Discovery Channel captain Levi Leipheimer is okay despite a fall in Sunday’s final stage of the Dauphiné Libéré.

Sport director Johan Bruyneel said Leipheimer wasn’t seriously injured when he slipped on rain-soaked roads while attacking for victory with about 4km to go to Annecy. A frustrated Leipheimer could only watch Alexandre Vinokourov (Astana) ride past him and secure the stage victory.

“He’s fine. He hit the side of the round-about. There’s no problem,” Bruyneel told VeloNews. “It was very slippery and he was risking a little bit because he was by himself.”

The defending Dauphiné champion was feeling better Sunday after suffering through the Dauphiné’s decisive climbing stages with a bad stomach that also forced the early departures of George Hincapie and Bobby Julich.

In Saturday’s seven-climb stage into Valloire, Leipheimer’s stomach was so bad all he could eat all day was one energy gel and subsequently lost contact with the leaders on the Cat. 1 Col du Télégraphe to fall out of sixth place.

“He was feeling a lot better yesterday. The day of the Télégraphe, he couldn’t eat all. When he woke up in the morning, he said he felt better and he could eat breakfast,” Bruyneel said. “It was a shorter stage and felt better as the stage developed.”

Bruyneel said he wasn’t worried about Leipheimer’s stomach problems and said they wouldn’t present any difficulties or setbacks for his preparation ahead of the Tour de France.

Leipheimer and his Discovery Channel teammates have already scouted the decisive climbing stages for next month’s Tour. The team first visited the Pyrenees and the Alps ahead of the Dauphiné.

Some Tour-bound riders will compete in the team time trial event later this month in Holland while the Europeans will battle for their respective national championships at the end of this month.

“The feeling after the Dauphiné is that everyone is in good shape,” Bruyneel said. “We still have a little room for improvement, but the team will be ready.”

Pereiro pleased
Tour de France runner-up Oscar Pereiro says he’s pleased with his form coming out of the Dauphiné Libéré.

Following a tumultuous spring that saw him constantly questioned about the fate of Floyd Landis and fending off accusations that he might be linked to the Operación Puerto doping scandal, the Spanish rider could finally get down to business of racing his bike.

Pereiro led the peloton across the line 37 seconds behind Vinokourov in Sunday’s finale and finished discreetly in the bunch in 22nd at 10:21 back.

“The result is good for me and my morale. It’s satisfying that the Dauphiné has gone well,” Pereiro said in a team statement. “I felt good and it’s clear that I still have some work to do. I need to lose two kilos (about 4.5 pounds) to be ready for the Tour. I am on a good road to be ready to take the depart of the Tour.”

Caisse d’Epargne has also narrowed its lineup for the Tour de France. Sport director Eusebio Unzue will make the final selection after the Tour de Suisse.

Riders on the list include Pereiro, Alejandro Valverde, Vladimir Karpets, Luis León Sánchez, Joaquín Rodriguez, Xabier Zandio, Iván Gutiérrez, David Arroyo, Chente García, Nicolas Portal and Florent Brard.

UCI, teams meet Tuesday
Don’t expect dramatic news coming out of Tuesday’s meeting between the UCI and team doctors and directors ahead of next month’s Tour de France.

Rumors have been flying that new riders could be linked to the Puerto scandal and left out of the Tour, but UCI officials said that there hasn’t been enough time to completely review new documents released by Spanish authorities.

Instead, the teams and the UCI will review anti-doping policies while another meeting involving the ProTour teams is expected to confirm the team’s decision to apply the Code of Ethics.

UCI president Pat McQuaid has scheduled a press conference following the meeting to discuss the most important decisions.

Di Luca, CSC still lead ProTour
Christope Moreau (Ag2r) and Cadel Evans (Predictor-Lotto) moved into the top 10 in the individual ProTour rankings following strong rides at the eight-day Dauphiné Libéré.

Overall winner Moreau climbed from 43rd to fourth and Evans moved from 29th to sixth.

Otherwise, there were no major shakeups in the overall ProTour standings following the conclusion of the French stage race. Danilo Di Luca (Liquigas) retained his grip on the overall standings while Team CSC still leads the team classification.

Individual standings after Dauphiné Libéré(x) = previous position
1. (1) Danilo Di Luca, Liquigas - 207pts
2. (2) Davide Rebellin, Gerolsteiner - 157
3. (3) Alejandro Valverde, Caisse d’Epargne - 107
4. (43) Christophe Moreau- 87
5. (4) Damiano Cunego, Lampre-Fondital - 87
6. (28) Cadel Evans, Predictor-Lotto - 86
7. (5) Oscar Freire, Rabobank- 82
8. (6) Andy Schleck, Team CSC - 81
9. (7) Stuart O’Grady, Team CSC - 79
10. (15) Alberto Contador, Discovery 78
11. (8) Stefan Schumacher, Gerolsteiner 75
12. (40) Andrey Kashechkin, Astana - 74
13. (9) Riccardo Riccò, Saunier Duval 71
14. (10) Paolo Savoldelli, Astana - 66
15. (11) Fränk Schleck, Team CSC - 63
16. (12) Juan José Cobo, Saunier Duval 62
17. (13) Robbie McEwen, Predictor-Lotto 61
18. (14) Gilberto Simoni, Saunier Duval - 61
19. (15) Alberto Contador, Discovery - 58
20. (16) Tom Boonen, QuickStep - 57Team rankings (x) = previous position
1. (1) Team CSC- 211pts
2. (2) Liquigas - 191
3. (3) Saunier Duval - 181
4. (5) Astana- 180
5. (4) Ag2r- 180
6. (7) Discovery- 171
7. (6) Caisse d’Epargne - 167
8. (8) Rabobank- 158
9. (9) T-Mobile- 145
10. (11) Predictor-Lotto - 144
11. (10) QuickStep-Innergetic - 137
12. (12) Lampre-Fondital - 130
13. (13) Credit Agricole - 116
14. (14) Gerolsteiner - 106
15. (17) Bouygues Telecom 106
16. (17) Euskaltel-Euskadi 93
17. (16) Cofidis- 89
18. (18) FDJeux- 85
19. (19) Unibet.com - 69
20. (20) Milram - 67

Tour plans Monaco kick-off in ‘09
The Tour de France will start in the Principality of Monaco in 2009, the Le Parisien newspaper reported on Monday.

The first stage will be a 15.2km time trial, according to the newspaper belonging to the Amaury group, whose subsidiary ASO organises the world's most famous cycling race.

The race has never started from Monaco before. Since starting in Nice in 1981, the race has rarely featured in the south eastern tip of the country. The Tour starts this year in London on July 7 and in Brest in 2008.

Tour director Christian Prudhomme said recently that he plans several international starts to the Tour in the future.

"There will be roughly three starts out of five in a foreign country, and two out of five in France," he recently told a French web reporter. "We have had a lot of bids: Rotterdam and Utrecht, Liege and Flanders, Dusseldorf, Lugano,Budapest, Florence, Monaco, the Basque country ..... even from Estonia and Qatar."

ASO already sponsors an early season stage race in Qatar, so a foray into the Persian Gulf may not be entirely out of the question, although day-time temperatures in Qatar in July are often in excess of 110 (f), which might present a few logistical problems.