ASO announces 20 teams for Tour de France; Rabobank in, Astana out

The organizers of the Tour de France announced the 20 teams that will compete in this year's race on Thursday, with defending champion Alberto Contador's Astana team not among the invited.

The Amaury Sport Organization can invite which teams it wants to participate. The International Cycling Union, however, wants teams from its ProTour circuit to compete in all major races.

That has caused a major split in the sport and led ASO to break away from the UCI's rules at the recent Paris-Nice race, which was held under French rules despite threats of sanctions from the UCI.

ASO has excluded Astana from its races this year because it believes the team has sullied the reputation of the Tour because of doping in the last two years.

Alexandre Vinokourov was caught blood doping at last year's Tour and Andrey Kashechkin tested positive several weeks later in an out-of-competition test.

"This selection is subject to the respect by each of the teams for ethics and honesty that must prevail in cycling," ASO said in a statement.

On the eve of the 2006 Tour, Astana _ then called Liberty Seguros _ was thrown out because several of its riders had been linked to the Operation Puerto blood-doping scandal in Spain. That decision left Vinokourov unable to ride in the 2006 Tour because he did not have enough teammates.

Rabobank is among those chosen. At last year's Tour, the Netherlands-based team kicked leader Michael Rasmussen out of the race just days before the end because he had lied about his whereabouts when missing pre-Tour doping tests.

The 19 other teams for the July 5-27 event are: Gerolsteiner, Team Milram, Quick Step, Silence-Lotto, Team CSC, Caisse dEpargne, Euskatel-Euskadi, Saunier Duval-Scott, High Road, Slipstream Chipotle, Bouygues Telecom, Credit Agricole, Cofidis, Francaise Des Jeux, AG2R-La Mondiale, Agritubel, Barloworld, Lampre and Liquigas.

ASO can withdraw any team before the race.