Último esfuerzo, originally uploaded by El Mitico®.

Even though the organizers of the Tour de France decided to play politics and not invite arguably the best stage race team in the world, Astana, the Tour was better than I expected. The Vuelta should should very interesting and it starts this Saturday.

After being kept out of the Tour, Alberto Contador and Astana will be looking to crush the competition, especially the winner of the Tour de France, Carlos Sastre to further prove that Astana should have been invited to the Tour.

Sastre’s team, CSC, will be without some of their best riders such as the gold medal winning Fabian Cancellara, and the Schleck brothers so Sastre will be somewhat isolated. Also, Cadel Evans is injured and will be nursing his knee back to health.