2008 Tour de France gets revamp

The 2008 Tour de France will have five mountain stages - including three in the Alps - and no time bonuses.

A year after the Tour opened in London, the prologue has been scrapped and the first stage returns to its roots with three days in Brittany.

And for the first time since 1967, the Tour will not start with a time trial. Instead, there will be a full road stage from Brest to Plumele.

A brutal climb up L'Alpe d'Huez follows ahead of the showpiece finish in Paris.

Changes to the Tour's opening are designed to give more riders rather than just time-trial experts the chance to compete for the leader's coveted yellow jersey from the very start.

Time bonuses being abandoned could lead to a tighter and more dramatic Tour, especially in the high mountains where decisive gaps between riders are often built early on.

Competition director Jean-Francois Pescheux said: "The first week will not necessarily be the exclusive property of the sprinters.

"The end of the first stage, for example, is a two-kilometre slope. So a great finisher can win but also a sprinter or a rider who broke away earlier in the stage.

"We want the Tour to rediscover its romanticism. It means the plot will not be obvious."

The competitors will also scale Europe's highest mountain pass; the 2,802-metre Col de la Bonette-Restefond.

It was last climbed by the Tour in 1993 and is one of 19 major mountain passes that riders will clamber over - two less than in 2007.

The Tour begins on 5 July and will cover 3,550 kilometres (2,200 miles), with 21 stages and two rest days.

The two time trials will be on day four and the penultimate day, to establish the finishing order before the race concludes with its habitual processional ride to the Champs-Elysees on 27 July.

The overhaul is an effort to restore the Tour's battered image following the drugs scandals that marred last year's race.

No rider will be allowed to start next year without agreeing to take part in a series of tests that will allow drug-testers to build a blood profile for each athlete.

If follow-up tests show significant changes to that profile - which could be caused by drug use - riders may be barred from racing.

Prudhomme called the measures "real progress in the fight against doping".

Teams are also no longer guaranteed entry, even if they are in possession of a ProTour license.

BBC Radio 5 Live's Peter Slater commented: "That could cause problems for the Astana squad, who left in disgrace last summer after their star rider Alexandre Vinokourov tested positive."

Astana have signed 2007 winner Alberto Contador.

Jean-Francois Pescheux, another senior Tour official, added: "We're setting off with good hope. We have to, because otherwise cycling is heading for catastrophe.

"If the 2008 season is a repeat of 2007 and 2006, it's the end of cycling and I think everyone is aware of that."

Source: BBC Sport