It remains to be seen who will win the Tour de France but there is no doubt who must take it.

Somebody, anybody, with a clean conscience ... and cleaner drug test.

That's if such a rider exists.

At the moment that is unfortunately still open to debate in too many minds as sports' foremost 2,120-mile challenge pedals off on its 2007 edition tomorrow under the cloud of another series of doping disclosures and dropouts.

This year the race within the race for the 189 pre-screened entrants is about distancing the Tour de France from the taint of scandal and beginning to regain some of the credibility that has slipped away.

No easy task when such is the state of cycling that it would be a novel experience for whoever takes the victory ride up the Champs Elysees three weeks hence not to be charged, implicated or otherwise targeted by doping allegations. In all, the German magazine Der Spiegel says winners of 19 of the last 22 tours have been proved or alleged to have used performance enhancing drugs — Jan Ulrich (1997) and Bjarne Riis (1996) among the more recently disgraced or resigned in controversy.

It is already noteworthy that, for the first time in decades, the defending champion will not be around for a title defense. Floyd Landis, who had seemed the perfect antidote to the drug scandals of recent years when he won the 2006 race, has his appeal of drug sanctions in arbitration and won't be riding.

It has been nearly a decade since the infamous "Tour de Shame" — the 1998 Tour where French customs agents busted a doping group — and the innuendo and doubts about the purity of the competition persists, reinforced by recurring scandals.

So fed up was a spokesman for one European television network that he was widely quoted as saying: "We signed a broadcasting contract for a sports event, not a show demonstrating the power of the pharmaceutical industry."

Which is why the Tour needs a winner above reproach this year. Records are nice and an interesting storyline is appreciated, of course. But what the Tour requires above all else this year is someone who can not only stand up to the tortuous ride through the Pyrenees but, more important, the scrutiny of drug testing during and afterward.

Who knew there would come a time when negotiating sinuous paths up peaks with names like the "Circle of Death" or enduring hail storms on harrowing drops would be fraught with less drama than giving a specimen.

Reach Ferd Lewis at flewis@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8044.