Cycling Discovery

Ivan Basso has joined the Discovery Channel team (formerly US Postal, the team for which Lance Armstrong rode) now that he has been cleared of wrongdoing in the Operation Puerto doping investigation. There is still some question over whether DNA testing will be done on the riders on the various pro cycling teams to see if the blood seized in the doping investigation matches anyone, but for now it looks like Discovery is taking a chance on trying to continue their dominance of the Tour de France that started with Armstrong. What will be interesting to see is what this will mean for Levi Leipheimer, who has for years been considered a top 10 or even top 5 threat to win the Tour and who was signed by Discovery earlier this year. At the time it seemed that he was poised to be the leader of the Discovery squad, but the signing of Basso seems to push him back into a support role.