Not much is known about the substance, clenbuterol, and Contador reportedly contends that food contamination is the only possible source.

Reaction is low key so far.

If Contador is found in violation and stripped of his Tour title, it hopefully will go to Andy Schleck, who deserved the overall win anyway.

It’s not going to be easy.

The French are in a major political spat with the official governing (and dope-testing) agency, the International Cycling Union (Union Cycliste Internationale, or UCI), over drug testing for the upcoming tour. The French asked a third body, the World Anti-Doping Agency, for authority to do around 60 extra tests on this year’s Tour.

WADA has turned down the request, but we doubt the French will go quietly away. This kind of pressure, however, is exactly what’s needed to ensure a clean Tour can actually happen.

The other subtext on this year’s Tour will be the riders themselves. For the first time, a dynamic has been set up for clean riders to be the watchdogs. The ethic has turned from “I have to do it because the Team says so and everyone else does it anyway” to “It’s time to stop the lies and deception.”

Finally, the testing that is being done is more sophisticated this year.

It all adds up to an intriguing side show for this year’s Tour. Bottom line will be: Can we trust the UCI to do proper testing, and will the tenor of the Tour be clearly post-doping as it was in the Giro?

More from Bike Radar.

It’s unclear if Novitzky’s pursuit is related, but the USADA (United States Anti-Doping Agency) has stated it is looking into the Armstrong case.

We still await an official investigation, which would include depositions, subpoenas and other legal procedures implying criminality.

Other developments:

New York Times parses out the denials of Armstrong associates, which seem less emphatic than in the past. This is about as close as a journalist that knows something which cannot yet be printed can come to code for “watch this space.”

Bicycling contends “The answer is coming” as to whether Lance doped. Not quite so hedged as the NYT. But there’s still lots of ground to be covered before this gets anywhere beyond murky accusations, carefully worded denials and cheap talk.

To the surprise of no one, the cycling regulatory body UCI is digging in its institutional heels. UCI director Pat McQuaid says $100,000 from Lance Armstrong represents no conflict of interest. The money figures into Floyd Landis’ charge that Armstrong in effect bribed the UCI to keep a positive doping test secret.

Full UCI press releases here.

A brief partial historical recap of previous doping allegations against Lance: “Landis, however, is just the latest in a series of former Armstrong friends to turn foe. And reports suggest others may substantiate Landis’s claims, if he, or Novitsky, manages to convince them to testify.”

All of which may be contributing to Lance still not knowing what his pre-Tour racing schedule is.

Is today’s Giro time trial further proof that a post-doping era is finally taking hold?

Maybe not.

Assuming the dates and places identified in the Landis email have some veracity, Armstrong had to be in a world of hurt even before his tumble, which left him with stitches around his eye and elbow but no serious injury. He has said he will be back on the bike as soon as possible. But the Landis d-bomb, and Lance’s own sporadic training regimen this spring so far, have to cast some doubt over his enthusiasm and readiness for the upcoming 2010 Tour de France.

To deny each specific allegation — if he ever chooses to do so — would leave Amstrong open not only to growing public skepticism but to legal vulnerability, especially if witnesses identified by Landis are called to testify or otherwise corroborate Landis’ version of events.

As soon as this case enters any kind of official investigative status, whether by federal authorities, cycling governance or in a personal lawsuit, something has to give.

The question is whether it ever will.

Landis himself could be subject to prosecution based on potential perjury, as DrunkCyclist points out. The intriguing aspect to a perjury trial would be proving that what Landis said on the stand in 2007 was a lie, which would, conversely, confirm that he’s now telling the truth.

Any prosecution would presumably involve depositions, subpoenaes and documentation that would put riders and others named in the Landis email in the position of testifying under oath — forcing them to admit or deny their own culpability for the legal record. And that, again, could prove sticky — if Landis’ allegations have merit.

As we’ve suspected, Lance’s wife and UCI officialdom could prove key here. One Landis allegation that has gotten surprisingly little media play so far is that the then-president of the UCI — cycling’s governing body — allegedly took a bribe from Armstrong and his manager, Johan Bruyneel, in 2002 to cover up a positive test for EPO. Bribery is a pretty serious charge. One would think that Lance, Johan and the UCI official, Hein Verbruggen, would champ at the bit to go to court over at the very least libel — if what Landis is alleging is actually untrue.

But what if no one presses charges? It’s possible the whole mess could be left to twist in the wind, eventually victim to the public’s fading memory and cycling’s position as a marginal sport in mainstream news. Landis has said he is going to tell his whole story, possibly a reference to a book, but even that could fall by the wayside if cycling officialdom and federal authorities show little interest in pursuing the case.

Another possibility would be for The New York Times or similar news organization with resources and clout to do its own investigation. But there are reasons that hasn’t happened so far, despite repeated allegations against Armstrong over the past decade, and those reasons have not changed.

As we’ve suggested previously, the whole mess could be dispensed with if Lance simply made a clean breast of it and said, “I did it because everyone else did it, and to compete on a level playing field I had to. I’m sorry, but that’s the way things were. I’m clean now, intend to stay clean, and hope my admission will enable others to take similar action and permit the sport of cycling to move forward with a clean slate.”

To be clear, we’re suggesting this course only if Lance actually doped. If he didn’t, he should stick to his story. Or actually not just stick to his story: One would think he would file a defamation suit against Landis.

But if Floyd’s accusations are correct, the sooner Lance steps up, the better. Far from tainting him, it would make him more of a hero over time — because his example would finally allow the grand sport of professional cycling to move into a post-doping era.

So clean, in fact, that nobody’s a clear favorite to win!

Brains behind the UCI’s “100 percent against” program resigns.

“The report also outlined a new blood doping practice which evaded current testing protocol which monitor blood parameters. About 200ml of blood is extracted, mixed with an anti-coagulant, and re-injected. The practice does not alter blood values and is all but undetectable, the report said.”

And the UCI, whose efficacy anti-doping authorities continue to question, emerges with another black eye:

“Earlier efforts to back-test Giro samples for CERA were squashed by the UCI, but now Italian officials in Padua have taken up the case.”

The Chicken is back! Michael Rasmussen, who was on track to win the 2007 Tour de France before his team suspended him for deceiving it re his whereabouts before the race began, has picked up a new team following his two-year ban.

Rasmussen’s case bears some investigation, because he essentially beat the doping system. He never actually tested positive. He was put on ice simply out of suspicion of cheating.

Which means the system must be pretty easily beatable, because they suspected Rasmussen well before the Tour began and one would assume must have tested him rigorously during the race. So what went wrong? How could this happen? They’re so convinced he doped that they barred him, but nothing in their vast array of testing procedures could prove it?

Euskaltel-Euskadi on the comeback trail from doping scandals? Can they stay clean? And with this kind of money involved, will they get reported if they aren’t clean?

“As part of continued 1 million euro commitment to the team’s total 6.5 million euro budget, the government has included a clause in the sponsorship contract that would end the deal if more doping cases pop up. Reports in Basque Country media also point to an early exodus of title sponsor Euskaltel – the regional telephone operator – if there’s another doping case.”

Floyd Landis got caught and paid the price. Now he’s saying “politics” will keep him from ever competing in the Tour again.

Here’s an idea: Floyd and the Chicken and Tyler Hamilton and Bernhard Kohl and Vinokourov and a bunch of other banned cyclists get together and form a Tour team sponsored by BigPharma companies that make methadone. They could call it Team LiveClean.

World Champion Cadel Evans now wants to finally win the Tour, a prime motivator for his move from Silence to BMC Racing. We wish him luck. Cadel is one of the few pros who proactively says he does not dope. We trust he’s telling the truth and admire him for taking a stand. We also like him because he’s a former mountain biking champion. (So is Rasmussen, but we don’t admire him because, as with a lot of big names in cycling, there’s too much evidence he’s a cheat, even though he never actually got caught.)

UCI fires back at French anti-doping authority accusations: Did not! Did not favor Lance, Bert & Astana!

But the French aren’t backing down. Saying they’re really really skeptical of 2009′s “squeaky clean” Tour de France, the AFLD announced they won’t play along next year with the UCI (which supervises drug testing during the Tour).

“I am astonished that there was no positive doping tests at this year’s race,” said AFLD president Pierre Bordry.

Small wonder pro cycling can’t make much headway in the drug wars. These guys are acting like junkies coming down off a 3-day jag.

This is part of an ongoing snit between the UCI, the international cycling governing body, and French anti-doping authorities over the rigorousness of dope testing during the Tour de France. The UCI undoubtedly considers the irregularities, including the infamous 45-minute delay at one point during the Tour, as trivial. If the AFLD is correct in its allegations, however, it raises serious questions as to the diligence of UCI procedures.

It’s hard to know — particularly based on a reading of press reports rather than original documentation — whose side to take, other than the truth’s, which will always remain in question. As we’ve said before, doping at this point is not an athletic issue or even a political issue. It’s a financial issue. Say they found doping on Team Astana and Lance and Bert got kicked off the Tour. Where would that leave the Big Money — TV and commercial sponsors — that makes the Tour possible? This is the main reason why the worst penalty a steroid-soaked baseball star can expect is an asterisk next to his records.

So cycling governance just muddles along, engaging in petty feuding and self-righteous posturing, while the doping continues.

Bert’s and Lance’s main transgression here may be that they’re not French. I mean, where was the AFLD (or equivalent) when Hinault and Fignon were ripping up the Tour?

BikeSnobNYC takes a swing at the doping scene as well, with his usual amusing speculation (every time Lance is tested he tweets? really? or does he tweet only when he knows full well that supposed irregularities will get reported?) thrown in for comic relief. Worth a read as always.

Meanwhile, doping is migrating its way down into the amateur ranks as well, and even the excuses are the same.

And back in Italy, yet another suspension.

Rasmussen by the way is claiming he’s been blacklisted, which the UCI says is not true.

Riccardo Ricco is appealing his two-year suspension. “The rules almost don’t exist in cycling,” he says, somewhat opaquely. He’s not denying doping but trying to get out on a technicality. I guess public sympathy isn’t the goal here.

BikePure: “We acknowledge that it is the air of secrecy behind such testing whose results are rarely disclosed that has the rumor mongers shouting. Openness is the future…” Right on.