Cocaine charges against Belgian rider Tom Boonan dropped

A Belgian court has ruled that one of the country's biggest cycling stars, Tom Boonen, will not face criminal charges relating to a positive test for cocaine.
Boonen, a former world champion and winner of Paris-Roubaix and the Tour of Flanders, tested positive for the recreational drug in an out-of-competition test in May 2008.
The 28-year-old escaped a sports sanction because the test was not held under the auspices of a sport body, however his team, Quick Step, were forced to pull him off their Tour de France squad after race organisers expressed grave concerns.

But on Tuesday a tribunal in Turnhout in the north of the country accepted Boonen's lawyers' pleas to drop all criminal charges in return for him accepting he had been guilty in the affair.

I'm still waiting for word on how that whole thing with the 17 year old girlfriend, Sophie Van Vliet came out though.

Belgian national champion Stijn Devolder shocks Tour of Flanders favorites

Crossing the line, Belgian champion Tom Boonen raised his arms and screamed, his exhilaration belying his seventeenth-place finish at the 2008 Tour of Flanders. The two-time Flanders winner was instead cheering for his teammate, Stijn Devolder, who screamed across the line for the greatest victory of his career on a day marked by horrific weather that seemed to suit the current Belgian national champion just fine.
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Steegmans wins Tour in Ghent

Belgium's Gert Steegmans on Monday won the second stage of this year's Tour de France cycling race. The Belgian was first in the bunch sprint in Ghent (East Flanders).
Steegmans finished just ahead of his team-mate Tom Boonen.
This was the somewhat bizarre end of the second stage. World champion Tom Boonen failed to get ahead of the rider who had been making the going for him for much of the race.Filippo Pozzato of Italy was third.Switzerland's Fabian Cancellara retains leader's yellow jersey.