Battered and bruised, the Tour de France begins the 17th stage today minus its leader, Dane Michael Rasmussen, who was sacked by his team last night over doping allegations.
Rasmussen (33) was dramatically dismissed by Rabobank after the Dutch team said he had lied about his training whereabouts in June.
Rabobank said Rasmussen, who won yesterday's ferocious mountain stage through the Pyrenees and was odds-on to hold the yellow jersey to Paris, had told them he was in Mexico when he had in fact been in Italy.
Michael Rasmussen of Denmark and Rabobank during a press conference for the 2007 Tour de France last Tuesday
Rasmussen's sacking is the latest blow to the Tour's credibility, coming so soon after the announcement of positive dope tests on pre-race favourite Alexander Vinokourov and Italy's Cristian Moreni.
The Dutch firm added: "Rabobank is shocked and enormously disappointed that Rasmussen has lied about his whereabouts." It described the episode as "a dark page" in the history of the team.
Rasmussen was already under a cloud after being dropped from the Danish national team over failing to report his whereabouts in training. Yesterday, he was jeered by the crowd at the start of the stage to the Col D'Aubisque.
Rasmussen had looked odds-on to win the Tour on Sunday after taking yesterday's stage and stretching his lead over second-placed Alberto Contador to over three minutes.
But young Spaniard Contador now assumes the race lead with four stages remaining. And the Discovery Channel rider will go into today's flat stage from Pau to Castelsarrasin with a lead of one minute and 57 seconds over the Australian Cadel Evans.
Rasmussen's sacking follows the high-profile positive drugs test on pre-race favourite AlexandreVinokourov in a dramatic 24 hours for the race. Vinokourov's Astana team withdrew from the race in protest, and Cofidis pulled out yesterday following the positive test on their rider Cristian Moreni. Vinokourov has protested his innocence and asked for his B sample to be tested.
International Cycling Union president, Ireland's Pat McQuaid, said today the current doping crisis could help to form a generation of clean competitors if dealt with correctly.
And while McQuaid concedes that it is a desperate situation, he believes there is hope for a drug-free competition, perhaps as early as next year.
"There's a completely new testing system this year with more testing within the race," he told BBC Radio Five Live. "We already test to the maximum, with blood tests in the morning and normal anti doping in the afternoon."
McQuaid called on both individual riders and teams to take their own share of responsibility for staying clean.
"We're going to have to come out of this with the highest ethical standards and the highest standards of any sport.
"It's people like Bradley Wiggins (who lost his place on the Tour yesterday when team-mate Moreni tested positive) and David Millar who are speaking out.
"They have got to come into a system that is completely ethical. It's the older riders who have been beating the system but there's new testing all the time.
"We need to weed out the bad apples of the sport. I would hope next year we'll have a Tour de France with no positive tests. We've had two bad years and we can't afford another."
Tour de France director Christian Prudhomme said, "The important thing is not that he (Rasmussen) has been sacked by his team but that he will not be at the start of the stage tomorrow."
For many years the Tour de France has been embroiled in allegations of riders using banned substances to enhance their performance. Long-running allegations against American Lance Armstrong were never proved but riders are routinely tested and teams have found themselves raided by the police during events.
Floyd Landis won the 2006 Tour but has since been embroiled in drugs allegations and has been fighting to clear his name after it was announced he had failed a drugs test.
The ongoing Operation Puerto has been conducted by authorities in Spain against doctor Eufemiano Fuentes. Since May 2006 a number of cyclists, tennis stars and football players have been linked to the investigation. Ivan Basso and Jan Ullrich missed the 2006 Tour because of the case.