And then the Giro comes along...

Pro cycling at its highest level, as it has been in the past year, was something many just want to forget.

From the Fuentes scandal in 2006, Operacion Puerto as it happened, to the folding up of teams like Discovery Channel, Wiesenhoff, T-Mobile...etc. Then, the admissions of celebrated champions like Bjarne Riis and Erik Zabel that they had doped. Of course, we'll never forget Michael Rasmussen being sacked by the Rabobank team while wearing the maillot jaune and gearing up towards victory in last year's Tour de France. That came after the disgrace of the Astana team pulling out after Alexandre Vinokourov and his long-time lieutenant Andrey Kashechkin tested positive for EPO. That resulted in a revamp of the entire Astana set-up.

Even before that Tour started, we'd lost 1997 winner Jan Ullrich, Ivan Basso prior to that. At least Rasmussen was spared the honour of rising on the podium with the grand boucle before be thrown into shame like Floyd Landis was the year before. All that resulted in records showing Caisse d'Epargne's Oscar Perreiro as the 2006 Tour winner, and Alberto Contador kept the title in Spain for a second consecutive year. We can go on and on about doping over the past 12 months alone, let alone the past decade.

Cycling has not had it so bad, ever.

We try to turn a new leaf, forget about it all... Until the next drug bust comes along.

Directors of major races these days, like the Giro d'Italia's Angelo Zomegnan, starts off the build-up towards his race by announcing hopes of a drug-free, scandal free race. How much sadder can it get?

The 2008 Giro d'Italia starts on Saturday with a defending champion who's not entirely free of taint. Danilo di Luca's two brushes with doping allegations - first with the Italian Olympic Committee's (CONI) allegations of plasma injections following a 2007 stage and a three-month suspension he served for relations to the Oil for Drugs scandal. Still, starting with the LPR team after leaving Liquigas, Di Luca starts among the favourites in a team that includes 2006 Giro winner Paolo Savoldelli.

But the romantics, particularly those in Malaysia, will be gunning for a victory by Gilberto Simoni from the Gianni Savio team Serramenti PVC Diquigi0vanni-Androni Gioccatoli, the team with the longest name in cycling. The two-time Giro winner heads to Italy with a team that includes Le Tour de Langkawi 2008 winner Ruslan Ivanov along with Colombian climber Jose Serpa, veteran Gabriele Missaglia and young Venezuelan Carlos Jose Ochoa, whom I think might be in the running for the young riders' jersey.

If there was any rider who'd have more reason to win this Giro, it would be Alberto Contador and his Astana team who earned a last-minute call-up by organisers RCS, after initially being rejected from all three grand tours. And watch out for this Astana team - they're determined to win every race they enter and have even stated an intention of winning every single-stage of the Dauphine Libere, the traditional warm-up to the Tour de France, although the ASO still remain adamant on leaving the team of the defending Tour de France champion, out of their race. Contador has said in his press release that he's prepared this season just like he'll be racing in the big event.

Contador will have a strong team with American Levi Leipheimer and German Andreas Kloden as his main lieutenants. I'd think the main battle for the overall will be between these three teams - LPR, Serramenti Diquigiovanni and Astana.

Other contenders will rise from this following group:

Saunier Duval's Ricardo Ricco, nicknamed the Cobra

Don't be surprised if any one of these three suddenly come into the picture - Euskaltel-Euskadi's Inigo Landaluze, Liquigas' Franco Pelizotti or Caisse d'Epargne's Jose Rujano.

Of course, an exciting team to watch, I believe, will be the Tinkoff Credit Systems with Evgeni Petrov, Pavel Brutt and Mikael Ignatiev in there....

For a more detailed build-up, look here: http://www.cyclingnews.com/road/2008/giro08/?id=favourites