The Tour speculation starts NOW!

It's nowhere near July but it's already started: the drug-bustin' scandalisin' name-dropping that suggests that this is going to be yet another speculation-fest.

From CN: In an interview with Spanish newspaper Marca, Tour de France director Christian Prudhomme said he could make no promises over the participation of defending champion Alberto Contador or Alejandro Valverde in this year's race, after the Italian Olympic Committee (CONI) recently re-opened its enquiries into Operación Puerto. "Today I cannot say that Valverde or Contador will not be in the Tour," said Prudhomme, speaking at the Tour of Qatar in Doha. "It is still early, we are not going to exclude individual riders, but instead not invite an entire team."

Meanwhile, over in the US, there's more...
Rock Racing's now former director Frankie Andreu's 2006 mea culpa about his involvement with doping during his time on the US Postal team made him a credible mentor to younger cyclists about the dangers of doping. And Andreu felt that his previous mistakes warranted him to speak to his group of young riders, frequently. But with the revelation that one of the riders on the team during his tenure, which Andreu confirmed is Kayle Leogrande, is under investigation by the U.S. Anti-doping Agency (USADA), Andreu could only say that he did his due diligence to prevent it.

Kayle's beef is that his A-sample was allegedly negative, so why is USADA asking for the B-sample to be tested anyway? Why that sounds like harassment to Leogrande's lawyers, who happen to be the Landis legal team, too. Now there's a team with some success in these matters, eh?