Kazahkstan's most famous bicyclist, Alexander Vinokourov, won the “Who's going to win the 2007 Tour de France poll” with 33% of the vote.
The first runner-up was US cyclist Levi Leipheimer with 21% of the votes, followed by Vino's teammate Andreas Kloden with 8%.
American Floyd Landis won the poll last year, receiving 33% of the votes, equal to Vinokourov. The support Vino received from winning this year's Biking Bis poll will certainly encourage him to do his best over the next three weeks, just as it certainly must have helped Landis. If he wins, let's hope he doesn't run into Landis' troubles.
Last year's Tour de France runner-up, Oscar Pereiro, tied with Carlos Sastre with the fewest votes. (Full results below)
Vinokourov is team leader for the Kazakhstan-based Astana team, which emerged last year after his Liberty Seguros team imploded in the Spanish drug probe.
The 33-year-old has been competing in the Tour de France bike race since at least 2000, when he rode for Deutsche Telecom. He stayed with that team through 2005 as it became T-Mobile.
Vino stood on the podium in Paris in 2003 when he finished third overall; in 2005 he snatched 5th place away from Leipheimer on the final stage of racing into Paris. That 2005 year was bizarre for the T-Mobile team, as it had Vino, Kloden and Jan Ullrich, each of whom was capable of winning the Tour if Lance Armstrong faltered.
In one notable episode, Vinokourov attacked on a climb and T-Mobile actually worked to bring him back. In those days, I guess Vino wasn't a complete team player.
Things might be different with his Astana team, although one of his lieutenants is Kloden, who finished 3rd in the polling. An example is this year Dauphine Libere. After Vinokourov dropped out of overall contention, in spite of winning two stages, he worked as a domestique to help other teammates with stage wins. Astana dominated in that race.
Leipheimer is probably the only American with a remote chance of winning the tour. He also has a lot of Tour de France experience under his belt with US Postal, Rabobank, Gerolsteiner, and now Discovery Channel.
The 33-year-old Santa Rosa, California, resident finished in 8th and 9th in 2002 and 2004 and 6th in 2005. He battled back to a 13th place finish in the 2006 Tour de France due to a sluggish start, probably brought on by the effort to win the Dauphine Libere.
After the 1st Stage, Vinokourov is in 9th place; Leipheimer in 28th and Kloden is in 2nd place.
I'd like to thank everyone who participated in the poll. The 123 responses is the most-ever for a Biking Bis poll.
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