would never permit myself to do that. I admire Armstrong for what he has achieved.
"The thing that hurt the most was Armstrong's attitude, the interview he gave in spring 2002 where he accused me of altering my testimony, I cried. I understood that by telling the truth I had put the most powerful champion in our milieu on my back."
Tomorrow will see the second analysis of the urine sample provided at Namur by the Belgian Christophe Brandt. The 27-year-old left the race on Saturday after the first sample showed positive for a minute quantity of the narcotic methadone, usually given to addicts who are coming off heroin and never before found in cycling.
"I have taken nothing," said Brandt, amid claims that his sample might have been contaminated. "I don't know how the substance got in my body. I am a clean rider."
Permitted medicines are also in the news. Yesterday, the Journal du Dimanche newspaper revealed it had gained access to declarations made by 11 of the 15 teams in the race from outside France to the body controlling medical imports, in which they stated what medicines they were bringing into the country.
The leak reveals that the teams each brought in an average of about 80 different kinds of medicines - the least being nine, the most 155 - varying from everyday substances such as paracetamol and vitamins to medicines for serious illnesses. The latter include diuretics, cardiac dilators, and a substance called pentoxifylline, usually prescribed for memory loss among the aged.
The JDD story reinforced the theory that as controls tighten the net around the heavy artillery of doping - erythropoietin, amphetamines, testosterone - so some riders may be turning to semi-legal methods.
The persistent doubts do nothing to diminish the Tour's popularity. Brittany is where French cycling's heart beats strongest, and this weekend the picture was the same: huge crowds, young and old, lining the route amid granite houses and pocket hankie fields to cheer on the young French race leader Thomas Voeckler, whose popularity is growing by the day.
There was a persistent agricultural theme: onlookers perched in the buckets of diggers used to ferry cow dung; bale loaders supporting decorated bicycles; families hiding from the wet in silage trailers, and, most curiously of all, a combine harvester painted in the polka dot red and white of the mountains jersey.
Agricultural is what you might call the style of Hushovd, who won a stage at Bourg-en-Bresse in 2002, and wore the yellow jersey on Tuesday thanks more to strength than suppleness. There was, however, perfect calculation in the way he timed his effort and led through the final corner.
His ambition remains the green jersey of points winner, and the succession of sprints has made the battle for that classification even tighter than usual. After yesterday's hill-top sprint a mere 11 points covered the first four riders: Australia's Robbie McEwen and Stuart O'Grady, the German Erik Zabel and Hushovd.
Last night the riders caught a plane to Limoges, hoping that, like migrating birds, they will find more clement climes as they fly south.
Guardian Service
Scanlon 55th overall
A split in the peloton towards the end of yesterday's stage to Quimper meant Mark Scanlon finished in a large group, 21 seconds down on stage winner Thor Hushovd of Norway. Scanlon crossed the line in 122nd place, the time loss seeing his overall position drop from 50th to 55th. He is now eighth in the 'best young rider' standings.
The 23-year-old finished in the main bunch on Saturday's 204.5-kilometre stage to Saint Brieuc, at one stage being caught out when the peloton split into two halves. Scanlon and the other riders were able to close the gap and he finished 111th on the stage, in the same time as the day's winner, Filippo Pozzato. Pozzato finished second to Scanlon six years ago when he won the World Junior Championships in Valkenburg, Belgium.
All the riders have a rest day today. "I'm not planning to do much," he said yesterday, "I will probably go out and do two hours easy, just to keep the legs from stiffening up. I felt okay today - I was very tired after the team time-trial, but for the past couple of days I have been feeling better."
The first week of the tour has brought some poor weather, with rain contributing to the large number of crashes. "Everyone is a bit depressed with the weather," Scanlon added.
The race continues tomorrow with a stage to Guéret and Wednesday's stage brings the first real mountains . - Shane Stokes
Stage eight
168 km from Lamballe to Quimper
LEADING PLACINGS: 1 T Hushovd (Nor) Credit Agricole 3:54.22; 2 K Kirchen (Lux) Fassa Bortolo; 3 E Zabel (Ger) T-Mobile; 4 R McEwen (Aus) Lotto-Domo; 5 A Kloeden (Ger) T-Mobile; 6 T Boonen (Bel) Quick Step-Davitamon; 7 L Brochard (Fra) AG2R; 8 S O'Grady (Aus) Cofidis; 9 O Pereiro Sio (Spn) Phonak; 10 D Hondo (Ger) Gerolsteiner ( all same times). Other: 122 M Scanlon (Irl) AG2R 00.21
OVERALL STANDINGS: 1 T Voeckler (Fra) Brioches La Boulangere 33:03.36; 2 O'Grady 3.01 secs behind; 3 S Casar (Fra) FdJeux.com 4.06; 4 M Backstedt (Swe) Alessio-Bianchi 6.27; 5 J Piil (Den) Team CSC 7.09; 6 L Armstrong (US) US Postal 9.35; 7 G Hincapie (US) US Postal 9.45; 8 J Azevedo (Por) US Postal 9.57; 9 JE Gutierrez (Spn) Phonak 10.02; 10 Zabel 10.06. 55: M Scanlon 12.26.
KING OF THE MOUNTAINS: 1 P Bettini (Ita) Quick Step-Davitamon 20 pts; 2 J Tombak (Est) Cofidis 14; 3 R Scholz (Ger) Gerolsteiner 12.
OVERALL POINTS STANDINGS: 1 McEwen 158; 2 O'Grady 149; 3 Zabel 148.
TEAM STANDINGS: 1 Team CSC 97:05.12; 2 Alessio-Bianchi 2.04 behind; 3 Brioches La Boulangere 3.16.
YOUNG RIDER: 1 Voeckler (Fra) 33:03.36; 2 Casar 4.06 behind. 3 M Kessler (Ger) T-Mobile 10.49; 4 Boonen 11.17; 5 J Pineau (Fra) Brioches La Boulangere 12.14; 6 F Cancellara (Swi) Fassa Bortolo 12.19; 7 M Scarponi (Ita) Domina Vacanze 12.22; 8 Scanlon 12.26.
