The Suddenly Wide Open Tour de France

MENTON, France — A week into the 93rd edition of the Tour de France, cycling fans are still anxious for some sign as to who will fill the void left by retired, seven-time champion Lance Armstrong. They are no closer to that answer than they were last July.

A doping scandal last week all but wiped out the sport's ruling class, removing last year's second-place, third-place, fourth-place,and fifth-place Tour finishers from competition. Then a crash on Tuesday took out Spain's great hope, 26-year-old Alejandro Valverde. By the time the wreckage was cleared, those who previously had an outside chance at best to stand on the podium in Paris found themselves in the unfamiliar position of frontrunners.

After five stages of flat sprints — and therefore thin, insignificant leads — the field is still wide open as the peleton cruises into Normandy. It includes at least four Americans: Levi Leipheimer (Gerolsteiner), who posted a sixth-place finish last year; Floyd Landis (Phonak), also a top-10 finisher in 2005; David Zabriskie (CSC), a sprint specialist who has at least a theoretical shot at the yellow jersey now that his team leader, Ivan Basso, is out of the picture; and, of course, New York native George Hincapie (DSC).

Hincapie, born in Queens, and Landis, who ran away from his Mennonite life in Pennsylvania, make for the spiciest rivalry to watch on this Tour. They were once teammates behind Armstrong, but two years ago Landis abandoned Discovery Channel to join Phonak and perhaps launch a bid for the title. Hincapie stayed on to act as Armstrong's apprentice, his confidant and his right-hand man. In this Tour, Hincapie appears to be the closest thing to his reincarnation, as well. Just as Armstrong did in 2005, the New Yorker narrowly missed first place in the opening individual time trial. He earned the yellow jersey on the second stage, but elected not to defend it through the rest of the week, which has been the American team's style for years.

Landis, to hear his peers talk about him, cares little for discipline outside of his regular training. He is the Bode Miller of cycling, for whom decorum means little and effort is everything. In classic form, Landis rolled up to the starting ramp late last Saturday, the clock started without him, and yet he grinded out an impressive ninth-place finish all the same.

Of all the riders left in this year's competition he has the most impressive resume, with victories this year in two important races, the Paris-Nice and the Tour of Georgia.

There are, to be sure, other, non-American contenders. Those include: Christophe Moreau (AG2R), a champion climber and France's brightest hope in a decade; Cadel Evans (Davitamon), a speedy Australian and last year's eighth-place finisher; Iban Mayo, the Basque king of the Pyrenees who was kept off of previous podiums mainly due to crashes; and Michael Rasmussen (Rabobank), a Dane and a regular threat to the throne. It also would be unwise to count out Germany's Andreas Kloden, a former national champion and Paris podium-dweller, though he cannot rely like he used to on a T-Mobile team now thinned out from the doping scandal.

Most of all, there are the other riders on Hincapie's Discovery Channel team who may get the tap instead to vie for the yellow jersey: Ukrainian prodigy and co-captain Yaroslav Popovych; Italian standout Paolo Savoldelli; and Spain's Jose Azevedo, all of whom are stars in their own right.

"There is no real captain," Savoldelli told Milan-based Gazzetta dello Sport on Wednesday. "Me, Hincapie, Popovych, and Azevedo, we're all on the same level. We ourselves don't know what to expect."

On the one hand, Discovery Team manager Johan Bruynel may not know the answer at all. On the other hand, it is a shrewd strategy to keep the other teams guessing, because they won't know which attacks need to be chased down, and which are meaningless.

"Plus," said Savoldelli, "you don't have the constant stress of being in the media spotlight."

All four Discovery Channel contenders are less than a minute behind the leader, but then, so are 48 other riders. The individual time trial on Saturday will put more significant time between them, and next week's foray into the Pyrenees will serve as the Tour's first real test. Maybe then, there will be a leader for the American team, and maybe then, we will see which of the dozen or so new favorites can really be considered a contender.