Friday, December 29, 2006

Truth or Dare

Gonna Find Out Who's Naughty or Nice: in a tactic stripped from the Maury Povich "Are You My Baby's Daddy?" Show, embittered gadfly/ex-Kelme dopester Jesus Manzano took a lie detector test on Spanish TV, establishing once and for all that (1) damn straight Fuentes doped him at the direct behest of Kelme's director, but --oops!--(2) he wasn't forced to dope, he didn't receive death threats for his brave whisteblowing, and (surprise!) damn straight his noble crusade was fueled by revenge against the squad that sold him out, not the sainted love for pure sport he'd professed. Oh, Jesus. It's nice you're telling the truth about Fuentes and all, but couldn't you have run this stupid stunt by your legal team first so they would've forbidden the asking of the questions you were going to blow?

The Three Faces of Floyd: speaking of legal teams, the alternately depressed, determined, and optimistic Landis (lately bouyed by Inigo Landaluze's CAS overthrow of a legit 2-year doping ban on purely technical errors by the endlessly incompetent Landis lab monkeys) is apparently accepting contributions for his legal defense in a new fund for which he hopes to raise $2 mil, so if any unheralded cyclist who'd have to sell his or her firstborn child for new SRAM components would like to contribute to his lawyers' ongoing inability to clear him, and as an added incentive their Tiffany cufflink budgets, by all means, pony up! Whatever happened to the pocket-change $500k we were talking, Floyd? Anyhow, for $2 mil, these guys *better* not choke. Better yet, hire Massimo Martelli!

Give Me Liberty (Seguros' ex-riders), Or Give Me Death: in the latest round of signings of promising youngsters from the tainted stables of recently-ex-ProTour Machiavelli Manolo Saiz, Alberto Contador is allegedly headed to Discovery and Luis Leon Sanchez to the fine company of Valverde and Co. over at Illes Balears. Apparently, they're too young and innocent to be blamed by mere association with the master control freak, which is really quite fair, in contrast to the really pretty decent old guys still without a contract--or a positive test either goddammit. Free Beloki! And is any other gossip hound the least bit envious of the lively debate Sanchez is gonna witness watching Valverde and Pereiro slug it out over supremacy in the Tour?

If You Can't Beat Em, Join Em: ex-women's TdF/world champ Zinaida Stahurskaya, banned for 2 years for anabolic steroids, has now been busted in Italy for dealing them to fellow athletes. See what happens when you don't pay the women worth a damn?! Anyway, she oughta at least have no trouble picking up where she left off when she gets out of the slammer...

You Want Fries With That?: Speaking of which, I note that current women's worlds queen Kristin Armstrong works at Home Depot for their Olympic Opportunity Program. Big points to Home Depot and all, but I gotta say, this really bites. At least give the elite pro women enough dough to live on, for God's sake. Does anyone see Paolo Bettini manning the small appliances section at Wal-Mart in the off-season?

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