The 2006 Tour de France was the 93rd edition of the Tour de France, one of cycling's Grand Tours. It took place between the 1st and the 23rd of July. It was won by Óscar Pereiro following the disqualification of Floyd Landis. Due to the United States Anti-Doping Agency announcing on August 24, 2012, that they had disqualified Lance Armstrong, a former teammate of Landis, from all of his results since August 1, 1998, including his seven Tour de France titles from 1999 to 2005, this is also the first Tour to have an overall winner since 1998. By terms of margin of victory the 2006 Tour was the 3rd closest of all time.
The Tour began with a prologue in Strasbourg, on the French-German border, and ended on Sunday 23 July in Paris. The distance of the course (run counterclockwise around France) was . The race was the third fastest in average speed. Along the way, the cyclists passed through six different countries including France, The Netherlands (a stop at Valkenburg in Stage 3), Belgium (at Huy, Stages 3 and 4), Luxembourg (at Esch-sur-Alzette, Stages 2 and 3), Germany (though not stopping there, Stage 1) and Spain (Pla-de-Beret, Stage 11). The presentation of the course was made by the new director of Le Tour, Christian Prudhomme. For the first time since the 1999 edition, there was no team time trial.
The event, as with some of the Tours of the late 1990s, was marred by doping scandals. Prior to the tour, numerous riders – including the two favourites Jan Ullrich and Ivan Basso – were expelled from the Tour due to their link with the Operación Puerto doping case.
After the Tour, the apparent winner, Floyd Landis, was found to have failed a drug test after stage 17; Landis contested the result and demanded arbitration. On 20 September 2007, Landis was found guilty and suspended retroactive to 30 January 2007 and stripped of the 2006 Tour de France title making Óscar Pereiro the title holder. Landis appealed the decision to the Court of Arbitration for Sport which upheld the ban.
Pereiro was also suspected of having taken a forbidden substance during this Tour after failing a drug test. However, his use of the substance in question, salbutamol, was approved by the UCI for medical reasons.
Of the six Americans to complete this Tour, four of them had their results voided. The results of Chris Horner and Christian Vande Velde remain official, although Vande Velde had previous results voided. American Sprinter Fred Rodriguez did not finish the Tour, but his results remain valid.
Teams
In the most controversial scandal since the 1998 tour, thirteen riders were expelled from the tour on the eve of Strasbourg prologue to the 93rd edition stemming from a Spanish doping scandal. Jan Ullrich and Ivan Basso, two favourites to win the race, were among those excluded from the Tour along with podium candidate Francisco Mancebo and Alberto Contador (who would return to win the following year, 2007). Alexander Vinokourov, another race favourite, was not linked to the doping scandal, but was forced to withdraw when the eligible riders on his Astana-Würth Team fell below the minimum starting requirement of six. Because of this and the retirement of then-seven-time consecutive winner Lance Armstrong, this year's Tour started without the top five riders from the 2005 edition. It was also the first Tour since 1999 that did not contain a past champion. All 21 teams were composed of nine cyclists, so 189 riders commenced the 2006 Tour de France.
The teams entering the race were:
Pre-race favourites After the retirement of then seven-time winner Lance Armstrong, the main contenders for the overall win were expected to be Ivan Basso from , the 2005 runner-up; and Jan Ullrich from , the third man on the podium in 2005, winner in 1997, and the only previous winner still racing. However, both Ullrich and Basso were suspended by their teams on 30 June after UCI told T-Mobile and Team CSC that the riders were involved in the anti-doping investigation in Spain.Ullrich and Basso out of Le Tour, from BBC. Retrieved 30 June 2006. The 2006 Tour also saw the return of former yellow jersey holder and three-time stage winner David Millar () after serving a two-year ban for admissions of the use of the drug EPO, which was discovered in a police search of his house before the 2004 Tour de France, in June 2004.
Francisco Mancebo of the French team , who finished fourth in 2005 and sixth in 2004, was also suspended by his team due to the Puerto investigation, and subsequently it was reported by the press that he announced his retirement. Mancebo denied this, claiming that he decided to change his focus. He would return to ride for Team Relax–GAM the following year and while he continued riding for more than another decade; with his change in focus he never entered another grand tour.
Alexander Vinokourov would have been the only returning rider with a top-five finish from last year's race. However, his team, , was forced to pull out of the race because they would not be able to start with the minimum of six riders. As a result of the drug scandal, many believed Spaniard Alejandro Valverde (Caisse d'Épargne), or the Americans Floyd Landis (Phonak), Levi Leipheimer (Gerolsteiner), or Australian Cadel Evans (Davitamon–Lotto) would probably win the race.
Route and stages The highest point of elevation in the race was at the summit of the Col du Galibier mountain pass on stage 16.
+ Stage characteristics and winners Stage Date Course Distance Type Winner P 1 JulyStrasbourg Individual time trial 1 2 JulyStrasbourg Flat stage 2 3 JulyObernai to Esch-sur-Alzette (Luxembourg) Flat stage 3 4 JulyEsch-sur-Alzette (Luxembourg) to Valkenburg (Netherlands) Hilly stage 4 5 JulyHuy (Belgium) to Saint-Quentin Flat stage 5 6 JulyBeauvais to Caen Flat stage 6 7 JulyLisieux to Vitré Flat stage 7 8 JulySaint Grégoire to Rennes Individual time trial 8 9 JulySaint-Méen-le-Grand to Lorient Flat stage 10 July Bordeaux Rest day 9 11 JulyBordeaux to Dax Flat stage 10 12 JulyCambo-les-Bains to Pau Mountain stage 11 13 JulyTarbes to Val d'Aran/Pla-de-Beret (Spain) Mountain stage 12 14 JulyLuchon to Carcassonne Hilly stage 13 15 JulyBéziers to Montélimar Flat stage 14 16 JulyMontélimar to Gap Hilly stage 17 July Gap Rest day 15 18 JulyGap to Alpe d'Huez Mountain stage 16 19 JulyLe Bourg-d'Oisans to La Toussuire Mountain stage 17 20 JulySaint-Jean-de-Maurienne to Morzine Mountain stage 18 21 JulyMorzine to Mâcon Flat stage 19 22 JulyLe Creusot to Montceau-les-Mines Individual time trial 20 23 JulyAntony/Parc de Sceaux to Paris (Champs-Élysées) Flat stage Total
Race overview
Due to the developing doping case known as Operacion Puerto several top tier riders were denied entry to the 2006 Tour including Jan Ullrich, Joseba Beloki, Alberto Contador, Ivan Basso and indirectly, as his team did not have enough eligible riders, Alexander Vinokourov. The Prologue was won by Thor Hushovd and over the first few flat stages Robbie McEwen claimed three stage victories, but did not take the overall lead at any point as by Stage 3 another sprinter, Tom Boonen, had claimed the Yellow Jersey, which he held until the ITT in Stage 7.
The ITT was won handily by Serhiy Gonchar who claimed the maillot jaune with Floyd Landis finishing in 2nd in the Stage, as well as moving up the standings into 2nd place in the overall. After the ITT Team T-Mobile had four riders in the top 6 overall including Honchar and Andreas Klöden. The top of the GC remained more or less static until Stage 10 when a pair of riders escaped early in the day and stayed away to the finish with Juan Miguel Mercado winning the stage and moving into 2nd place overall and Cyril Dessel finishing the stage 2nd with the same time as Mercado, but taking over the Yellow Jersey as the new race leader.
Stage 11 was a brutal mountain stage with five highly categorised climbs. It was won by Dennis Menchov with Levi Leipheimer and Floyd Landis staying with him to the finish line. Landis took over the Yellow Jersey as the new race leader :08 ahead of Dessel. Cadel Evans and Carlos Sastre finished 4th and 5th in the stage and at the same time moved into 4th and 5th in the overall standings. Stage 12 was an intermediate stage won by Yaroslav Popovych who jumped from outside the top 20 to tenth place overall.
The top GC Contenders wouldn't change places until Stage 13 when Jens Voigt and Óscar Pereiro outlasted Manuel Quinziato and Sylvain Chavanel in a four-man breakaway that finished about 30 minutes ahead of the Peloton. Pereiro jumped everyone to take the overall lead by about 1:30 over Landis and Dessel and around 2:30 ahead of Menchov and Evans with Sastre over 3:00 back.
The situation remained the same after Stage 14, but in Stage 15 from Col d'Izoard to Alpe d'Huez the race blew apart with Fränk Schleck winning the stage and among the GC riders Landis and Kloden winning considerable time on everyone but one another. Landis was back in Yellow by a thread of :10 with the 3rd through 7th place riders of Dessel, Menchov, Sastre, Kloden and Evans each within only three minutes of Landis and Pereiro. Stage 16 was won by Michael Rasmussen as Pereiro took over the race lead with Sastre jumping up to 2nd, Kloden taking over 3rd and Landis coming entirely unhinged and dropping outside the top 10.
In Stage 17 however, Landis made the potentially catastrophic decision to attack off the front of the Peloton entirely on his own over 100 km from the finish in pursuit of the morning Breakaway bunch. Before long he caught the escapees, rode with the break for a while, then attacked off the front with only Patrice Halgand and Patrik Sinkewitz able to stay with him for any length of time, though without doing any work being as Halgand was nearly cooked, and Sinkewitz was teammates with two riders placed higher than Landis in Kloden and Michael Rogers. Landis won the stage with Sastre finishing nearly six minutes back and Pereiro finishing over seven minutes back barely hanging onto the maillot jaune by :30 over Floyd Landis and :12 over Carlos Sastre. At this point in the Tour, Kloden, Evans, Menchov and Dessel were all within 5:00 of the Yellow Jersey; not since the 1987 Tour de France had even five riders been within 5:00 of the overall lead this late in the race.
Stage 18 there were no serious (Cat-1 or HC) climbs and Matteo Tosatto won the Sprint with no change in the overall situation. The Stage 19 ITT would decide the race and Gonchar would win his second stage of the Tour putting in the fastest ride of the day. Floyd Landis won the 2006 TDF by defeating all of the other GC Contenders except for Kloden taking the Yellow Jersey back for the 3rd and final time. Pereiro finished 2nd overall at 0:59 back, Kloden rounded out the podium at plus 1:29, Sastre was 4th over three minutes behind and Cadel Evans finished 5th just over 5:00 slower than Landis.
Doping
This was the first TDF since the first retirement of Lance Armstrong and to the majority of American fans doping by contending riders was thought of as a rare occurrence that just didn't happen even though in reality many GC Contenders, Sprinters and Domestiques of the Armstrong Era, as well as previous eras admitted to doping or were implicated in some form of doping incident. Landis would be stripped of his only Tour de France victory soon after winning it following a confirmed failed drug test after Stage 17 and Óscar Pereiro would be declared the winner.
2006 Tour de France winner Óscar Pereiro was a highly skilled athlete who finished 10th, 1st, 10th and 10th in the four TDF's that he finished and even scored a goal apiece in the two professional soccer games he played in. He initially failed a drug test in this Tour de France as well, but was cleared after providing sufficient medical evidence that he had a legitimate medical reason for taking the substance he failed for.