Resolve This: well, looking back at my last year's New Year's Resolutions, I see unfortunately that they lasted about as long as St. David Millar in front of a camera before the waterworks start, so despite their dubious utility, and my even more dubious willpower, for the sake of peace and love and redemption and all that other commie socialist hippie crap, I hereby sincerely try again:
1. I will not excoriate the know-nothing non-cycling press for whatever idiot comments they make after Landis inevitably loses his CAS appeal. However, on actual cycling freaks, it remains open season. I will, though, send the brilliant and faithful pro-Floyd analysts over at trustbutverify some nice flowers in consolation for their loss.
2. I will not slag St. David Millar quite so relentlessly, on the entirely fair and reasonable point raised by his Shameless Defender that at least he didn't gack up some completely ludicrous eye-roller of a denial like Ivan Basso. But if he cries one more time like some couch-welded Cheeto-snorting rugrat suddenly deprived of his XBox for the first time in a decade, all bets are off, honey.
3. I will sell, or at least rent, my immortal soul to the first person who gets me a legitimate working press pass to the Giro d'Italia, though in the interest of good sportsmanship, I caution any and all comers that should you try to resell it on E-bay, it likely ain't gonna be worth the postage.
4. I will continue to loathe Bjarne Riis for jacking over Bobby Julich for the Tour this year, no matter how kind, humane, rational, understanding, and forgiving this fine and diplomatic cyclist personally is about it.
5. I will pay more attention to cyclo-cross, track, and the grossly undercovered women's peloton. Sure, these things are never actually broadcast so one can see them, but it can't be that expensive to catch a plane to Europe every weekend, right?
6. I resolve to forgive Denis Menchov for winning in fine form the 2007 Vuelta, despite my lingering and deeply unjust resentment against him for the disastrous results-stripping outcome of the Heras affair in 2005 for which he bore no responsibility whatsoever. However, I *am* still rooting for Samuel Sanchez to kick his @#$ in 2008.
7. I resolve not to project onto faultless innocent prodigy Alberto Contador my annoyance when Johan Bruyneel viciously screws over we love Levi Leipheimer and, next year, we also love Andreas Kloden, at the Tour de France *again*. As an added bonus, I'll stop mentioning the wholly irrelevant fact that he's a product of both Manolo Saiz and Liberty Seguros every time he takes a stage win.
8. I promise not to be snarky about Petacchi, DiLuca, and Basso's pouty studmuffin status, because there's certainly nothing wrong with being both a genius cyclist and also very, very pretty. However, if any one of them drapes himself in satin for a calendar, struts his stuff on a Milan runway, or rips his shirt off for gazzetta dello sport again, it's all over, baby!
9. I will give one free pass on massive verbal abuse for the wily and entertaining provider of the 2008 Best Doping Excuse of the Year. Cuz you know, no matter how many guys got drawn and quartered over failing to mask it properly this year, *some* little eejit's gonna try it again (and blow it again) next season.
10. I will...no, I just can't promise anything with regard to that scorched-earth witch-hunting Iban-hating weasel hypocrite Pat "Dick" McQuaid. I just plain can't. Oh well, perhaps I'll be a better person next year!
All right, that's about all the personal improvement I can stomach for one year. Happy New Year to all, and to all a good night!
Monday, December 31, 2007
Saturday, December 29, 2007
Herasy!
There is No Joy in Racejunkieville/Mighty Heras Has Bailed Out: fine, he's a dirty doping tainted product of a filthy cheating generation of selfish liars and the spinelessly abandoned son of a Machiavellian organizer of systemic Spanish treachery, yap, he got what he deserved just like Vinokorouv and Ullrich, yap, he should burn in hell with the rest of Manolo Saiz' EPO-snarfing blood-doping perverted poseur proteges, yap yap yap. But even accepting as, well, implausible, his astonishing explosion in time-trial mastery in 2005 (and believe me, I do), let's talk about what else we still love Roberto Heras nonetheless is and was: one of the most beautiful climbers in the history of the sport, bar none, and no matter what the hell you're on, you can't turn the lumpen grinding of an Evans into that. A brief review of his palmares: a blazing start to his career with a Giro stage (against a pretty formidable field of Italians with national pride as stake, no less) while at Kelme; years of mountain servitude to Armstrong at Postal in a domestique role far below his actual capacity for personal victory; and, with teams that let's be honest here were seldom gifted with the power of the squads reserved for the season's earlier Tour, 3 smashing Vueltas plus Menchov's, who, whatever Heras may have been stoked on, clearly wasn't ready to earn it in his own right til this year in any case. But Heras is of course correct in throwing in the towel--no matter what he was allegedly offered by any of the Continental teams, none of them could do him or his existing legacy any justice at this point, especially after two years out of competition and no hope of returning to the support level ProTour 'til he's hit 35, already downgraded back to domestique when he gets there. Self-aggrandizing human frailties and all, Roberto, your retirement's a great loss!
Now, before both of you go off all affronted on my continued adoration of Heras and resolute respect for his unparalled climbing genius in the face of his grotesque disrespect for pure sport, let's consider his sainted contemporaries, shall we? 107 riders implicated in Op Puerto in 2006, less than a year into Heras' exile, including basically all of Liberty Seguros and the entire Grand-Tour-contender elite. Yet, as evidence mounts that several teams have been intimately involved in organizing and directing broad-brush doping programs among their cyclists, and damned recently at that, many of these boys not only continued to ride in the comparative poverty and obscurity of Continental squads, but remained cuddled in ProTour luxury til later misadventures cast, or sometimes failed to cast, them out. And in light of such shenanigans, is it really so likely that only the stars of the teams were doped up by their masters, and the press-pimped baby Next Lance Armstrongs were not? I object not to harsh antidoping punishments--which, even aside from the benefit of fostering integrity, hopefully encourage safe-supplement practices that protect the riders' health even better than say our hero Eufemiano Fuentes--but to their shockingly arbitrary application by the ringmasters over at UCI, WADA, the race organizations, and the sports federations. Even the Darwinian explanation of natural-selection-by-culling-of-the-reckless-and-stupid fails to comfort, as it seems ironic that one should be rewarded by being an even wilier bastard (worse, in the cases of those who could afford outside assistance, a richer wilier bastard) than one's more broke or merely luckless contemporary. Explain to me again how doping is discouraged at all if there's a smashingly high chance that, assuming you manage not to irk somebody important, you'll actually manage get away with it?
Of course, the new generation of riders is clean nowadays, and are committed to truth beauty justice and fairness in a way that the cheating sad-sacks of prior days were not; such follies will, after all, die utterly as the dirty tacticians of the old school, victims of their decaying bodies and even more decayed souls, age out of the peloton. Right, Kessler and Sinkewitz?
Oh Roberto. You should have melted down for the cameras, pimped your equally-dirty-but-more-discreet compatriots to the narcs, and raised a few euros for the bambini in your exile. Perhaps you might still find a home as a born-again DS somewhere if you fess up now?
Now, before both of you go off all affronted on my continued adoration of Heras and resolute respect for his unparalled climbing genius in the face of his grotesque disrespect for pure sport, let's consider his sainted contemporaries, shall we? 107 riders implicated in Op Puerto in 2006, less than a year into Heras' exile, including basically all of Liberty Seguros and the entire Grand-Tour-contender elite. Yet, as evidence mounts that several teams have been intimately involved in organizing and directing broad-brush doping programs among their cyclists, and damned recently at that, many of these boys not only continued to ride in the comparative poverty and obscurity of Continental squads, but remained cuddled in ProTour luxury til later misadventures cast, or sometimes failed to cast, them out. And in light of such shenanigans, is it really so likely that only the stars of the teams were doped up by their masters, and the press-pimped baby Next Lance Armstrongs were not? I object not to harsh antidoping punishments--which, even aside from the benefit of fostering integrity, hopefully encourage safe-supplement practices that protect the riders' health even better than say our hero Eufemiano Fuentes--but to their shockingly arbitrary application by the ringmasters over at UCI, WADA, the race organizations, and the sports federations. Even the Darwinian explanation of natural-selection-by-culling-of-the-reckless-and-stupid fails to comfort, as it seems ironic that one should be rewarded by being an even wilier bastard (worse, in the cases of those who could afford outside assistance, a richer wilier bastard) than one's more broke or merely luckless contemporary. Explain to me again how doping is discouraged at all if there's a smashingly high chance that, assuming you manage not to irk somebody important, you'll actually manage get away with it?
Of course, the new generation of riders is clean nowadays, and are committed to truth beauty justice and fairness in a way that the cheating sad-sacks of prior days were not; such follies will, after all, die utterly as the dirty tacticians of the old school, victims of their decaying bodies and even more decayed souls, age out of the peloton. Right, Kessler and Sinkewitz?
Oh Roberto. You should have melted down for the cameras, pimped your equally-dirty-but-more-discreet compatriots to the narcs, and raised a few euros for the bambini in your exile. Perhaps you might still find a home as a born-again DS somewhere if you fess up now?
Wednesday, December 26, 2007
St. Ivan of the Dolomites (Part Deux), and Mother Theresa Eufemiano Fuentes
Give Me Your Tired, Your Poor, Your Stoked to the Gills: as a molto tranquillo Ivan Basso both continues his wholly admirable engagement in orphaned children's charity work and his rigorous solo training regimen, with most humble caveats that he understands the road back is a long one and he does not soon expect to compete as he he last did when he returns this coming October, a shamefully cynical part of my previously-idealistic-but-since-thwapped-into-morbid-acceptance-of-gruesome-reality brain cannot help but wonder, are we in for some horrid endless St. David Millar-style tearful wah-wah about his constant regret (that he was busted), complete with an ostentatious bawling on-camera breakdown every time some other unrepentant peloton ignoramus falls into the vicious clutches of the doping Dark Side? Not to condemn true changes of heart and sincere pleas for honorable sportsmanship here--I can't imagine any of these guys would voluntarily blow their Ferrari budgets trying to edge out their fellow dope hounds with even more potent concoctions if they needn't do it to win, after all--but is anyone else hoping that since Basso, unlike Millar, is still only copping to "attempting" to dope that he can at least restrain himself enough to kiss a few babies, sign a few autographs, do his job at the start line when he gets back in 2008 and just shut the hell up after that?
I Think, Therefore I Shouldn't Speak: so I see Operacion Puerto hero, Protector of Athletes' Health, and voracious publicity ho Dr. Eufemiano Fuentes is hitting the radio rounds in support of his fine therapeutic regimens, this time modestly opining that "they should put up a monument to me" and "they should give me the Nobel Prize" for his selfless work on behalf of cruelly oppressed drug-snarfing Grand Tour riders and classics podium aspirants everywhere. (The tifosi over at Gazzetta dello Sport politely suggested, between snorts of e-mockery, that if he really cared he might give us the names of all the cyclists implicated in Op Puerto for Christmas, but apparently his schedule of saintly do-gooding is already too jam-packed to fit in a stint as Santa Claus as well.) Deluded Napoleon-complex wingnut though Fuentes is, I must say I'm rather inclined to agree with him. After all, why pollute the most revered peaks of the cycling world with stupid tributes to the irrelevant likes of Fausto Coppi when you could adorn, say, l'Alpe d'Huez with a far more apropos six-foot marble statue of a syringe, a fridge, and perhaps a couple of riders' dogs to memorialize the power and integrity of this beautiful sport for generations, nay millennia to come?
The Morning After: meantime, over at Predictor-now-Silence-Lotto, the team has posthaste fired Studmuffin-o'-the-Peloton Bjorn Leukemans, as his B-sample for testosterone (lately being blamed, since the 'love defense' didn't appear to cut it, on a team doctor purposely giving a rider subject to 8 bazillion clearly delineated banned substances and total career destruction if he takes any of 'em a random mystery rub with ingredients our quack didn't even recognize as off-limits on the label) came back positive. Bjorn, however, gamely argues that he has another perfectly reasonable explanation for the unfortunate incident, but, of course, his meany of a lawyer won't let him talk til the Jan 10 hearing on the matter which totally coincidentally would appear to give him a good two weeks to figure one out. Good luck on that Bjorn!
Il Grande Gibo, Part Deux: finally, to the swooning adoration of tifosi everywhere, we love perpetual crankmaster Gilberto Simoni of all riders has suddenly gone all soft'n'sweet on us, expressing his greatest wish as making it to the Olympics in the blue jersey of his national team, warmly complimenting his fellows at Saunier Duval as key to his recent triumph on the slopes of the Zoncolan, looking back on this season as important not for his victories but for the courage and capacity to suffer that he found he still had, reflecting on the importance of riders becoming more involved in the calendar and character-building of the sport, and admiring the likes of Cunego, baby protege Riccardo Ricco and attack genius Leonardo Piepoli for the Giro long haul. Any takers on how long his apparent New Year's resolution not to slag anybody else is going to last? Vai Gibo!
I Think, Therefore I Shouldn't Speak: so I see Operacion Puerto hero, Protector of Athletes' Health, and voracious publicity ho Dr. Eufemiano Fuentes is hitting the radio rounds in support of his fine therapeutic regimens, this time modestly opining that "they should put up a monument to me" and "they should give me the Nobel Prize" for his selfless work on behalf of cruelly oppressed drug-snarfing Grand Tour riders and classics podium aspirants everywhere. (The tifosi over at Gazzetta dello Sport politely suggested, between snorts of e-mockery, that if he really cared he might give us the names of all the cyclists implicated in Op Puerto for Christmas, but apparently his schedule of saintly do-gooding is already too jam-packed to fit in a stint as Santa Claus as well.) Deluded Napoleon-complex wingnut though Fuentes is, I must say I'm rather inclined to agree with him. After all, why pollute the most revered peaks of the cycling world with stupid tributes to the irrelevant likes of Fausto Coppi when you could adorn, say, l'Alpe d'Huez with a far more apropos six-foot marble statue of a syringe, a fridge, and perhaps a couple of riders' dogs to memorialize the power and integrity of this beautiful sport for generations, nay millennia to come?
The Morning After: meantime, over at Predictor-now-Silence-Lotto, the team has posthaste fired Studmuffin-o'-the-Peloton Bjorn Leukemans, as his B-sample for testosterone (lately being blamed, since the 'love defense' didn't appear to cut it, on a team doctor purposely giving a rider subject to 8 bazillion clearly delineated banned substances and total career destruction if he takes any of 'em a random mystery rub with ingredients our quack didn't even recognize as off-limits on the label) came back positive. Bjorn, however, gamely argues that he has another perfectly reasonable explanation for the unfortunate incident, but, of course, his meany of a lawyer won't let him talk til the Jan 10 hearing on the matter which totally coincidentally would appear to give him a good two weeks to figure one out. Good luck on that Bjorn!
Il Grande Gibo, Part Deux: finally, to the swooning adoration of tifosi everywhere, we love perpetual crankmaster Gilberto Simoni of all riders has suddenly gone all soft'n'sweet on us, expressing his greatest wish as making it to the Olympics in the blue jersey of his national team, warmly complimenting his fellows at Saunier Duval as key to his recent triumph on the slopes of the Zoncolan, looking back on this season as important not for his victories but for the courage and capacity to suffer that he found he still had, reflecting on the importance of riders becoming more involved in the calendar and character-building of the sport, and admiring the likes of Cunego, baby protege Riccardo Ricco and attack genius Leonardo Piepoli for the Giro long haul. Any takers on how long his apparent New Year's resolution not to slag anybody else is going to last? Vai Gibo!
Friday, December 21, 2007
How Many Dopers Can You Fit on the Head of a Pin?
A !@#$*&' Lot of 'Em, if You're Rock Racing: so as we dearly love 3-time Tour de France podium finisher/34-year-old climbing god Joseba Beloki is forced to retire because he wasn't actually busted for anything except being on ONCE and Liberty Seguros (burn in hell, you soulless rider-pimping bastard Saiz!), 80-year-old Tyler "I Ate My Twin" Hamilton, lately booted off Tinkoff with fellow dopehound Danilo Hondo in a fit of moral righteousness as soon as its oligarch got done profiting off their names, has actually managed to score a new gig with Rock Racing, new home of dope-linked ex-Phonak-cohort Santi Botero incidentally and most recently noted for its obnoxious jean-seller owner's bizarrely slagging Chris Horner's ethics to a chorus of boos from the Velonews faithful. Tyler, with your slammin' new bank account--and assuming, and I still certainly hope I'm wrong here, that your protestations of innocence at Phonak of all squads lacked, well, accuracy--any chance you could reimburse me the 15 bucks I blew defacing my Tyler Hamilton Foundation hat defending your innocence before the disgusting perpetual intrigue of this beautiful sport finally debauched mine?
Did I Mention Burn In Hell, You Soulless Rider-Pimping Bastard Saiz?: and, as Joseba concedes defeat and mournfully schleps off into the sunset without even a DS sympathy gig at old home stomping grounds Euskaltel to show for it, I'd like to take a moment to pay tribute his spectacular palmares, including a fine podium finish at the Vuelta a Espana. Yap, yap, anyone Manolo Saiz touched was a colossal drug-snorting one-man corroded cesspool--even if so, can we honestly believe he was the only team manager force-feeding any or all of his brilliant proteges something more powerful than Tang? Beloki was gorgeous to watch on a climb at his height, he was just coming back beautifully even as a superdomestique years after his post-Tour leg-snap when Liberty Seguros went down, and the peloton's far the crappier for his loss. Tell me again why his tangential association with Op Puerto should've excluded him from the pack any more than, say, gentlemen with gigantic buckets of blood bags in Eufemiano Fuentes' fridge with ambiguous code names like "Valv" tatooed on 'em, or, say, half the riders on the recently-deceased alleged-Spanish-doper-refugee-camp Relax-Gam, who continue to ride to this day?
Unparanoid Conspiracy Theorist: finally, as an enraged Iban Mayo refuses to recognize Chatenay-Malabry's inevitable Z-sample poz on the not unreasonable grounds that they had no right to run the damn thing in the first place as a B-sample test in his favor had already been conducted, and that it's just the slightest bit possible that UCI had perhaps a vested interest in obtaining a positive result after spending the last six months crowing over his downfall, the Spanish cycling fed, which seemed noncommittal on the possibility of defending Iban yesterday given how tough it is to argue about a two-fer test positive, has now at least decided not to sanction the boy and to instead face the music with UCI and their certain whining, if their incessant swooning over Alejandro Valverde doesn't distract them beforehand. We'll see if that resolve sticks, but meantime, free Iban!
Finding My Happy Place: finally, in about the only bit of nonsucktastic news this week, gazzetta dello sport's got a bitchin' audio and video clip of Matteo Tosatto and Pippo Pozzato singing away, which for my money in the annals of jocks crooning is far and away better than the Red Sox croaking their way through "Dirty Water" so mortifyingly a few years back. If cycling doesn't work out for you boys (though it has pretty damn well to this point), at least you've always got a spot on the pop charts....
Did I Mention Burn In Hell, You Soulless Rider-Pimping Bastard Saiz?: and, as Joseba concedes defeat and mournfully schleps off into the sunset without even a DS sympathy gig at old home stomping grounds Euskaltel to show for it, I'd like to take a moment to pay tribute his spectacular palmares, including a fine podium finish at the Vuelta a Espana. Yap, yap, anyone Manolo Saiz touched was a colossal drug-snorting one-man corroded cesspool--even if so, can we honestly believe he was the only team manager force-feeding any or all of his brilliant proteges something more powerful than Tang? Beloki was gorgeous to watch on a climb at his height, he was just coming back beautifully even as a superdomestique years after his post-Tour leg-snap when Liberty Seguros went down, and the peloton's far the crappier for his loss. Tell me again why his tangential association with Op Puerto should've excluded him from the pack any more than, say, gentlemen with gigantic buckets of blood bags in Eufemiano Fuentes' fridge with ambiguous code names like "Valv" tatooed on 'em, or, say, half the riders on the recently-deceased alleged-Spanish-doper-refugee-camp Relax-Gam, who continue to ride to this day?
Unparanoid Conspiracy Theorist: finally, as an enraged Iban Mayo refuses to recognize Chatenay-Malabry's inevitable Z-sample poz on the not unreasonable grounds that they had no right to run the damn thing in the first place as a B-sample test in his favor had already been conducted, and that it's just the slightest bit possible that UCI had perhaps a vested interest in obtaining a positive result after spending the last six months crowing over his downfall, the Spanish cycling fed, which seemed noncommittal on the possibility of defending Iban yesterday given how tough it is to argue about a two-fer test positive, has now at least decided not to sanction the boy and to instead face the music with UCI and their certain whining, if their incessant swooning over Alejandro Valverde doesn't distract them beforehand. We'll see if that resolve sticks, but meantime, free Iban!
Finding My Happy Place: finally, in about the only bit of nonsucktastic news this week, gazzetta dello sport's got a bitchin' audio and video clip of Matteo Tosatto and Pippo Pozzato singing away, which for my money in the annals of jocks crooning is far and away better than the Red Sox croaking their way through "Dirty Water" so mortifyingly a few years back. If cycling doesn't work out for you boys (though it has pretty damn well to this point), at least you've always got a spot on the pop charts....
Wednesday, December 19, 2007
Oh, There's No Place Like Hosed for the Holidays!
Pat "Dick" We Have Heard on High/Swearing, "Iban, You Will Fry": y'know, in this season of giving, it's so important to remember those in need, which is why it's so very touching to watch Pat "Dick" McQuaid and the desperate-for-credibility protocol-mangling incompetent lab chimps over at Chatenay-Malabry giving Iban Mayo's lonely underprivileged urine samples a heart-warming 800 opportunities to replicate their initial freak poz for EPO, which, after an irksome little negative by some crap Gent lab with no actual vested interest in the results, finally arrived in a true Christmas miracle, since apparently no known legitimate laboratory could come up with one using, well, science. Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus! Sadly, Iban's attorney at least is distinctly unappreciative, opining, in one of those feats of intuition that only the most intimate of lawyer-client relationships can foster, that though he doesn't know where Iban is, he's pretty sure his boy ain't happy, and will likely appeal. As for our ferocious bulldogs at the Spanish cycling fed, so eager to rush to defend the honor of Alejandro Valverde at the slightest hint of slander? Naturally, they immediately took to the airwaves in outrage and demanded...um...guys...you there? Hello? Anybody? Hellooooo-oooo....?
I Saw Mommy Kissing Leukemans: meantime, as Bjorn Leukemans' actual B sample comes back poz for exogenous testosterone, the virile young man continues to claim both his inherently-studlier-than-thou and vaunted act-of-love-interruptus defenses, fiercely asserting 'these values are natural!' Oh, Bjorn. I sympathize indeed if you didn't do this at all, but surely there's no shame (if still yet a suspension), in this open-minded, 'fess-up era of Bjarne and Zabel and Aldag, of admitting to needing a little help with such things now and then?
Landis Got Run Over By a French Guy: finally, as if Floyd Landis hasn't been dope-slapped enough lately by UCI, USADA, WADA, the press, disgruntled fans, and frankly everyone on earth except the thoughtful detectives at trustbutverify and (correct me if I'm hallucinating here) Lance-freakin-Armstrong of all people, the French cycling fed has undertaken the pointless exercise of smacking him around yet again, this time by making sure to ban him from non-UCI races in the rather unlikely event that Christian Prudhomme drops to his knee like a proposing swain and begs Landis to ride a non-UCI Tour de France next year. Now, if I recall correctly, the Landis-lovin' organizers over at ASO not only have spent the last year and a half calling Floyd a cheating testosterone whore, but also kindly introduced the route of the 2007 Tour de France with a video of Landis' head shattering, so I'm fairly sure--and this may be too speculative, I know--they're not exactly planning to rip the maillot jaune off Oscar Pereiro's back and joyously bear Floyd on their shoulders down the Champs-Elysees next year. But you go right ahead defending the unimpeachable Tour's virtue from the filthy likes of Floyd Landis, folks!
I Saw Mommy Kissing Leukemans: meantime, as Bjorn Leukemans' actual B sample comes back poz for exogenous testosterone, the virile young man continues to claim both his inherently-studlier-than-thou and vaunted act-of-love-interruptus defenses, fiercely asserting 'these values are natural!' Oh, Bjorn. I sympathize indeed if you didn't do this at all, but surely there's no shame (if still yet a suspension), in this open-minded, 'fess-up era of Bjarne and Zabel and Aldag, of admitting to needing a little help with such things now and then?
Landis Got Run Over By a French Guy: finally, as if Floyd Landis hasn't been dope-slapped enough lately by UCI, USADA, WADA, the press, disgruntled fans, and frankly everyone on earth except the thoughtful detectives at trustbutverify and (correct me if I'm hallucinating here) Lance-freakin-Armstrong of all people, the French cycling fed has undertaken the pointless exercise of smacking him around yet again, this time by making sure to ban him from non-UCI races in the rather unlikely event that Christian Prudhomme drops to his knee like a proposing swain and begs Landis to ride a non-UCI Tour de France next year. Now, if I recall correctly, the Landis-lovin' organizers over at ASO not only have spent the last year and a half calling Floyd a cheating testosterone whore, but also kindly introduced the route of the 2007 Tour de France with a video of Landis' head shattering, so I'm fairly sure--and this may be too speculative, I know--they're not exactly planning to rip the maillot jaune off Oscar Pereiro's back and joyously bear Floyd on their shoulders down the Champs-Elysees next year. But you go right ahead defending the unimpeachable Tour's virtue from the filthy likes of Floyd Landis, folks!
Sunday, December 16, 2007
The Year in Preview
Yep, You Read Right: well folks, the sun's nearly set on a lively 2007, so I thought that, for the two pro cycling fans still left after our latest year of disgusting revelations, we'd all take a nice, relaxing look ahead to what's sure to be a sparkling-clean 2008:
January: the boys stretch their legs and get working on their base tans at the Tour Down Under, except for the hardcore crowd over at CSC, which gets dropped in the Antarctic in their summer team kits with only an ice ax, a two-foot nylon fishing line, and a matchstick-length bit of medium-gauge wire to survive on. Bjarne smirks at shivering ice-rimmed helmet-cam coverage from palatial beachside cabana in Monaco.
February: woo-hoo, it's the Amgen EPO Tour of California! Levi set to take the win til Johan Bruyneel makes him personally pedal Alberto Contador up the mountains on the back of his bike in a child seat. Foiled again!
March: Gearing up for the Classics, baby! Breakaways Boonen Zabel and Petacchi stuck behind passing train at crossing; enraged Petacchi punches hole through freight car, egress gained. Back in the pack, George Hincapie's bike spontaneously combusts.
April: Iban Mayo's 367th straight B sample analyzed at Chatenay-Malabry finally comes back poz. Spanish authorities, still too busy man-crushing on certain Op Puerto-implicated favorites to complain to UCI, personally tar and feather him.
May: Il Grande Giro! Bettini pulverizes rivals; DiLuca climbs Pyrenees in 6.8 seconds, only to be demolished by rebellious domestique Savoldelli on descent; Simoni bids discreet goodbye to peloton by viciously impugning the manhood of whoever beats him to Pampeago; Edita Pucinskaite, Nicole Brandli 1st and 2nd at Giro d'Italia Femminile for 3d year in a row, exchange warm compliments.
June: Entire population of Belgium and Germany tests poz for exogenous testosterone; Pat "Dick" McQuaid immediately blames Spanish-Italian "mafia nations." Valverde, you cheating bastard! Results of Landis' unsuccessful appeal announced in predictable total farce; on the plus side, 80 years into this ridiculous travesty, Landis now eligible for Social Security due to advancing age.
July: Le Tour, what else? UCI allows 186 known dopers to start; after stripping rightful winner of maillot jaune on penultimate day, UCI awards to we love Phil Liggett, the only guy they're sure is clean. In non-Tour news, obscure Portuguese neo-pro tests poz for EPO; St. David Millar hospitalized for chronic sobbing, miraculously cured when cameras banned from ER.
August: the most beautiful Vuelta in years begins; no-one knows who wins it, though, as US coverage preempted by 21 consecutive days of round-the-clock bass-fishing. You blow, Vs.! Bettini takes gold in Beijing; WADA chief accidentally trampled flat by exuberant squadra azzura.
September: he's baaaaaa-aaacccck! Italians cut one month off comely studmuffin Ivan Basso's suspension for good behavior just in time for Worlds, erect giant golden winged statue of him in Verona; Basso snorts white powder openly at start line, takes race; in response to McQuaid's typical whining objections, tifosi riot, destroy UCI headquarters on grounds that any idiot knows that cane sugar's not a banned pre-race performance-enhancer. In other Worlds news, Robbie "Road Rage" McEwen suspended 3 months for chewing Daniele Bennati's earlobe off in sprint altercation.
October: UCI ProTour rankings released. Cadel Evans snakes UCI title off Danilo DiLuca on crap technicality for second straight year, offered 1 million euro to stay at Predictor for next year; Marianne Vos takes second consecutive UCI title in own right, offered 25,000 euro for 1-year DSB team gig and supplemental survival job as greeter at local Wal-Mart.
November: Erik Zabel, age 96, sweeps World Cup in all categories; Johan Bruyneel re-hires repentant Basso, creating perfect-storm screw-over trifecta of Leipheimer, Kloden and Contador; Landis finally caves, ostentatiously wah-wah's fake confession to press despite actual innocence; T-Mobile immediately reconstitutes itself, gives Landis sickeningly lucrative gig as Directeur Sportif.
December: Team camps again! Liquigas takes to the mineral baths; Astana to Elizabeth Arden for mani-pedis; remaining CSC riders tragically eaten by bears in wilderness.
Well, folks, only time will tell--but if *I* were CSC, I'd watch out carefully for renegade wildlife. Allez allez!
January: the boys stretch their legs and get working on their base tans at the Tour Down Under, except for the hardcore crowd over at CSC, which gets dropped in the Antarctic in their summer team kits with only an ice ax, a two-foot nylon fishing line, and a matchstick-length bit of medium-gauge wire to survive on. Bjarne smirks at shivering ice-rimmed helmet-cam coverage from palatial beachside cabana in Monaco.
February: woo-hoo, it's the Amgen EPO Tour of California! Levi set to take the win til Johan Bruyneel makes him personally pedal Alberto Contador up the mountains on the back of his bike in a child seat. Foiled again!
March: Gearing up for the Classics, baby! Breakaways Boonen Zabel and Petacchi stuck behind passing train at crossing; enraged Petacchi punches hole through freight car, egress gained. Back in the pack, George Hincapie's bike spontaneously combusts.
April: Iban Mayo's 367th straight B sample analyzed at Chatenay-Malabry finally comes back poz. Spanish authorities, still too busy man-crushing on certain Op Puerto-implicated favorites to complain to UCI, personally tar and feather him.
May: Il Grande Giro! Bettini pulverizes rivals; DiLuca climbs Pyrenees in 6.8 seconds, only to be demolished by rebellious domestique Savoldelli on descent; Simoni bids discreet goodbye to peloton by viciously impugning the manhood of whoever beats him to Pampeago; Edita Pucinskaite, Nicole Brandli 1st and 2nd at Giro d'Italia Femminile for 3d year in a row, exchange warm compliments.
June: Entire population of Belgium and Germany tests poz for exogenous testosterone; Pat "Dick" McQuaid immediately blames Spanish-Italian "mafia nations." Valverde, you cheating bastard! Results of Landis' unsuccessful appeal announced in predictable total farce; on the plus side, 80 years into this ridiculous travesty, Landis now eligible for Social Security due to advancing age.
July: Le Tour, what else? UCI allows 186 known dopers to start; after stripping rightful winner of maillot jaune on penultimate day, UCI awards to we love Phil Liggett, the only guy they're sure is clean. In non-Tour news, obscure Portuguese neo-pro tests poz for EPO; St. David Millar hospitalized for chronic sobbing, miraculously cured when cameras banned from ER.
August: the most beautiful Vuelta in years begins; no-one knows who wins it, though, as US coverage preempted by 21 consecutive days of round-the-clock bass-fishing. You blow, Vs.! Bettini takes gold in Beijing; WADA chief accidentally trampled flat by exuberant squadra azzura.
September: he's baaaaaa-aaacccck! Italians cut one month off comely studmuffin Ivan Basso's suspension for good behavior just in time for Worlds, erect giant golden winged statue of him in Verona; Basso snorts white powder openly at start line, takes race; in response to McQuaid's typical whining objections, tifosi riot, destroy UCI headquarters on grounds that any idiot knows that cane sugar's not a banned pre-race performance-enhancer. In other Worlds news, Robbie "Road Rage" McEwen suspended 3 months for chewing Daniele Bennati's earlobe off in sprint altercation.
October: UCI ProTour rankings released. Cadel Evans snakes UCI title off Danilo DiLuca on crap technicality for second straight year, offered 1 million euro to stay at Predictor for next year; Marianne Vos takes second consecutive UCI title in own right, offered 25,000 euro for 1-year DSB team gig and supplemental survival job as greeter at local Wal-Mart.
November: Erik Zabel, age 96, sweeps World Cup in all categories; Johan Bruyneel re-hires repentant Basso, creating perfect-storm screw-over trifecta of Leipheimer, Kloden and Contador; Landis finally caves, ostentatiously wah-wah's fake confession to press despite actual innocence; T-Mobile immediately reconstitutes itself, gives Landis sickeningly lucrative gig as Directeur Sportif.
December: Team camps again! Liquigas takes to the mineral baths; Astana to Elizabeth Arden for mani-pedis; remaining CSC riders tragically eaten by bears in wilderness.
Well, folks, only time will tell--but if *I* were CSC, I'd watch out carefully for renegade wildlife. Allez allez!
Thursday, December 13, 2007
Don't Tread On Me
I'm Not Bitter, I'm Just Going to Destroy You All: well, I see Alexander Vinokorouv is finally talking, and my, has he gone all Miss Manners, in a death-penalty-for-rudeness sort of way. Specifically, it was so ungentlemanly of his fellow riders not to call to offer him moral support after he completely !@#$ed Andreas Kloden at the Tour (and oh right, got pegged for blood doping) that any of these boys who are laughing at him now are going to be absolutely wetting themselves in terror in short order, because as soon as he pens his memoirs--and he's ready--any one of you riders who thinks naive little Vino wasn't paying attention to what the rest of you smug snow-white little !@#$s who never actually tested poz were doing for the last 10 years is gonna find out, when he personally names you, that you were wrong, wrong, wrong. That'll teach you proper etiquette, you bastards!
Hell Freezes Over: yes, folks, the unimaginable has happened, and just as a glum Jorg Jaksche concedes there's no way he can get a decent contract with T-Mobile in the tank, his career is over, and all his self-immolating confessions were for naught after all, the German prosecutors strike a massive blow for common sense and drop fraud charges against him on the astonishingly honest grounds that, since it's obvious the teams and sponsors knew and likely directed what all the riders were doing in the first place, no deception could, by definition, have occurred. Anyone else want to take bets on the likelihood of the cash-groveling apologists over at UCI and WADA doing the same? Didn't think so!
Amateur Hour: so I've just listened to the release of the baseball doping report, and all I can say is, man, are these guys a pack of Shirley Temples! You mean, when half the sport's tiny striplings suddenly developed necks and biceps the circumference of Humvees, it wasn't just from years and years of vitamins and Wheaties? And they really took banned substances when they knew darned well there wasn't a test that could bust them for it yet? And some very, very bad men truly helped them find this stuff as the very, very innocent managers turned a blind eye to these practices? Still and all, it's really sweet that they've decided steroids and HGH are bad, though for some unaccountable reason amphetamines don't seem to come under the same scrutiny, which let's face it a pack of guys who sit on their !@#$es hocking giant tobacco-juice loogies for three-quarters of every game could use just to move things along a little, and which so far as I can tell is great news for cyclists, who certainly might find the prospect of freely snarfing a little speed at the base of the Zoncolan both useful and appealing. Pat "Dick" McQuaid, Major League Baseball needs your help--can you call it a day on your fruitless quest to nail Valverde already, and go after some guys who are actually dense enough for you to catch?
...And a Happy New Year: for Samuel Sanchez, that is, but sadly not Euskaltel most likely, as the Basque climbing gods admit that they haven't anywhere near the cash needed to hold on to him past 2008, the boy has a passel of lucrative offers from other teams, and all they can do is sit around waiting for the ax to fall on decision day January 10. Y'know, I love Sanchez, and I don't begrudge him one bit riding off into the sunset with a squad that can amass him a truly spectacular bank account as well as inevitably add a Grand Tour to his already-stellar palmares. But am I the only one sorry to see a team that consistently develops and nurtures some of the most brilliant mountain goats in the business endlessly lose them to schmoes with bigger payrolls and far less deserving and fanatical tifosi? Oh well, here's your chance I guess Zubeldia!
Hell Freezes Over: yes, folks, the unimaginable has happened, and just as a glum Jorg Jaksche concedes there's no way he can get a decent contract with T-Mobile in the tank, his career is over, and all his self-immolating confessions were for naught after all, the German prosecutors strike a massive blow for common sense and drop fraud charges against him on the astonishingly honest grounds that, since it's obvious the teams and sponsors knew and likely directed what all the riders were doing in the first place, no deception could, by definition, have occurred. Anyone else want to take bets on the likelihood of the cash-groveling apologists over at UCI and WADA doing the same? Didn't think so!
Amateur Hour: so I've just listened to the release of the baseball doping report, and all I can say is, man, are these guys a pack of Shirley Temples! You mean, when half the sport's tiny striplings suddenly developed necks and biceps the circumference of Humvees, it wasn't just from years and years of vitamins and Wheaties? And they really took banned substances when they knew darned well there wasn't a test that could bust them for it yet? And some very, very bad men truly helped them find this stuff as the very, very innocent managers turned a blind eye to these practices? Still and all, it's really sweet that they've decided steroids and HGH are bad, though for some unaccountable reason amphetamines don't seem to come under the same scrutiny, which let's face it a pack of guys who sit on their !@#$es hocking giant tobacco-juice loogies for three-quarters of every game could use just to move things along a little, and which so far as I can tell is great news for cyclists, who certainly might find the prospect of freely snarfing a little speed at the base of the Zoncolan both useful and appealing. Pat "Dick" McQuaid, Major League Baseball needs your help--can you call it a day on your fruitless quest to nail Valverde already, and go after some guys who are actually dense enough for you to catch?
...And a Happy New Year: for Samuel Sanchez, that is, but sadly not Euskaltel most likely, as the Basque climbing gods admit that they haven't anywhere near the cash needed to hold on to him past 2008, the boy has a passel of lucrative offers from other teams, and all they can do is sit around waiting for the ax to fall on decision day January 10. Y'know, I love Sanchez, and I don't begrudge him one bit riding off into the sunset with a squad that can amass him a truly spectacular bank account as well as inevitably add a Grand Tour to his already-stellar palmares. But am I the only one sorry to see a team that consistently develops and nurtures some of the most brilliant mountain goats in the business endlessly lose them to schmoes with bigger payrolls and far less deserving and fanatical tifosi? Oh well, here's your chance I guess Zubeldia!
Monday, December 10, 2007
All Right Already, The Year In Review
Yes, it's almost time for the Year in Review, and while I'd hoped to blow it off til after the holidays, I see all the anal-retentive overachievers have already beat me to it, and as I don't want to be accused of cribbing off anybody, in addition to a brief news recap, I humbly present my picks of the best, worst, and distinctly most irksome of 2007:
Meeeeeem-ories, All Alone in the Mooon-liiight:
--January: Quick Step accused by current rider of years of systemic doping up to and including present day and current "major riders;" Belgian police immediately commence investigation of...um, Johan Museeuw? --February: Ullrich forced to officially retire as Basso rides on in comely glory; Levi takes Tour of California, but Basso flutters eyelashes, gets all Discovery publicity. You suck Bruyneel! --March: Bjarne Riis cops to doping in surprise of the year (that he'd cop to it, that is); Op Puerto closed; Classics marred by grisly crashes; Marianne Vos wails at Fleche. --April: Oops, Birillo *is* his dog--Basso "resigns" from Discovery; Simoni talks smack; O'Grady brilliantly takes Roubaix. --May: Simoni gives me his final Giro stage; DiLuca wins with some awfully funny hormone levels; Unibet screwed out of Tour; Landis monkey trial begins, manager exploits LeMond's childhood abuse and naturally hits rehab; Petacchi finally stops sucking. --June: Jaksche sings, to no reward; UCI won't act on Op Puerto file til after Tour, so it has some riders in it, but demands idiot virginity pledge, which works just great; Riis keeps we love Bobby Julich out of Tour; Vino promises not to screw over Kloden. Yeah, that one stuck, you !@#$%&*! --July: what else? Levi takes time trial; Rasmussen's Tour stolen; baby Soler smokes the mountains as baby Contador's handed the whole show; Iban Mayo hosed to unseemly delight of witchhunting skank McQuaid; Vino, of course screws over Kloden. --August: LeMond speaks, a *lot*; Disco dead for good--or is it?
--September: Sammy Sanchez rocks the end of the Vuelta; whatsisface takes it; Bettini and Valverde stick it to Pat "Dick" McQuaid, but DiLuca stays at home; Marta Bastianelli takes the cake; Floyd Landis completely !@#$%^*--surprise! --October: Landis appeals, Pereiro gets maillot jaune anyway, Tour officially a farce for 2 straight years in a row. Allez Floyd! --November: Discovery becomes Astana, Levi marches to his doom; Iban's B samples attempt travel world record; Rabobank knew all about Rasmussen's whereabouts; DiLuca out of Liquigas; T-Mobile's finally had enough; "Dick" Pound sez goodbye--aw, heck!--December: Giro, Vuelta announced, Tour still apparently only race on the entire freakin' planet worth mentioning; Rasmussen confesses pain; Vino sez goodbye. Well, that's about that folks, though we've still got two weeks left for some matchless disaster to top the year to date. Hell, I'm optimistic, aren't you?
And Now, Some Awards:
Domestique o' the Year: Shameless St. Millar Defender, this one's for you. Previously thought to be unable to see through his constant pathetic poor-me wah-wah-I'm-so-sorry-for-(getting caught)-doping veil o'tears, self-aggrandizing media-savvy crybaby David Millar nonetheless managed to dry his eyes enough to smash himself to pieces blazing a path day after day for his team leader at the Tour in terrain he had no business even riding in, if only til Vino tested poz over at Astana and David mind-bogglingly started ostentatiously bawling for the cameras *again*. See you next year at Slipstream, Millar--so long as I can keep the volume down low enough not to *hear* you next season!
Underrated Rider of 2007: Levi Leipheimer. Tour de California. Time trial at the Tour de France. 3d on the podium. National champ. Is there anything this smashing, humble boy can't do, except whore himself to the press and keep Johan Bruyneel from jacking him over?
La-la-la-la-la-I-Can't-Hear-You Award: ooof! we love Iban Mayo so go to hell's resurgent Tour de France and consequent doping poz. But then it wasn't. But then tough noogies pal it's going to come up positive anyway, dammit, if those talentless monkeys at Chatenay-Malabry have to be locked in a rat-infested dungeon to test his goddamn Z sample 'til the cows come home! La-la-la-la-la....
Paranoid Conspiracy Theorist of the Year: natch, slur-slinging total wingnut Pat "Dick" McQuaid, who unerringly saw in every German, Belgian, and Kazahk doping poz and systemic-team-doping scandal the nefarious cheating hands of the Italians and Spaniards. I *thought* "Kaschechkin" sounded suspiciously Roman...
Skankball Hypocrite Hosing of 2007: hands down, poor Andreas Kloden, who blew his own chances at the Tour at the services of yet another train-wreck of a master only to see his sacrifice completely gone to waste at the hands (and syringe) of a lying selfish egomaniacal blood-doping Narcissus. You suck, Vinokorouv!
Punk-Ass Move of the Year: no doubt, Machiavelli's right-hand man Johan Bruyneel, for luring Levi Leipheimer home to Discovery with the seductive promise of Tour de France team leadership, only to ditch him like yesterday's beer-goggled last-call hookup for the pretty wiles of the comely, brilliant, and clearly lying Ivan Basso, and, after a brief return to Levi's forgiving arms, dumping his ass yet *again* for Lance Armstrong's backup chosen successor, equally charming baby savant--and Liberty Seguros refugee for Chrissake--Alberto Contador. Damn, Levi, you're way too good to put up with this crap--will you *never* learn? Oh wait, you just signed with Astana...aiiigggghhhhh!
Abomination of the Season: You blow, UCI! Yep, Michael Rasmussen's stolen Tour. Sure, he totally accidentally bailed on a few measly out-of-competition doping controls--not that UCI, in retrospect, was actually performing any, as it wholly sensibly opined that riders are best tested for Tour de France doping in December--but given the 800 Op Puerto-linked riders that UCI not only allowed to start, but ride straight through til an actual poz, was it really fair to yank the poor Chicken out of the maillot jaune before he even lost it on his own merits in the time trial?
I'll Have Whatever They're Having Award: T-Mobile, of course, for having no idea whatsoever that any of their riders were doing anything wrong at all the last ten years, as the sponsors and managers swear to high heaven they made the team docs promise that they were only injecting half the team with decaf Clif Shots before and after every stage of every race anytime anywhere ever. Hey, I'll buy that...oooh, look, I can see all the individual molecules in the universe!
Riders o' the Year: Is there anyone Marianne Vos can't crush like a cockroach, or any mountain Maurizio Soler (sorry Sanchez, you were a close second) can't conquer? Venga venga, and see you at the races next year!
Team o' the Year: this was a toughie, especially as I'm a total Euskaltel apologist, but I'm going with CSC. Bjarne, your complete hosing of Dave Zabriskie and Bobby Julich made me yack. And yet, you backed dear little Sastre with guns blazing at the Tour, and we love Stewie O'Grady took Paris-Roubaix. Free Julich, and you may have a shot again next year!
Total Poindexter Website Prize: to the fabulous geniuses over at trustbutverify, who not only are perhaps the most impassioned defenders of Floyd Landis' virtue beyond only the boy himself, but actually seem to understand the detailed scientific arguments they put out that the rest of us (well, me) are too stupid to even coherently summarize. Floyd, you better be innocent, or you owe these folks a *major* freakin' apology!
Agonizing Peloton Loss of 2007: just as he finished up his little ban over some trifling misunderstanding at the '05 Vuelta, sorely-missed climber o' the gods Roberto Heras sez he can't get the deal he wants from the cash-strapped Continental squads and basically announces he's out of here. Yes, I'm exactly the sort of repugnant hypocrite I relentlessly excoriate on a daily basis--wah, wah, wah!
Doping Excuse of the Year: the ol' "in flagrante delicto" defense, courtesy of Predictor-Lotto testosterone poz Bjorn "Dirk Diggler" Leukemans. You can't make this stuff up folks, though it's entirely likely that he did.
Finally, Bull!@#$ Call of 2007: need it be said that if this were a real courtroom and not a grotesque farcical imitation of a crap episode of "Ally McBeal," Floyd Landis would be riding off into the sunset with a truly obscene cash-cow of a ProTour contract as we speak even if he'd slapped an exogenous testosterone patch right on the works in front of a camera-happy news crew? How the hell do you even sleep at night, McQuaid?!
All right, you Landis-lambasters and Heras-haters (that is to say, both my faithful readers), I'm sure there's more but I'm going to bed. What'd I get wrong?
Meeeeeem-ories, All Alone in the Mooon-liiight:
--January: Quick Step accused by current rider of years of systemic doping up to and including present day and current "major riders;" Belgian police immediately commence investigation of...um, Johan Museeuw? --February: Ullrich forced to officially retire as Basso rides on in comely glory; Levi takes Tour of California, but Basso flutters eyelashes, gets all Discovery publicity. You suck Bruyneel! --March: Bjarne Riis cops to doping in surprise of the year (that he'd cop to it, that is); Op Puerto closed; Classics marred by grisly crashes; Marianne Vos wails at Fleche. --April: Oops, Birillo *is* his dog--Basso "resigns" from Discovery; Simoni talks smack; O'Grady brilliantly takes Roubaix. --May: Simoni gives me his final Giro stage; DiLuca wins with some awfully funny hormone levels; Unibet screwed out of Tour; Landis monkey trial begins, manager exploits LeMond's childhood abuse and naturally hits rehab; Petacchi finally stops sucking. --June: Jaksche sings, to no reward; UCI won't act on Op Puerto file til after Tour, so it has some riders in it, but demands idiot virginity pledge, which works just great; Riis keeps we love Bobby Julich out of Tour; Vino promises not to screw over Kloden. Yeah, that one stuck, you !@#$%&*! --July: what else? Levi takes time trial; Rasmussen's Tour stolen; baby Soler smokes the mountains as baby Contador's handed the whole show; Iban Mayo hosed to unseemly delight of witchhunting skank McQuaid; Vino, of course screws over Kloden. --August: LeMond speaks, a *lot*; Disco dead for good--or is it?
--September: Sammy Sanchez rocks the end of the Vuelta; whatsisface takes it; Bettini and Valverde stick it to Pat "Dick" McQuaid, but DiLuca stays at home; Marta Bastianelli takes the cake; Floyd Landis completely !@#$%^*--surprise! --October: Landis appeals, Pereiro gets maillot jaune anyway, Tour officially a farce for 2 straight years in a row. Allez Floyd! --November: Discovery becomes Astana, Levi marches to his doom; Iban's B samples attempt travel world record; Rabobank knew all about Rasmussen's whereabouts; DiLuca out of Liquigas; T-Mobile's finally had enough; "Dick" Pound sez goodbye--aw, heck!--December: Giro, Vuelta announced, Tour still apparently only race on the entire freakin' planet worth mentioning; Rasmussen confesses pain; Vino sez goodbye. Well, that's about that folks, though we've still got two weeks left for some matchless disaster to top the year to date. Hell, I'm optimistic, aren't you?
And Now, Some Awards:
Domestique o' the Year: Shameless St. Millar Defender, this one's for you. Previously thought to be unable to see through his constant pathetic poor-me wah-wah-I'm-so-sorry-for-(getting caught)-doping veil o'tears, self-aggrandizing media-savvy crybaby David Millar nonetheless managed to dry his eyes enough to smash himself to pieces blazing a path day after day for his team leader at the Tour in terrain he had no business even riding in, if only til Vino tested poz over at Astana and David mind-bogglingly started ostentatiously bawling for the cameras *again*. See you next year at Slipstream, Millar--so long as I can keep the volume down low enough not to *hear* you next season!
Underrated Rider of 2007: Levi Leipheimer. Tour de California. Time trial at the Tour de France. 3d on the podium. National champ. Is there anything this smashing, humble boy can't do, except whore himself to the press and keep Johan Bruyneel from jacking him over?
La-la-la-la-la-I-Can't-Hear-You Award: ooof! we love Iban Mayo so go to hell's resurgent Tour de France and consequent doping poz. But then it wasn't. But then tough noogies pal it's going to come up positive anyway, dammit, if those talentless monkeys at Chatenay-Malabry have to be locked in a rat-infested dungeon to test his goddamn Z sample 'til the cows come home! La-la-la-la-la....
Paranoid Conspiracy Theorist of the Year: natch, slur-slinging total wingnut Pat "Dick" McQuaid, who unerringly saw in every German, Belgian, and Kazahk doping poz and systemic-team-doping scandal the nefarious cheating hands of the Italians and Spaniards. I *thought* "Kaschechkin" sounded suspiciously Roman...
Skankball Hypocrite Hosing of 2007: hands down, poor Andreas Kloden, who blew his own chances at the Tour at the services of yet another train-wreck of a master only to see his sacrifice completely gone to waste at the hands (and syringe) of a lying selfish egomaniacal blood-doping Narcissus. You suck, Vinokorouv!
Punk-Ass Move of the Year: no doubt, Machiavelli's right-hand man Johan Bruyneel, for luring Levi Leipheimer home to Discovery with the seductive promise of Tour de France team leadership, only to ditch him like yesterday's beer-goggled last-call hookup for the pretty wiles of the comely, brilliant, and clearly lying Ivan Basso, and, after a brief return to Levi's forgiving arms, dumping his ass yet *again* for Lance Armstrong's backup chosen successor, equally charming baby savant--and Liberty Seguros refugee for Chrissake--Alberto Contador. Damn, Levi, you're way too good to put up with this crap--will you *never* learn? Oh wait, you just signed with Astana...aiiigggghhhhh!
Abomination of the Season: You blow, UCI! Yep, Michael Rasmussen's stolen Tour. Sure, he totally accidentally bailed on a few measly out-of-competition doping controls--not that UCI, in retrospect, was actually performing any, as it wholly sensibly opined that riders are best tested for Tour de France doping in December--but given the 800 Op Puerto-linked riders that UCI not only allowed to start, but ride straight through til an actual poz, was it really fair to yank the poor Chicken out of the maillot jaune before he even lost it on his own merits in the time trial?
I'll Have Whatever They're Having Award: T-Mobile, of course, for having no idea whatsoever that any of their riders were doing anything wrong at all the last ten years, as the sponsors and managers swear to high heaven they made the team docs promise that they were only injecting half the team with decaf Clif Shots before and after every stage of every race anytime anywhere ever. Hey, I'll buy that...oooh, look, I can see all the individual molecules in the universe!
Riders o' the Year: Is there anyone Marianne Vos can't crush like a cockroach, or any mountain Maurizio Soler (sorry Sanchez, you were a close second) can't conquer? Venga venga, and see you at the races next year!
Team o' the Year: this was a toughie, especially as I'm a total Euskaltel apologist, but I'm going with CSC. Bjarne, your complete hosing of Dave Zabriskie and Bobby Julich made me yack. And yet, you backed dear little Sastre with guns blazing at the Tour, and we love Stewie O'Grady took Paris-Roubaix. Free Julich, and you may have a shot again next year!
Total Poindexter Website Prize: to the fabulous geniuses over at trustbutverify, who not only are perhaps the most impassioned defenders of Floyd Landis' virtue beyond only the boy himself, but actually seem to understand the detailed scientific arguments they put out that the rest of us (well, me) are too stupid to even coherently summarize. Floyd, you better be innocent, or you owe these folks a *major* freakin' apology!
Agonizing Peloton Loss of 2007: just as he finished up his little ban over some trifling misunderstanding at the '05 Vuelta, sorely-missed climber o' the gods Roberto Heras sez he can't get the deal he wants from the cash-strapped Continental squads and basically announces he's out of here. Yes, I'm exactly the sort of repugnant hypocrite I relentlessly excoriate on a daily basis--wah, wah, wah!
Doping Excuse of the Year: the ol' "in flagrante delicto" defense, courtesy of Predictor-Lotto testosterone poz Bjorn "Dirk Diggler" Leukemans. You can't make this stuff up folks, though it's entirely likely that he did.
Finally, Bull!@#$ Call of 2007: need it be said that if this were a real courtroom and not a grotesque farcical imitation of a crap episode of "Ally McBeal," Floyd Landis would be riding off into the sunset with a truly obscene cash-cow of a ProTour contract as we speak even if he'd slapped an exogenous testosterone patch right on the works in front of a camera-happy news crew? How the hell do you even sleep at night, McQuaid?!
All right, you Landis-lambasters and Heras-haters (that is to say, both my faithful readers), I'm sure there's more but I'm going to bed. What'd I get wrong?
Saturday, December 08, 2007
Little Pink Corvettes...
...Babies, You're Much Too Fast (Yes, You Are!): as Dr. Eufemiano Fuentes gleefully concedes himself to be the Master of All Peloton Doping at a conference, then bizarrely professes utter shock at the heretofore unheard-of news that Ivan Basso's already spent nearly a year on suspension for using Fuentes to "try" to do it, Jan Ullrich manages to dodge yet another bullet about his endless payments to said amnesiac bike-crack dealer when his latest newsmagazine dope-slap is upstaged by the even sexier allegations that five, yes five, T-Mobile riders drove up to the Freiburg University clinic for immediate blood boosts after the 2006 Tour de France prologue, when til now even whistleblowing busted dope skank Patrik Sinkewitz has only copped to going there solo. Now, correct me if I'm wrong here, but during the Tour de France, the teams would seem to have reason to be marginally curious about where half their riders are for an entire evening, given that they're paying 'em millions of euros a season not to !@#$ the team over, particularly when Ullrich's just been banned sacked and humiliated and the team's been sent skittering for cover from the press like rats from exterminators, and one would think that the team managers might've, well, noticed that all their boys' freakin' hotel rooms were empty when one's trainer might reasonably be expecting one to be resting up for the next day's fairly tiring race. UCI, any chance *now* you might question management's endlessly ridiculous assertion that the team doctors were acting entirely on their own with individual rogue cheating scumbag riders and the teams as always are utterly innocent when it comes to such outrageously slanderous claims of systemic doping?--Nope, didn't think so!
What the Hell, Bjarne?: meantime, over in actual race news, Lampre's manager has announced that baby Giro d'Italia champ Damiano Cunego might not even ride the beautiful Giro in favor of hopefully maybe a top-five spot at the Tour de France (and, if I were Lampre and the tifosi comments over at gazzetta dello sport are any fair indicator, I'd stay the hell away from a sizeable number of fans from Cunego's home stomping grounds who seem more than irked at the news that some stupid French race has hijacked him), and, worse, Bjarne Riis likewise sez that we love Carlos Sastre, graced this coming year with a Vuelta a Espana perfectly tailored to his climbing style and utterly stripped of its results-crushing time-trialling, likely isn't going to be allowed to race the thing at all, again so he can concentrate his efforts on a Tour de France whose craptastic endless races against the clock are hell-bent on keeping him off the podium even after prepping for this likely exercise in futility by bashing his legs to bits at the Giro. Can someone explain to me exactly why these two most beautiful races get completely hosed every single freakin' year to the benefit of a monstrously overrated Grand Tour whose results have either been clearly foreordained or mortifyingly disastrous for the last straight decade? Free Sastre, and the Vuelta, dammit!
What the Hell, Bjarne?: meantime, over in actual race news, Lampre's manager has announced that baby Giro d'Italia champ Damiano Cunego might not even ride the beautiful Giro in favor of hopefully maybe a top-five spot at the Tour de France (and, if I were Lampre and the tifosi comments over at gazzetta dello sport are any fair indicator, I'd stay the hell away from a sizeable number of fans from Cunego's home stomping grounds who seem more than irked at the news that some stupid French race has hijacked him), and, worse, Bjarne Riis likewise sez that we love Carlos Sastre, graced this coming year with a Vuelta a Espana perfectly tailored to his climbing style and utterly stripped of its results-crushing time-trialling, likely isn't going to be allowed to race the thing at all, again so he can concentrate his efforts on a Tour de France whose craptastic endless races against the clock are hell-bent on keeping him off the podium even after prepping for this likely exercise in futility by bashing his legs to bits at the Giro. Can someone explain to me exactly why these two most beautiful races get completely hosed every single freakin' year to the benefit of a monstrously overrated Grand Tour whose results have either been clearly foreordained or mortifyingly disastrous for the last straight decade? Free Sastre, and the Vuelta, dammit!
Thursday, December 06, 2007
Run Away, Run Away!
My DS Says Go to Rehab, I Say Vino, No, No: hot on the heels of the smashingly wussbag 1-year suspension gifted by the (pro-)doping zealots at the Kazakh cycling fed, naturally setting UCI into an immediate lathering rage complete with whining threats to cry to CAS, Alexander Vinokorouv unexpectedly tops his Landis-lawyer press-conference I'll-be-back non-farewell with a subsequent surprise retirement, announcing that, while he won't challenge the underlying suspension, he will continue to fight on "for his honour." Tilting at windmills, are we Vino? That's so sweet. Anyway, while I had earlier thought to ream Vino's cycling fed for their twerptastic wrist-slap, especially compared to how guys like poor Floyd Landis and Ivan "I Smoked But Didn't Inhale" Basso have suffered, and Vino himself for his gross hypocrisy in dope-slapping Liberty Seguros for two straight seasons when let's face it Manolo Saiz was clearly the least of the boy's problems, that's all moot now, so I'll pause instead to say a few words of admiration and farewell for his filthy cheating tainted palmares in all its scrimy weaselled discredited dirtbag glory. Will the peloton ever be the same without the sheer shock-and-awe entertainment value of his spectacular Jan Ullrich Tour de France team-leader bushwhacks? Or his randomly timed full-gas attacks on seemingly wholly irrelevant stages and painfully unsuitable terrain? And, to be fair, off his head as he's frequently been, he must indeed be given credit for first his continued lauding of very fine promising young teammate the late Andrei Kivilev, his careful grooming of the brilliant-if-lately-disgraced human rights crusader Andrei Kashechkin, and his resolute reward (unlike some Grand Tour winners I can think of) of the riders who bust their !@#es for him with a well-earned stage win, every time. Two minor peeves: Heras' Vuelta is still gone while this dope-fiend clown's is still his; and, thanks to Vino blowing the team apart, Andreas Kloden's just resigned with Johan Bruyneel's Astana and is now completely screwed out of the Tour win he so obviously deserves and still so optimistically and fruitlessly hopes to be allowed to take. Sure, I'll miss you Vinokorouv, you were a fabulously unpredictable thrill to watch, a lively havoc-wreaking trainwreck in a field of earnest plodding stable dullards. But see what happens when you jack over poor Klodi?--karma, baby!
Mafia Nations: and, as further evidence of the Great SpanishItalian Doping Conspiracy, I see that noble Quick Step guru Patrick Lefevere has bailed out of his presidency of the ProTour teams' association, of course to spend more time with his family and surely having nothing to do with the fact that he's having to spend a considerable amount of energy lately defending himself and his team against the latest round of systemic-doping allegations on his watch. Indeed, Quick Step was apparently so irked at the Belgian newspaper responsible for both the doping story and pegging Tom Boonen's new girlfriend as the 16-year-old daughter of the Amstel Gold race organizer in a high-ick-factor if admittedly accurate piece that they snottily boycotted the awards ceremony for the Belgian Cyclist of Year ('cross god Sven Nys, not Boonen). Wow, systemic doping (allegedly) *and* crap sportsmanship--what an example we're setting!
Victory Is Mine!: finally, congratulations to Danilo DiLuca, who caps off his disappointing exclusion from the Worlds with a decisive win in the cell-phone shotput at the squadra azzura's 'Bettiniadi,' and fine if wholly inadequate substitute for the UCI-official toss I would certainly prefer (gazzetta.it/ciclismo, scroll down to "bettiniadi" for photos, particularly Paolo popping a wheelie on a rather lower-rent ride than his usual steed). So maybe those babies at CONI are upset you mysteriously tested for the hormone levels of a tot at some post-Giro testing--but can some lame maglia rosa really compare to this triumph? Complimenti, Danilo!
Mafia Nations: and, as further evidence of the Great SpanishItalian Doping Conspiracy, I see that noble Quick Step guru Patrick Lefevere has bailed out of his presidency of the ProTour teams' association, of course to spend more time with his family and surely having nothing to do with the fact that he's having to spend a considerable amount of energy lately defending himself and his team against the latest round of systemic-doping allegations on his watch. Indeed, Quick Step was apparently so irked at the Belgian newspaper responsible for both the doping story and pegging Tom Boonen's new girlfriend as the 16-year-old daughter of the Amstel Gold race organizer in a high-ick-factor if admittedly accurate piece that they snottily boycotted the awards ceremony for the Belgian Cyclist of Year ('cross god Sven Nys, not Boonen). Wow, systemic doping (allegedly) *and* crap sportsmanship--what an example we're setting!
Victory Is Mine!: finally, congratulations to Danilo DiLuca, who caps off his disappointing exclusion from the Worlds with a decisive win in the cell-phone shotput at the squadra azzura's 'Bettiniadi,' and fine if wholly inadequate substitute for the UCI-official toss I would certainly prefer (gazzetta.it/ciclismo, scroll down to "bettiniadi" for photos, particularly Paolo popping a wheelie on a rather lower-rent ride than his usual steed). So maybe those babies at CONI are upset you mysteriously tested for the hormone levels of a tot at some post-Giro testing--but can some lame maglia rosa really compare to this triumph? Complimenti, Danilo!
Ain't No Mountain High Enough
Except Maybe the Angliru, Babe: yes, as the Tour takes its mountains down a notch, and even the beautiful Giro limits its serious mountain stages to three, the smashing, forever-underrated Vuelta strikes back against the huge honkin' sprinter oxen with 5, count 'em, 5 leg-crushing mountaintop finishes for the wee little mountain goats to delight and suffer in (including a stop by the Pla de Beret and a vicious inching climb to Andorra), and leaving it to brilliant underfunded Euskaltel to shame its cash-cow rivals into the dust and take the thing for Samuel Sanchez unless they let Haimar Zubeldia blow his legs out in the Tour too much to get him there. Carlos Sastre, too, of course, is thrilled at the lack of time-trial ground cover (a mere 40 km total), and if Valverde can get his act together for once for the long haul and live up to his hype, I think we've got ourselves a podium, folks! Yap, yap, Menchov--first, I'm still pissed he was given Roberto Heras' Vuelta so I'm wholly tainted by bitter irrationality, second, as well as he held on and even attacked in the mountains this year, he's not on Sanchez' level in the heights, and he alone among the contenders needs the time trials as a buffer zone. Dark horse for the top ten? Iban Mayo, of course, if those desperate results-whoring pigs at UCI'll call a negative a negative and admit they're beat, and Saunier Duval hasn't already blown his salary on a bitchin' new stereo for the team bus. Free Iban goddammit, and viva la Vuelta, baby!
Part of the Problem: okay, I'll cop to it--doping bad, and I'm responsible. My heart thrills to each grueling mountain stage and each aching crank of the pedals to the finish (in no small part, I'm sure, because as a lazy armchair tifosa I needn't actually personally climb the things.) And while I'm not such a great fan of the big-bruiser sprints or their practitioners with the exception of we love Thor Hushovd of course, there's no denying that we want a last kilometer of full-on action over the dull tactical breakaway dithering that so frequently leads to victory-by-well-planned-crawl. So ought we all concede, as the teams and their sponsor-enablers would have us believe, that our desire for body-pulverizing three-week treks through hell is the sole problem forcing the innocent riders to dope up for our pleasure, and suck up the removal of all but one queen stage, one decent mountain day, to encourage and ensure the purity of the pack? Hell no! First, go slow as you like, boys--unlike the twitchy TV stations eager to move on to other things, I don't care how long it takes you to drag yourselves up the Pyrenees, I'm just happy--and patient enough--to watch you make it. And frankly, for the euros some of these riders earn, they oughta be happy to schlep up freakin' Everest in shorts and flip-flops. Don't let the organizers dumb down the races in a fruitless effort to stop the cheats, UCI, unless you're first gonna make the teams face their own demons--and right on Vuelta!
Part of the Problem: okay, I'll cop to it--doping bad, and I'm responsible. My heart thrills to each grueling mountain stage and each aching crank of the pedals to the finish (in no small part, I'm sure, because as a lazy armchair tifosa I needn't actually personally climb the things.) And while I'm not such a great fan of the big-bruiser sprints or their practitioners with the exception of we love Thor Hushovd of course, there's no denying that we want a last kilometer of full-on action over the dull tactical breakaway dithering that so frequently leads to victory-by-well-planned-crawl. So ought we all concede, as the teams and their sponsor-enablers would have us believe, that our desire for body-pulverizing three-week treks through hell is the sole problem forcing the innocent riders to dope up for our pleasure, and suck up the removal of all but one queen stage, one decent mountain day, to encourage and ensure the purity of the pack? Hell no! First, go slow as you like, boys--unlike the twitchy TV stations eager to move on to other things, I don't care how long it takes you to drag yourselves up the Pyrenees, I'm just happy--and patient enough--to watch you make it. And frankly, for the euros some of these riders earn, they oughta be happy to schlep up freakin' Everest in shorts and flip-flops. Don't let the organizers dumb down the races in a fruitless effort to stop the cheats, UCI, unless you're first gonna make the teams face their own demons--and right on Vuelta!
Tuesday, December 04, 2007
Survivor: Peloton
Survival of the Thickest-Skinned: so even the mainstream sports press, whose cycling coverage is generally limited to dope-slapping the hitherto-unheard-of nefarious (and sole) Tour de France cheat Floyd Landis in heinously know-nothing articles on his legal situation and ridership, or lauding the iconic hero Lance Armstrong for his unimpeachable perfection, has now perked up its salacious little ears on the Michael Rasmussen story, that being, of course, that poor Rasmussen, jacked out of the Tour nigh on the eve of a near-inevitable win, was in such shock and distress immediately thereafter that he considered yanking the wheel of the car he was riding in into traffic or hanging himself in his hotel room--particularly, as he pointed out, and as Rabobank has now admitted, when the team knew where he was the entire time and that the aforesaid mysterious personal problems were keeping him there. Disgraced Rabo manager Theo de Rooij's sympathetic response? Yep, in the face of Rabo's concession to the contrary, Rasmussen still lied to him, he didn't want the boy to start the Tour anyway but it was UCI of all rider-hating freaks who said he had to, and, though he maybe might've handled things differently, it's still all the lying dirtbag Rasmussen's fault anyway. Nice! Y'know, I'm not offering tons of sympathy here for doping skankballs, but is it not perhaps possible that the random vendetta-driven selective persecution (and prosecution) in this sport has helped the likes of Pantani, Vandenbroucke, and now Rasmussen into their tragic spirals as they watch even more heavily-stoked riders pedal away to glory in the races they've been barred from--and as teams and managers that utterly encourage and enable them get to so easily disclaim any responsibility for the monsters they create? Grow a spine and a conscience, UCI, and choose your targets fairly from here on out!
The Abominable Snowpack: well, according to CSC's trainers--and as further proof, dear little Carlos Sastre himself--the boys are safely back from their snowbound death-defiance bootcamp training, as "everyone's accounted for and there's no casualties," which, especially as it pertains to the poor soigneurs office administrators and mechanics who were also hauled off into the wild, will come in awfully handy during, say, the Grand Tours, when you see how great it is you didn't kill off any of your handy domestiques or their equipment-maintenance gods before the season even began. Luckily, Karsten Kroon and Jens Voigt escaped teambuilding-by-near-death-experience, which they had the great good luck to avoid thanks to lucky newborn arrival times. Anyone else thinking any boys in danger of having a contract with CSC next year might want to start planning those baby cyclists about 3 months from now, if they want to avoid say a week in the Sahara with no water and the occasional scorpion for lunch?
Andreas Kloden is Still !@#$%^*! finally, I see the poor saps from the '07 Astana debacle are finally going to get paid by the Kazakh cycling fed, and, as Johan Bruyneel, Marc Biver, and assorted management companies rush to trade insults, poor Andreas Kloden still appears indentured to none other than Johan itself til his contract runs out, and inevitably relegated to a third-rate exhausted shadow of a team for the Vuelta and the ignoble prospect of getting his Tour hopes dashed in the service of a baby savant who, having himself been a refugee from Liberty Seguros and taken last year's Tour by bull!@#$ fiat, is certainly no less tainted-by-association than Kloden himself. Are we really going to be forced to watch Klodi waste himself and his near-inevitable Tour win yet again playing nursemaid to someone else's agenda? Free Kloden, I say--dammit!
The Abominable Snowpack: well, according to CSC's trainers--and as further proof, dear little Carlos Sastre himself--the boys are safely back from their snowbound death-defiance bootcamp training, as "everyone's accounted for and there's no casualties," which, especially as it pertains to the poor soigneurs office administrators and mechanics who were also hauled off into the wild, will come in awfully handy during, say, the Grand Tours, when you see how great it is you didn't kill off any of your handy domestiques or their equipment-maintenance gods before the season even began. Luckily, Karsten Kroon and Jens Voigt escaped teambuilding-by-near-death-experience, which they had the great good luck to avoid thanks to lucky newborn arrival times. Anyone else thinking any boys in danger of having a contract with CSC next year might want to start planning those baby cyclists about 3 months from now, if they want to avoid say a week in the Sahara with no water and the occasional scorpion for lunch?
Andreas Kloden is Still !@#$%^*! finally, I see the poor saps from the '07 Astana debacle are finally going to get paid by the Kazakh cycling fed, and, as Johan Bruyneel, Marc Biver, and assorted management companies rush to trade insults, poor Andreas Kloden still appears indentured to none other than Johan itself til his contract runs out, and inevitably relegated to a third-rate exhausted shadow of a team for the Vuelta and the ignoble prospect of getting his Tour hopes dashed in the service of a baby savant who, having himself been a refugee from Liberty Seguros and taken last year's Tour by bull!@#$ fiat, is certainly no less tainted-by-association than Kloden himself. Are we really going to be forced to watch Klodi waste himself and his near-inevitable Tour win yet again playing nursemaid to someone else's agenda? Free Kloden, I say--dammit!
Sunday, December 02, 2007
What Else? The Giro d'Italia, Baby!
The Corsa Rosa: pretty bitchin', I must happily say, except what the hell is with the 4 time trials? Team on day 1 in Palermo, two interim (including one 13.8 km mountain to Plan de Corones), then welcome to Milan, boys! Let's face it, considering how most of the climbers do at the discipline--and let's leave aside the mountain tt entirely, assuming one of them'll take that--if two other individual time trials including right down to the line aren't a massive incentive for panic-induced last-minute doping (especially if it's still close heading into the finish line in Milan), what is? The mountains: nice 'n' brutal! Just three mountaintop finishes, but some damn hard work to get there: stage 14 to Alpe di Pampeago, a vicious stage 15 leg-crusher over Passo Fedaia with its top two k at 18% gradient plus the beautiful monster Pordoi; then a lively day crawling up the Gavia, Mortirolo, and Aprica. Vai Simoni!
The Riders: by general consensus, it's a "nervous" start with a pleasingly vicious second half, with Bettini eager to make up for last year by taking one in this year's world championship jersey on his home turf; we love Gilberto Simoni cagey on race favorites yet but personally wants it again on Pampeago; Garzelli's looking forward to the pain of the final week; and DiLuca's aiming for the win, but hold your horses honey, because your little domestique Savoldelli isn't conceding your leadership just yet. Right on Paolo!
The Tifosi: glancing down at the comments page at Gazzetta dello Sport, we've got some pretty strong feelings out there, starting off with general expressions of happiness and total Giro superiority, wandering over into fervent Pantani tributes, complaining about the relative lack of Dolomites, questioning why an Italian race is bothering with Switzerland in the first place, jousting over DiLuca vs. Cunego, spinning off into arguments over doping, and, finally, after some general verbal abuse of the arrogant self-centered egomaniac Milanese (who apparently don't deserve the finale every year, what the hell do you effete northerners have against Sicilia anyway?), degenerating into threatening all-caps rants by residents of other regions who feel distinctly disenfranchised by this year's corsa rosa. Note to the organizers: stay the hell out of Tuscany and Piemonte, these tifosi are *pissed*!
My Faves: of course Simoni, who's of course not going to take it, but unless Savoldelli starts knuckling under to DiLuca pronto I'm not sure how great it looks for the Killer, which leaves it, if his end-of-last-season run is any indication, as baby Cunego's for the taking, if even babier wunderkind Ricco' still lacks the experience to plan out his efforts wisely. Then again, my assessment's certain to change as the race draws near, and it's always wrong anyway--perhaps a few glasses of Chianti, and I'll set it all to rights!
The Riders: by general consensus, it's a "nervous" start with a pleasingly vicious second half, with Bettini eager to make up for last year by taking one in this year's world championship jersey on his home turf; we love Gilberto Simoni cagey on race favorites yet but personally wants it again on Pampeago; Garzelli's looking forward to the pain of the final week; and DiLuca's aiming for the win, but hold your horses honey, because your little domestique Savoldelli isn't conceding your leadership just yet. Right on Paolo!
The Tifosi: glancing down at the comments page at Gazzetta dello Sport, we've got some pretty strong feelings out there, starting off with general expressions of happiness and total Giro superiority, wandering over into fervent Pantani tributes, complaining about the relative lack of Dolomites, questioning why an Italian race is bothering with Switzerland in the first place, jousting over DiLuca vs. Cunego, spinning off into arguments over doping, and, finally, after some general verbal abuse of the arrogant self-centered egomaniac Milanese (who apparently don't deserve the finale every year, what the hell do you effete northerners have against Sicilia anyway?), degenerating into threatening all-caps rants by residents of other regions who feel distinctly disenfranchised by this year's corsa rosa. Note to the organizers: stay the hell out of Tuscany and Piemonte, these tifosi are *pissed*!
My Faves: of course Simoni, who's of course not going to take it, but unless Savoldelli starts knuckling under to DiLuca pronto I'm not sure how great it looks for the Killer, which leaves it, if his end-of-last-season run is any indication, as baby Cunego's for the taking, if even babier wunderkind Ricco' still lacks the experience to plan out his efforts wisely. Then again, my assessment's certain to change as the race draws near, and it's always wrong anyway--perhaps a few glasses of Chianti, and I'll set it all to rights!
Friday, November 30, 2007
Pretty In Pink
...No More: well, the reactions to T-Mobile's hot pink implosion continue to pour in, as rider Andreas Klier cheerfully confides his intention to keep on training anyhow, as he wasn't so sharp a pencil in school and isn't actually qualified to do anything else; Walter "How Many Teams Can I Wreck In One Season" Godefroot predictably has no regrets for his actions; Soigneur of Doom Jef D'Hont doesn't feel any responsibility at all, as it's all the individual riders' fault (that the team oversaw and organized systemic doping and if you don't like you insignificant cyclist twerp we can easily shove you out the team bus at 60 mph), and Bjarne, too, feels no pain, for though he did indeed win the Tour cheating, he only did what a pro cyclist in those long-ago faraway dark days was expected to do, and as the Vinokorouv, Kashechkin, Moreni, Kessler and Sinkewitz cases have clearly proven, it's an entirely different situation in 2007. What a happy, innocent, carefree little world these boys live in! Don't you wish you could score whatever the hell they're on, too?
Camp Whythehelldidn'tIsignwithLiquigasinstead: yes, it's that time of year again, as most of the boys meet up with old and new teammates to test new equipment and take those nice team photos (might want to take a few advance mug shots of select individuals to save the trouble later next season, but who am I to suggest it?), Barloworld basks in Tuscany, Liquigas sensibly takes the mineral baths after an unexpected early rendezvous with the UCI vampires (Pippo Pozzato, who was running a day late, excepted), and poor ol' CSC, as usual, gets dropped in the middle of snowpack for two days of hardcore survival training with nothing but a sleeping bag and Bjarne Riis' great good wishes as he, of course, nestles in front of a ski-resort fireplace with a hot toddy. Y'know, I'm all for hoo-rah teambuilding; hell, no one ever got (seriously) hurt falling back blindfolded into the arms of a "trust circle" or schlepping between tree trunks tethered to harnesses. But tell me again how a bunch of tiny body-fat-free defenseless climbers shivering in the snow like Chihuahuas is gonna improve their performance, particularly if the wee little things lose a couple of toes to frostbite in the process? Way to do it Liquigas!
Spanish Doping: yep, it's their fault again, as the German court refereeing the Germans Jan Ullrich/Werner Franke 'secret payment' slander smackdown decides to call in the fine Dr. Eufemiano "It's All for their Health" Fuentes to testify, and Tinkoff reject (and German) Danilo Hondo, lately signed with Simoni's new squad, is warmly lauded by vacuous hypocrite Pat "Dick" McQuaid, who is "confident" the clearly reformed repentant will fully support the fight against doping. Now, not to question Pat "Dick"'s perfect objectivity and fairness here, but if this is indeed the same Danilo Hondo who as I recall was dragged off to his ban kicking and screaming like an overstimulated tantruming toddler, why exactly is Floyd Landis--who after all has at least expressed support for severe doping penalties, if they can be clearly proven--being held up by McQuaid as a monstrous example of the sort of shameless soulsucking scumdwellers draining the life from this beautiful sport?
Charity Begins at Home: finally, in the latest gushing article by our friends at Gazzetta dello Sport, if you cough up just 10--that's right, 10--euros & drop by the home stomping grounds of dearly-missed attempted-doper heartthrob Ivan Basso this weekend, you can actually join Ivan (if you can reach him through thousands of fellow swooning fans) on a charity bike ride to support Casa di Miro, an organization dedicated to helping disabled youths. Following the story of his good works, of course, is yet another lushly adoring update on our solitary soldier's intense training, noting with reverence that he pedals as if he were going to return to triumph in the peloton this very season, and including his faithful split between his time trial and road bikes and centered, nay wholly spiritual, sense of purpose. Y'know, I love Basso, and think that as with Ullrich, the sport is much the lamer without him. But I remain mystified why this pouty pinup boy is getting his halo gilded by the Italian press for copping to the ol' "but I didn't inhale" at most, while the German press ceaselessly pounds on Ullrich to this day for only a slightly less plausible claim, when he's at least retired and has done his own tot-loving charity gigs to boot. Anyhoo, the tifosi, according to the comments page, appeared approximately evenly split between the he's-suffered-enough-free-him-from-his-exile Basso acolytes , and the contemptuous hooting drop-him-down-a-deep-well-without-a-lifejacket pro-Simoni crowd, while by the end of the article, I must confess I too was ready to take up swords to get the tragically oppressed Basso's ban reduced on the basis of his superior virtue. How swiftly the cult of personality swings, like Teen Beat fans between vapid boy bands!
Camp Whythehelldidn'tIsignwithLiquigasinstead: yes, it's that time of year again, as most of the boys meet up with old and new teammates to test new equipment and take those nice team photos (might want to take a few advance mug shots of select individuals to save the trouble later next season, but who am I to suggest it?), Barloworld basks in Tuscany, Liquigas sensibly takes the mineral baths after an unexpected early rendezvous with the UCI vampires (Pippo Pozzato, who was running a day late, excepted), and poor ol' CSC, as usual, gets dropped in the middle of snowpack for two days of hardcore survival training with nothing but a sleeping bag and Bjarne Riis' great good wishes as he, of course, nestles in front of a ski-resort fireplace with a hot toddy. Y'know, I'm all for hoo-rah teambuilding; hell, no one ever got (seriously) hurt falling back blindfolded into the arms of a "trust circle" or schlepping between tree trunks tethered to harnesses. But tell me again how a bunch of tiny body-fat-free defenseless climbers shivering in the snow like Chihuahuas is gonna improve their performance, particularly if the wee little things lose a couple of toes to frostbite in the process? Way to do it Liquigas!
Spanish Doping: yep, it's their fault again, as the German court refereeing the Germans Jan Ullrich/Werner Franke 'secret payment' slander smackdown decides to call in the fine Dr. Eufemiano "It's All for their Health" Fuentes to testify, and Tinkoff reject (and German) Danilo Hondo, lately signed with Simoni's new squad, is warmly lauded by vacuous hypocrite Pat "Dick" McQuaid, who is "confident" the clearly reformed repentant will fully support the fight against doping. Now, not to question Pat "Dick"'s perfect objectivity and fairness here, but if this is indeed the same Danilo Hondo who as I recall was dragged off to his ban kicking and screaming like an overstimulated tantruming toddler, why exactly is Floyd Landis--who after all has at least expressed support for severe doping penalties, if they can be clearly proven--being held up by McQuaid as a monstrous example of the sort of shameless soulsucking scumdwellers draining the life from this beautiful sport?
Charity Begins at Home: finally, in the latest gushing article by our friends at Gazzetta dello Sport, if you cough up just 10--that's right, 10--euros & drop by the home stomping grounds of dearly-missed attempted-doper heartthrob Ivan Basso this weekend, you can actually join Ivan (if you can reach him through thousands of fellow swooning fans) on a charity bike ride to support Casa di Miro, an organization dedicated to helping disabled youths. Following the story of his good works, of course, is yet another lushly adoring update on our solitary soldier's intense training, noting with reverence that he pedals as if he were going to return to triumph in the peloton this very season, and including his faithful split between his time trial and road bikes and centered, nay wholly spiritual, sense of purpose. Y'know, I love Basso, and think that as with Ullrich, the sport is much the lamer without him. But I remain mystified why this pouty pinup boy is getting his halo gilded by the Italian press for copping to the ol' "but I didn't inhale" at most, while the German press ceaselessly pounds on Ullrich to this day for only a slightly less plausible claim, when he's at least retired and has done his own tot-loving charity gigs to boot. Anyhoo, the tifosi, according to the comments page, appeared approximately evenly split between the he's-suffered-enough-free-him-from-his-exile Basso acolytes , and the contemptuous hooting drop-him-down-a-deep-well-without-a-lifejacket pro-Simoni crowd, while by the end of the article, I must confess I too was ready to take up swords to get the tragically oppressed Basso's ban reduced on the basis of his superior virtue. How swiftly the cult of personality swings, like Teen Beat fans between vapid boy bands!
Wednesday, November 28, 2007
Feeeeeed the Riiiiiiiii-ders/
Let Them Know It's Christmastime Again: Yep, as everyone now knows, T-Mobile has finally called it quits, and the timing, I gotta say, seems completely !@$ed up. Bjarne Riis' admission that he doped his way to Tour de France victory? Not so bothersome. Jan Ullrich's spectacular flameout amidst vicious abuse by the German press? A shrug of the shoulders. Admitted dopers Rolf Aldag and Erik Zabel? Mere gnats. Patrik Sinkewitz' 2007 doping poz? Well, we're perhaps a bit irked boys, but we'll get through it together. New manager Bob Stapleton's commitment to clean sport and total decimation of the dirty winning team? Now *that's* the last straw you !@#$%^s, we're *out* of this farce!
Meantime the riders, caught in various states of surprise, appear to remain optimistic, no doubt in part because Bob Stapleton's got more money than God, and not only does big George Hincapie thankfully remain gainfully employed (at least this year) while his team's out searching for new sponsors--and more importantly, trying to find something rather more high-end for the boys to ride than a Wal-Mart Huffy midnight-madness sale special shakily put together by sullen underpaid bike-ignorant teenagers--the team's already reincarnated itself as Team High Road (that'll look great in the headlines when the first rider tests poz for testosterone!) and is already designing new jerseys. Fine, T-Mobile's a filthy tainted cheating pack of lying doping skankmasters, and the paranoiac Stapleton's a sport-loving winged saint reincarnating the squad into jailbait unassailable purity. But let's be honest--between our fallen Golden Boy's careening beauty on the bike, Erik Zabel's endless reign of terror in the sprints, and Vinokorouv and Kloden's nasty backstabbing mid-Tour power plays, am I really the only one who'll miss the glorious wreck that was T-Mobile?
Pimp Iban's Ride(-ing Career): What the @!#$, Spanish Sports Ministry? You've spent the better part of two years letting Alejandro Valverde hide behind your skirts like a cowering naughty toddler, no matter how many times he's linked by cowardly Basso-esque dog-slander to half the blood bag's in Fuentes' humungous stash. Concurrently, I've spent the better part of two years defending your smirking nationalistic protectionism on procedural grounds, as I do firmly believe it's up to UCI to prove a boy's a heretic before actually lighting up the bonfire, else a rider has no protection at all before the irrational selective aim of Pat "Dick" McQuaid's random vendetta-driven Uzi--which lack of objectivity rather tends to shake public confidence in the fairness of the process. And the thanks I get for my faith, despite the high likelihood that Valverde--who still hasn't won you your Grand Tour you continue to hype, incidentally--is in fact the doping troll he's accused of being? Right, out of nowhere you decide to completely pimp poor we love Iban Mayo--whose negative multiple B samples by the UCI's own rules ought to have *exonerated* him--to UCI's endless desperate poz-hunting and the same inordinately incompetent lab monkeys whose work couldn't be duplicated by objective labs in the first place. What the !@#$ has UCI got on you, you spineless Iban-jacking wussbags?!
Meantime the riders, caught in various states of surprise, appear to remain optimistic, no doubt in part because Bob Stapleton's got more money than God, and not only does big George Hincapie thankfully remain gainfully employed (at least this year) while his team's out searching for new sponsors--and more importantly, trying to find something rather more high-end for the boys to ride than a Wal-Mart Huffy midnight-madness sale special shakily put together by sullen underpaid bike-ignorant teenagers--the team's already reincarnated itself as Team High Road (that'll look great in the headlines when the first rider tests poz for testosterone!) and is already designing new jerseys. Fine, T-Mobile's a filthy tainted cheating pack of lying doping skankmasters, and the paranoiac Stapleton's a sport-loving winged saint reincarnating the squad into jailbait unassailable purity. But let's be honest--between our fallen Golden Boy's careening beauty on the bike, Erik Zabel's endless reign of terror in the sprints, and Vinokorouv and Kloden's nasty backstabbing mid-Tour power plays, am I really the only one who'll miss the glorious wreck that was T-Mobile?
Pimp Iban's Ride(-ing Career): What the @!#$, Spanish Sports Ministry? You've spent the better part of two years letting Alejandro Valverde hide behind your skirts like a cowering naughty toddler, no matter how many times he's linked by cowardly Basso-esque dog-slander to half the blood bag's in Fuentes' humungous stash. Concurrently, I've spent the better part of two years defending your smirking nationalistic protectionism on procedural grounds, as I do firmly believe it's up to UCI to prove a boy's a heretic before actually lighting up the bonfire, else a rider has no protection at all before the irrational selective aim of Pat "Dick" McQuaid's random vendetta-driven Uzi--which lack of objectivity rather tends to shake public confidence in the fairness of the process. And the thanks I get for my faith, despite the high likelihood that Valverde--who still hasn't won you your Grand Tour you continue to hype, incidentally--is in fact the doping troll he's accused of being? Right, out of nowhere you decide to completely pimp poor we love Iban Mayo--whose negative multiple B samples by the UCI's own rules ought to have *exonerated* him--to UCI's endless desperate poz-hunting and the same inordinately incompetent lab monkeys whose work couldn't be duplicated by objective labs in the first place. What the !@#$ has UCI got on you, you spineless Iban-jacking wussbags?!
Monday, November 26, 2007
Belgian 'Step Dancing
Ready, Aim...Sing!: so Patrik Sinkewitz, lately poz for doping, recipient of a grueling 1-year suspension, and cruelly forced to donate to charity waaaaaaaay less than the egregious year's salary he piously swore to forfeit by signing UCI's idiot Purity Pledge, has apparently decided to take everyone but other riders down in a howlin' ball o' flames with him, as he first charges that the 2000 Worlds German Jailbait Squad officials damn well knew he doped, and only sent him home when it began to show up in his blood values, and second claims that systemic doping was de rigeur at Patrick Lefevere's Quick Step team from at least 2001-2005, the years of our boy's employment thereon. Um, not to regurgitate earlier unpleasantness, but didn't anyone notice that similar revelations were already made last year by a purportedly then-current QS rider in an article in the Belgian press delicately titled "LEFEVERE: 30 YEARS OF DOPING"? And while Sinkewitz is on the topic, Gerolsteiner's a pack of lying skankbags too, and there's no way short of willful stupidity that Hans-Michael "I'm Pretty Sure We Don't Dope Systematically" Holczer didn't know about it, particularly after someone had the breathtaking lack of discretion to video Davide Rebellin doing it. The impassioned denials? Well, the German cycling fed swears that "the past will be explained," though it concedes some small "mistakes" made by then-Worlds trainer Peter Weibel (what? like "Oops, was that EPO I just jammed into your arm? I meant to pump you full of stored red blood cells instead"?); Lefevere isn't even going to bother with more'n a lukewarm "nuh-uh" til his lawyers have the chance to finesse a statement; and Holczer, a mysterious "this was all explained--just not publicly." Holy crap, is there no end to the utter lack of fat-cat puppeteer accountability in this sport? Well, I gotta admit Pat "Dick" McQuaid, you're clearly spot on with your paranoid "Mafia nation" conspiracy theories--fry those Spanish bastards, I say! Oh, wait...
Mr. Green, in the Drawing Room, With the Candlestick: and, in other Spanish doping news, T-Mobile's Bob Stapleton has allegedly been sending out a pack of subtle sleuths to see if his squad truly knew about the doping it promoted, I mean, that rogue riders acted utterly alone in heinous opposition to the team's righteous principles of total virtue, with Stefan Wesemann claiming both he and Jan Ullrich were approached but sadly knew nothing of management's role, and an irked staffer claiming he'd been chased all the way home like hounds on fox. Goodness, was that actually a pang of sympathy I just felt for Sinkewitz, at least on "what are you Bob, an idiot?" grounds?
Love, Love, Love: meantime, the mutual admiration society over at LPR goes on, as Paolo Savoldelli, evidently unwilling to hit the ol' has-been scrap heap just yet, returns Danilo DiLuca's praise of his amiability and "reasonableness," saying that when he heard the Killer was coming he was "very happy," as a man like that can only improve the squad, extolling their fine rapport, and--here comes trouble in Paradise--noting that it will be the road that decides which of them will be the captain this year. Right on Paolo--if you're gonna get taken out, at least go down in pedal-to-pedal combat!
Gripe o' the Day: so Danilo carphedon-snorting Hondo gets a new gig this season riding with Gilberto Simoni, while Joseba Beloki is freakin' forced into ignominious premature retirement because of his Machiavellian owner's missteps? What kind of lame-@#$ justice is that? Aaaaiiiigggghhhhh!
Mr. Green, in the Drawing Room, With the Candlestick: and, in other Spanish doping news, T-Mobile's Bob Stapleton has allegedly been sending out a pack of subtle sleuths to see if his squad truly knew about the doping it promoted, I mean, that rogue riders acted utterly alone in heinous opposition to the team's righteous principles of total virtue, with Stefan Wesemann claiming both he and Jan Ullrich were approached but sadly knew nothing of management's role, and an irked staffer claiming he'd been chased all the way home like hounds on fox. Goodness, was that actually a pang of sympathy I just felt for Sinkewitz, at least on "what are you Bob, an idiot?" grounds?
Love, Love, Love: meantime, the mutual admiration society over at LPR goes on, as Paolo Savoldelli, evidently unwilling to hit the ol' has-been scrap heap just yet, returns Danilo DiLuca's praise of his amiability and "reasonableness," saying that when he heard the Killer was coming he was "very happy," as a man like that can only improve the squad, extolling their fine rapport, and--here comes trouble in Paradise--noting that it will be the road that decides which of them will be the captain this year. Right on Paolo--if you're gonna get taken out, at least go down in pedal-to-pedal combat!
Gripe o' the Day: so Danilo carphedon-snorting Hondo gets a new gig this season riding with Gilberto Simoni, while Joseba Beloki is freakin' forced into ignominious premature retirement because of his Machiavellian owner's missteps? What kind of lame-@#$ justice is that? Aaaaiiiigggghhhhh!
Friday, November 23, 2007
Poor Landis Roasting on an Open Fire...
...Pat "Dick" Nipping at His Nose: yes, Landis' formal appeal is in, replete with a well-said--if fruitless--plea for fair play (both on wheels, and judicial) in this grotesque farce of a sport, and the arbitrators are chosen: by Landis, one of the team which, in a shocking display of procedural respect, tossed charges against Inigo Landaluze when even the panel itself thought he was a guilty cheating pig; by USADA, predictably, a rabid anti-athlete slobbering pit bull; and, by CAS, an internationally known commercial arbitrator whose palmares, if I googled right, includes allowing the 2000 US Olympic men's relay team keep its medal despite a member of the wider team having tested poz for doping. Well, you've got at least one guy willing to concede the relationship between committing procedural atrocities and totally !@#$ing people over, Floyd--perhaps, particularly if they pay attention to the lab results' apparent substantive flaws as well, you've got something akin to a snowflake's chance in hell on this one!
Then again, even if the moral victory is ultimately Landis'--as I hope it is--what the hell good is it going to do anyway? At best, CAS is saying, he can't hope for a verdict before May--way too late for him to find a team with both the pocket change left to hire him, and enough spine to be willingly ripped to shreds for their perfidy by the press, teams, riders, humiliated sports authorities and, most of all, the outraged cynical joyless fans whose favor the sponsors are, after all, in the game to court in the first place--forget freakin' losing the entire spring Classics season and Giro to use for actual training, even if the righteous hypocrites at ASO'd let him or anyone remotely affiliated with his dirty carcass into the Tour. As for also-!@#$%$ Oscar Pereiro--what, those clowns are going to throw the boy (who after all at least had the sportsmanship not to call for Landis' immolation until the last possible moment) another huge party where this time they force him to hand Landis back the '06 maillot jaune at gunpoint? Yes, yes justice takes time--but where time is distinctly of the essence, must it take so long that Floyd is gonna have to be dug up as some millennia-old mummified archeological artifact before a verdict is reached? Speaking of roasting, I see UCI has graciously held off their bull!@#! analysis on Iban Mayo's Z sample til the boy or his representative can personally be on hand to watch the lab's disgusting self-congratulatory predetermined results flush the tattered remnants of his rebounding career down the toilet. You suck UCI!
I Want Your Sex (To Get Me Out of My Doping Poz): and, (aptly enough, pregnancy-test sponsor) Predictor's suspended Bjorn Leukemans, busted for high testosterone in a surprise pre-Worlds control but defending it on the not-unreasonable grounds that the exact same lab granted him a medical certificate for the exact same "naturally high" testosterone/epitestosterone ratio six years ago, has now taken a new weapon out of his arsenal: he was engaged in the act of love with a companion exactly when the antidoping sniffer dogs banged on his door for a urine test, so natch a few things were ratcheted up hormonally. Despite this compelling, if over-informative, argument, the lab doc has objected that while the boy may indeed be a raging studbucket o' manliness, even those feats of athleticism can't explain the *synthetic* testosterone his geared-up bod apparently produced. Totally aside from the merits of this interesting debate, anyone else prefer that the riders stick with the trusty discreet ol' 'vanishing inhaled twin' defense from now on?
Aw, Rats!: finally, in truly bummin' news, miraculously-recovered young phenom Saul Raisin has announced that his nascent career in cycling is over, as the team doctors at Credit Agricole--which is still honoring his ongoing contract--forbid him from riding in the peloton ever again despite impressive neuro-psych-test results, as the danger to the boy's life is still too great if he should, as riders are so likely to do, take another hit on his head in a crash. Don't give up on this sport entirely Saul--if not ride, surely you could at least inspire either stars of tomorrow, or fellow pro cyclists of today via a ProTour starter-management gig, to do so?
Then again, even if the moral victory is ultimately Landis'--as I hope it is--what the hell good is it going to do anyway? At best, CAS is saying, he can't hope for a verdict before May--way too late for him to find a team with both the pocket change left to hire him, and enough spine to be willingly ripped to shreds for their perfidy by the press, teams, riders, humiliated sports authorities and, most of all, the outraged cynical joyless fans whose favor the sponsors are, after all, in the game to court in the first place--forget freakin' losing the entire spring Classics season and Giro to use for actual training, even if the righteous hypocrites at ASO'd let him or anyone remotely affiliated with his dirty carcass into the Tour. As for also-!@#$%$ Oscar Pereiro--what, those clowns are going to throw the boy (who after all at least had the sportsmanship not to call for Landis' immolation until the last possible moment) another huge party where this time they force him to hand Landis back the '06 maillot jaune at gunpoint? Yes, yes justice takes time--but where time is distinctly of the essence, must it take so long that Floyd is gonna have to be dug up as some millennia-old mummified archeological artifact before a verdict is reached? Speaking of roasting, I see UCI has graciously held off their bull!@#! analysis on Iban Mayo's Z sample til the boy or his representative can personally be on hand to watch the lab's disgusting self-congratulatory predetermined results flush the tattered remnants of his rebounding career down the toilet. You suck UCI!
I Want Your Sex (To Get Me Out of My Doping Poz): and, (aptly enough, pregnancy-test sponsor) Predictor's suspended Bjorn Leukemans, busted for high testosterone in a surprise pre-Worlds control but defending it on the not-unreasonable grounds that the exact same lab granted him a medical certificate for the exact same "naturally high" testosterone/epitestosterone ratio six years ago, has now taken a new weapon out of his arsenal: he was engaged in the act of love with a companion exactly when the antidoping sniffer dogs banged on his door for a urine test, so natch a few things were ratcheted up hormonally. Despite this compelling, if over-informative, argument, the lab doc has objected that while the boy may indeed be a raging studbucket o' manliness, even those feats of athleticism can't explain the *synthetic* testosterone his geared-up bod apparently produced. Totally aside from the merits of this interesting debate, anyone else prefer that the riders stick with the trusty discreet ol' 'vanishing inhaled twin' defense from now on?
Aw, Rats!: finally, in truly bummin' news, miraculously-recovered young phenom Saul Raisin has announced that his nascent career in cycling is over, as the team doctors at Credit Agricole--which is still honoring his ongoing contract--forbid him from riding in the peloton ever again despite impressive neuro-psych-test results, as the danger to the boy's life is still too great if he should, as riders are so likely to do, take another hit on his head in a crash. Don't give up on this sport entirely Saul--if not ride, surely you could at least inspire either stars of tomorrow, or fellow pro cyclists of today via a ProTour starter-management gig, to do so?
Tuesday, November 20, 2007
Crankin' Up the Turkey Fryer
Free Iban!: yes, just in time for Thanksgiving, the pathetic repugnant desperate-for-dignity results-shopping tools over at UCI, having fruitlessly scrounged all the way up the alphabet for a reputable laboratory that would confirm we love Iban Mayo's initial EPO-poz A sample, are sure to be particularly thankful this year for the disgusting incompetent self-laudatory desperate-for-dignity lab chimps over at Chatenay-Malabry, who woofed the tests in the first place (sound familiar to anyone?) and now are due to release their inevitably self-confirmatory results celebrating their initial round of career-destroying crap methodology on Wednesday. Why don't we just consult a defective early-model liquid-leaking !F@#$%^& 8-Ball, for all the accuracy we're likely to get from these nits? Fortunately, the ever-dirty Spaniards--already in the doghouse with the frustrated babies at UCI for protecting that one-man opium den, Alejandro Valverde (shrugging, as to his own case's latest developments, that UCI was already dope-slapped by CAS once, so it's certainly no trouble to do it again)--have rightly taken issue with the idea that the dimmest bulbs in the lamp ought to be able to measure their own brightness, and are threatening to sue UCI and the talentless lab monkeys til they sob like lollipop-deprived toddlers if Mayo is in any way defamed or damaged by tomorrow's revelations. Sure, they've perhaps had a tendency of late to be a mite protectionist of their tainted own--but in this case, right on Spain!
Wait'll Ullrich Sees Us! He Loves Us!: in totally innocent German peloton news, too-smug-to-shut-up Ullrich mentor Rudy Pevenage was apparently secretly audio-recorded by righteous ex-soigneur/book-pimping-ho Jeff D'Hont saying that not only was Jan Ullrich happy to dope in his Tour-snagging time at Telekom, but so was everyone else on the team, whose timid and wholly temporary objections Pevenage was proud to say he'd swiftly overcome to the fine effect on the palmares of all concerned. Meantime, I see Patrik Sinkewitz, who seemingly expected to be utterly feted for his post-bust 'fess-up despite his righteous if unhelpful refusal to name names, is now crying over his monstrous one-year doping sentence, made even more obscene, apparently, by the fact that he's been forced to donate a significant percentage of his monthly Starbucks espresso budget to, of all abominations, charity. Oh, the humanity! Between this season's embarrassing admissions and the long, fine national history of doping now coming to light, can someone explain to me again why Ullrich's the only boy the Germans are pissed at?
Free Paolo!: and, one-time Giro king Danilo DiLuca has officially found a home at LPR with two-time Giro god/inexplicable Johan Bruyneel reject Paolo Savoldelli, leading to a charming interview on Gazzetta dello Sport in which, responding to Savoldelli's earlier gracious welcome, DiLuca warmly complimented Savoldelli as a stellar champion and a fine, intelligent, wholly reasonable rider with whom he is certain to come to an accord on various matters, presumably meaning that, though Savoldelli's taken the Giro twice, DiLuca snagged it in '07 unlike his old-news compatriot, so he sure hopes Paolo's gonna be satisfied with the one thank-you stage win Danilo's likely to give him for shepherding him up and down the Dolomites next year. Get out of there Paolo--bad enough you're stuck in a Continental squad in the twilight of your beautiful career, but you deserve better than this! While we're talking about people Alexander Vinokorouv completely !@$@ed, can someone worthy please give Andreas Kloden a job before my head explodes?
Desperado: incidentally, Gazzetta's also got a bitchin' chat with peerless smack-talkin' lord of the climbs Gilberto Simoni, who not only beautifully expresses true passion for both the mountain and road bikes and his deep and abiding love for the Giro, and notes that whatever his physical age, such things are all just how one feels after all, and there are thus plenty of young riders essentially older than he, but also manages to weigh in on the current state of Italian cycling, admiring the power and potential of ingenue-no-more Damiano Cunego, singing the praises of Next Great Cyclist/protege Riccardo Ricco', humbly claiming his growing yet still woefully uninformed admiration of some other young talents, and, of course, pronouncing yet again that Ivan Basso has disappointed him both as a man and as a rider. Still a little irked over the 'extraterrestri's' weaselling out of a gentleman's agreement (and you out of a stage win) in '06, are we? I love Simoni!
Dream Job: finally, I see the Tour of California is looking for volunteers, specifically Athlete Escorts willing to shepherd the riders off the bike to their immediate rendezvous with the fine officials at the medical tent--a gig for true believers in clean sport, if not, perhaps, for squeamish ones. D'Hont, given your history of hawklike observation and raging sense of vigilante justice, you might actually be able to get a new job in cycling at last!
Wait'll Ullrich Sees Us! He Loves Us!: in totally innocent German peloton news, too-smug-to-shut-up Ullrich mentor Rudy Pevenage was apparently secretly audio-recorded by righteous ex-soigneur/book-pimping-ho Jeff D'Hont saying that not only was Jan Ullrich happy to dope in his Tour-snagging time at Telekom, but so was everyone else on the team, whose timid and wholly temporary objections Pevenage was proud to say he'd swiftly overcome to the fine effect on the palmares of all concerned. Meantime, I see Patrik Sinkewitz, who seemingly expected to be utterly feted for his post-bust 'fess-up despite his righteous if unhelpful refusal to name names, is now crying over his monstrous one-year doping sentence, made even more obscene, apparently, by the fact that he's been forced to donate a significant percentage of his monthly Starbucks espresso budget to, of all abominations, charity. Oh, the humanity! Between this season's embarrassing admissions and the long, fine national history of doping now coming to light, can someone explain to me again why Ullrich's the only boy the Germans are pissed at?
Free Paolo!: and, one-time Giro king Danilo DiLuca has officially found a home at LPR with two-time Giro god/inexplicable Johan Bruyneel reject Paolo Savoldelli, leading to a charming interview on Gazzetta dello Sport in which, responding to Savoldelli's earlier gracious welcome, DiLuca warmly complimented Savoldelli as a stellar champion and a fine, intelligent, wholly reasonable rider with whom he is certain to come to an accord on various matters, presumably meaning that, though Savoldelli's taken the Giro twice, DiLuca snagged it in '07 unlike his old-news compatriot, so he sure hopes Paolo's gonna be satisfied with the one thank-you stage win Danilo's likely to give him for shepherding him up and down the Dolomites next year. Get out of there Paolo--bad enough you're stuck in a Continental squad in the twilight of your beautiful career, but you deserve better than this! While we're talking about people Alexander Vinokorouv completely !@$@ed, can someone worthy please give Andreas Kloden a job before my head explodes?
Desperado: incidentally, Gazzetta's also got a bitchin' chat with peerless smack-talkin' lord of the climbs Gilberto Simoni, who not only beautifully expresses true passion for both the mountain and road bikes and his deep and abiding love for the Giro, and notes that whatever his physical age, such things are all just how one feels after all, and there are thus plenty of young riders essentially older than he, but also manages to weigh in on the current state of Italian cycling, admiring the power and potential of ingenue-no-more Damiano Cunego, singing the praises of Next Great Cyclist/protege Riccardo Ricco', humbly claiming his growing yet still woefully uninformed admiration of some other young talents, and, of course, pronouncing yet again that Ivan Basso has disappointed him both as a man and as a rider. Still a little irked over the 'extraterrestri's' weaselling out of a gentleman's agreement (and you out of a stage win) in '06, are we? I love Simoni!
Dream Job: finally, I see the Tour of California is looking for volunteers, specifically Athlete Escorts willing to shepherd the riders off the bike to their immediate rendezvous with the fine officials at the medical tent--a gig for true believers in clean sport, if not, perhaps, for squeamish ones. D'Hont, given your history of hawklike observation and raging sense of vigilante justice, you might actually be able to get a new job in cycling at last!
Alexander Vinokorouv's Olympic Training and Medical Intervention Center
Vino's Playhouse: so I see Alexander Vinokorouv, lately jobless over some trifling blood doping hoo-ha in which he completely screwed the stellar casualty Andreas Kloden at the Tour so go to hell you soulless selfish bastard, is turning his remaining euros and his attention to the building of a gigantic state-of-the-art Olympic training center in his home stomping grounds in Kazakhstan, with surely a similarly spectacular, if hopefully more discreet, in-house medical clinic stocked with all the absolutely non-performance-enhancing equipment a woefully uncompetitive athlete in the prime of his or her career might need. Hell, why bother schlepping to someplace like Spain, if your reckless stupid ex-manager is only gonna make you look bad to the press when you're clearly pure as snow?
Hope You Read the Fine Print: and, in a lively article in Velonews, new Astana hire Chris Horner starts off his relationship with Johan Bruyneel in smashing form, not only suggesting that Lance Armstrong is too much of a control-freak wussbag to have handled the only American unwilling and unable to constantly shriek "thank you sir, may I have another?" while his !@# gets whacked into submission so that's likely why he never signed the boy, but also opining that despite having implied that Postal/Discovery was clearly a doping cheating hellhole when it had still 5 guys pounding away at the front at the top of every single final climb, it didn't *this* year, so he's very impressed with Johan's obvious commitment to clean sport. Um, I really appreciated the entertainment value of Velonews' insult-baiting, but since it truly is a pleasure to watch you ride, you sure you didn't sign anything along the lines of "slag us and you'll be on a plane home faster'n you can say 'retired'?" Allez Chris!
Hope You Read the Fine Print: and, in a lively article in Velonews, new Astana hire Chris Horner starts off his relationship with Johan Bruyneel in smashing form, not only suggesting that Lance Armstrong is too much of a control-freak wussbag to have handled the only American unwilling and unable to constantly shriek "thank you sir, may I have another?" while his !@# gets whacked into submission so that's likely why he never signed the boy, but also opining that despite having implied that Postal/Discovery was clearly a doping cheating hellhole when it had still 5 guys pounding away at the front at the top of every single final climb, it didn't *this* year, so he's very impressed with Johan's obvious commitment to clean sport. Um, I really appreciated the entertainment value of Velonews' insult-baiting, but since it truly is a pleasure to watch you ride, you sure you didn't sign anything along the lines of "slag us and you'll be on a plane home faster'n you can say 'retired'?" Allez Chris!
Thursday, November 15, 2007
Sex, Lies, and (Thankfully No) Videotape
There's Bike Nuts, and Then There's Bike Nuts: BBC reports (I swear) that 51-year-old Robert Stewart, who was caught trying to, well, do the nasty with his bicycle, has, despite his initial claims that the incident was a mere "misunderstanding," plead guilty to sexually aggravated breach of the peace and been sentenced to three years probation and formal registration as a sex offender. According to the distinctly squicked-out sheriff, our perp was caught in flagrante delicto from the waist down engaging in an explicit act with his ride by two cleaning staff who had, after receiving no response to their knocks, entered his hotel love nest with their master key to clean it (no, I'm not even touching that one, you pervs). In response, Celeste Bianchi, Executive Director of Bicycles Incensed by Kinky Exploitation (BIKE) and herself the mother of two young cruisers, immediately announced the group's support of legislation preventing convicted bike sex offenders, regardless of the model year of the victim, from going within 1000 feet of bike shops, big-box stores, cul-de-sacs, and other locations where tricycles are likely to congregate.
The Blitz Begins: and, self-satisfied German crusader Markus Fothen has lammed into not only Paolo Bettini--blasting him as a disastrous role model for refusing to sign UCI's idiot virginity pledge then taking the World Championship on top of it--but also Patrik Sinkewitz and the luckless Jorg Jaksche (firmly dissed, to date, by both Gerolsteiner and Milram) for their disgusting contributions to the sport's destruction, to which Sinkewitz politely pointed out that such an attitude hardly encourages riders to be honest and help the fight against doping at least once they get caught, and Jaksche's camp less politely called bull!@#$ on the entirely sensible grounds that Fothen himself once tested positive for cortisone, not coincidentally in the days in which "fake medical certificates" for such things were easily obtained. Y'know, I'm grateful for any respite from the constant use of Jan Ullrich for target practice, but is there anyone in the German peloton outside maybe a couple of neo-pros and hopefully Jens Voigt who's really qualified to crack the whip on his (or her) fellows?
Tiii-iiime Is On My Side: with the Giro d'Italia lining up four bruising time trials for 2008, the Tours de France and California piling 'em on, and even Paris-Nice uncharacteristically starting off with a 9.3 kilometer race against the clock, it seems the big races may be favoring the likes of Cancellara, Zabriskie, Leipheimer (and fine, Millar, ugh) in the season ahead, good news for them but craptastic for wee little climbers like we love Carlos Sastre and Tour wonderboy Maurizio Soler. The exception? Naturally, the smashing Vuelta, which though quite defensive on the subject of this past year's undermountained corsa, has announced not only the return of the fearsome Angliru, but also a return to the endless leg-pulverizing climbs that traditionally separate the men from the Menchovs. Woo-hoo! In related news, to the relief of hype-stoking cycling journalists everywhere, evergreen Grand Tour also-ran Alejandro Valvderde sez he's backing off the beautiful spring Classics like Fleche-Wallone and Liege he's bagged of late in favor of a tighter focus on both the Tour and, happily, said Vuelta, in part to prep for the Olympics and Worlds. Venga Alejandro! If you can, that is, because...
World Dope Conference: yes, bitter outgoing WADA prez Dick "Dick" Pound and UCI's Pat "Dick" McQuaid have both taken the predictable opportunity of the current WADA conference to whine about Valverde yet *again* to both the general public and the Spanish sports minister, swearing they've got him this time and it's "far from over", except it is until those clannish protectionists quit crying about such piffles as fairness and cheap innuendo and let them yodel the evidence against him from the rooftops, though unfortunately they're "still gathering" it. Fine, he's Dr. Fuentes' dirty little secret protege, you still lost, get over it! And no, Iban Mayo doesn't count as a consolation prize, so layoff shoppin' for some hack who'll scam you a year-late backup positive on him while we're at it, you weasels!
Suit o' the Week: as a relieved Danilo DiLuca considers ambiguous feelers from Saunier Duval and more concrete proposals from the shameless Lampre and a couple of publicity-starved Continental squads, and two-time Giro god we love Paolo Savoldelli gets grossly wasted as he surprisingly signs with LPR (though he would've been hosed with Astana too--free Kloden!), Michael Rasmussen, whose talks with UCI today apparently didn't go so well, proclaimed Rabobank's protestations that they didn't know where he was in June 2006 "absurd" and, lacking anything better to do after all, announced his immediate intention to sue the bike shorts off just about everybody for everything, including both our aforementioned outfits. Even you *are* a sneaky little dirtbag, Chicken, you were *still* robbed of your Tour by baby Contador by the stupidity and avarice of Rabo and UCI--allez allez!
The Blitz Begins: and, self-satisfied German crusader Markus Fothen has lammed into not only Paolo Bettini--blasting him as a disastrous role model for refusing to sign UCI's idiot virginity pledge then taking the World Championship on top of it--but also Patrik Sinkewitz and the luckless Jorg Jaksche (firmly dissed, to date, by both Gerolsteiner and Milram) for their disgusting contributions to the sport's destruction, to which Sinkewitz politely pointed out that such an attitude hardly encourages riders to be honest and help the fight against doping at least once they get caught, and Jaksche's camp less politely called bull!@#$ on the entirely sensible grounds that Fothen himself once tested positive for cortisone, not coincidentally in the days in which "fake medical certificates" for such things were easily obtained. Y'know, I'm grateful for any respite from the constant use of Jan Ullrich for target practice, but is there anyone in the German peloton outside maybe a couple of neo-pros and hopefully Jens Voigt who's really qualified to crack the whip on his (or her) fellows?
Tiii-iiime Is On My Side: with the Giro d'Italia lining up four bruising time trials for 2008, the Tours de France and California piling 'em on, and even Paris-Nice uncharacteristically starting off with a 9.3 kilometer race against the clock, it seems the big races may be favoring the likes of Cancellara, Zabriskie, Leipheimer (and fine, Millar, ugh) in the season ahead, good news for them but craptastic for wee little climbers like we love Carlos Sastre and Tour wonderboy Maurizio Soler. The exception? Naturally, the smashing Vuelta, which though quite defensive on the subject of this past year's undermountained corsa, has announced not only the return of the fearsome Angliru, but also a return to the endless leg-pulverizing climbs that traditionally separate the men from the Menchovs. Woo-hoo! In related news, to the relief of hype-stoking cycling journalists everywhere, evergreen Grand Tour also-ran Alejandro Valvderde sez he's backing off the beautiful spring Classics like Fleche-Wallone and Liege he's bagged of late in favor of a tighter focus on both the Tour and, happily, said Vuelta, in part to prep for the Olympics and Worlds. Venga Alejandro! If you can, that is, because...
World Dope Conference: yes, bitter outgoing WADA prez Dick "Dick" Pound and UCI's Pat "Dick" McQuaid have both taken the predictable opportunity of the current WADA conference to whine about Valverde yet *again* to both the general public and the Spanish sports minister, swearing they've got him this time and it's "far from over", except it is until those clannish protectionists quit crying about such piffles as fairness and cheap innuendo and let them yodel the evidence against him from the rooftops, though unfortunately they're "still gathering" it. Fine, he's Dr. Fuentes' dirty little secret protege, you still lost, get over it! And no, Iban Mayo doesn't count as a consolation prize, so layoff shoppin' for some hack who'll scam you a year-late backup positive on him while we're at it, you weasels!
Suit o' the Week: as a relieved Danilo DiLuca considers ambiguous feelers from Saunier Duval and more concrete proposals from the shameless Lampre and a couple of publicity-starved Continental squads, and two-time Giro god we love Paolo Savoldelli gets grossly wasted as he surprisingly signs with LPR (though he would've been hosed with Astana too--free Kloden!), Michael Rasmussen, whose talks with UCI today apparently didn't go so well, proclaimed Rabobank's protestations that they didn't know where he was in June 2006 "absurd" and, lacking anything better to do after all, announced his immediate intention to sue the bike shorts off just about everybody for everything, including both our aforementioned outfits. Even you *are* a sneaky little dirtbag, Chicken, you were *still* robbed of your Tour by baby Contador by the stupidity and avarice of Rabo and UCI--allez allez!
Wednesday, November 14, 2007
Turnin' the Screws
You've Come a Long Way, Baby (Not That the New York Times Would Know It): in response to IOC honcho Patrice Brunet's call to arms in purging the cycling world and its verminous riders of evil, Floyd Landis, once upon a time a virtual deer in the headlights in the immediate post-'poz' '06 Tour de France media flipout, has, with over a year of playing defense under his belt, written a graceful and impassioned call for due process, specifically for holding the shamefully low-rent biasfest doping prosecutions over at USADA and WADA to the same stringent (and still not foolproof, but certainly a step above "if the witch sinks and drowns, she's innocent") standards as, say, the feds are held to in the real world. Particularly, he opines, it might be nice for an athlete to see the evidence against him without having to spend 10 months and hundreds of thousands of euros (and woe to those lacking either time or team-leader cash reserves) to get what any stumbling incoherent meth-snarfing stoner on "Cops" gets without blinking a bloodshot stuporous eyeball. While we're at it, it might have been nice not to bushwhack Landis with a crap suspension start date in reward for being force-fed his "agreement" not to race on spotless French soil in return for the French vultures generously postponing his hearing there until he was free enough of USADA's clutches to actually make his way back to the country for it. Ah, after all he's been through, still such innocence! And his reward, for trying to save others if not himself? A smug article in the New York Times lauding the heartwarming post-red-handed-bust (literal) jailhouse conversion of St. David Millar, who cried soulfully amidst the rats in his Biarritz cell as the guards apologized for the unfortunate inconvenience to such a fine human being, "My God, what have I become?!" Anyone else getting unpleasant flashbacks to a key scene from "Jesus Christ Superstar" here? I know I'm ready to drop to my knees and start wailing. Anyhoo, in between misty-eyed tributes and a brief discussion of Slipstream's stringent anti-doping plans (and we all know how well those work, right T-Mobile?)--everyone's based in Girona, no training alone to avoid temptation, everyone gets an easily-tracked Blackberry, e-registering all whereabouts at all times with WADA--and an an even briefer mention of such monster Slipstream talents as big Maggie Backstedt and Dave Zabriskie, the Times of course slags recent peloton scumdoers, including a couple of anonymous "top riders" at the Tour this year (and I object to Iban Mayo not being included in that tally, at least for quality purposes!), some whiner from Astana who's complaining about his human rights violations, and--the only one mentioned by name of course--the "disgraced" Floyd Landis, "banned for testing positive for testosterone" on the way to sleazily taking the race. Floyd, you might send your little editorial over to the contextless tools at the Times sports pages. Free Landis (and Iban)!
Monday, November 12, 2007
An Inconvenient Truth, or Two
Rabobank Lied, and It's Still All Rasmussen's Fault: yes, the 'independent panel' of private eyes convened by Rabobank has confirmed that, as Michael Rasmussen said, it did in fact know where he was when he was, that he was utterly bs'ing UCI about his whereabouts, and that he was consequently missing doping controls; that under those circumstances Team Skeezbag ought never have allowed the Chicken to start the Tour de France in the first place; UCI should never have let him in either knowing full well such tactics might totally coincidentally allow a rider time to vacation with the dope provider of his choice, though there's still no evidence the boy did so; and, somehow, the fact that Rabobank and UCI deliberately let a preestablished liar and test-evader enter, race, grab the maillot jaune in, and damn near take the top podium spot at the Tour de France til this all inconveniently went public and Rabo and UCI were unexpectedly obliged to run screaming from their handiwork in the opposite direction, is still all Rasmussen's fault. I'm not saying it's not at all--hell, he's hardly some starstruck jailbait Liberty Seguros pickup-- but is this cowardly sport ever going to hold their corrupt hypocritical overseers, slimedwellling team management, or, heaven forbid, their willfully ignorant (or outright collusive) cash-cow sponsors to account? Right, lookin' forward to that! Happily, though, Rasmussen intends to respond after a thorough review and lawyering-up process on Wednesday, allowing him plenty of time to "straighten things out" with UCI as he's always intended to. Note to Michael: admission of wrongdoing on their part, I can say with some small confidence, is mighty unlikely. And they're not gonna give you a reduced penalty (for embarrassing the crap out of 'em--forget the comparatively minor sin of breaking your Boy Scout honesty oath) just because they're exactly as guilty in this whole pathetic affair as you are, either. Have fun sitting there while they're stoking up the bonfire, though!
Dammit!: and, as Rasmussen and DiLuca languish in the netherworld of the Seventh Circle of Hell (reserved, it seems, for those presumed of but unable to be nailed for actual doping, unless you're Alejandro Valverde--damn, guys, hire that boy's manager at any cost!), quiet 2005 Vuelta king Roberto Heras has, despite "several" reasonably acceptable Continental offers on the table, glumly pronounced his depression at the "state of cycling in the world today," and is, despite his imminently permissible return to the peloton, within mere seconds of announcing his retirement and packing it in. Dammit! Fine, he's a guilty dirtbag, yap yap yap. But if he hasn't gone around crying like a Miss America contestant for the cameras every ten seconds like St. David Millar (and self-preserving reticence will always earn points over self-promoting wah-wahs, in my book, even assuming he's an EPO-snorting bucket o' forbidden pleasures as I do), at least he's sucked it up despite his initially-ambiguous B-sample which should have tanked his suspension entirely while we're at it and served his time. Must it end like this?! Aiiiigggghhhh!
The Second Inconvenient Truth: which brings us to a hard-to-take reality in this gorgeous sport: let's face it, the current, near-empty peloton almost completely blows thanks to the latest round of revelations from '06 through today, and the sport's clearly still as clean as the floor of a factory pig farm on a bad day and rife with filthy cheating superstars and lesser domestiques alike nonetheless--and they're not just all in their 30s, so let's cut the !@#$ about how pure the new generation of riders is, shall we? Let's review the lost boys. The cool, elegant Ivan Basso. The glorious trainwreck that is Jan Ullrich. Danilo DiLuca. Rasmussen. Erik Zabel, who by some miracle and the sheer nostalgia of the hypocrite powers-that-be is still riding. Heras, if you'll be so kind as to block out his ridiculous improvement in the time trial in '05 and just watch him climb in re-runs. Joseba Beloki (don't even get me started on that travesty--nice work, Saiz!). Vinokorouv, a total bastard for selfishly destroying Andreas Kloden's career but, let's be fair, a smashingly entertaining and unpredictable presence in the saddle. And let's count Kloden while we're at it, who's been accused of nothing but wrecked nonetheless, no stranger to bushwhacking either but an inevitable winner of the Tour de France if let off the leash. Human rights crusader Kashechkin, who would've broken free eventually of Vino and his mere occasionally permitted stage win. Matthias Kessler. Patrik Sinkewitz, a fine, attack-happy up-and-comer. Heck, even the goofily inarticulate Floyd Landis, who while not as flashy as some, was (and, one hopes, will be again) nonetheless a quiet, relentless thrill to watch at work. While I'm sure it was right to purge them (Landis, Kloden and Beloki excepted), and I feel incredibly sorry for the (by Jorg Jaksche's count) 5 or so percent of the peloton who's constantly jacked out of winning honestly, when you look at the people who are still riding, and the astonishing amount of deliberate skankball tactics still poisoning the peloton, so far as I can tell, this sport's been completely decimated both quality-and-personality-wise to no productive effect. Add to that, the Simonis, Bettinis and Julichs who'll be calling it quits after next year. Man, if that smack-talking upstart Daniele Bennati ever goes down for any reason, we might as well pack it up and stick a pack of Stepford Wives in the remaining boys' places at the press conferences from here on out. No, I'm not excusing anybody--but is really such heresy to be honest about being bummed about it?
Dammit!: and, as Rasmussen and DiLuca languish in the netherworld of the Seventh Circle of Hell (reserved, it seems, for those presumed of but unable to be nailed for actual doping, unless you're Alejandro Valverde--damn, guys, hire that boy's manager at any cost!), quiet 2005 Vuelta king Roberto Heras has, despite "several" reasonably acceptable Continental offers on the table, glumly pronounced his depression at the "state of cycling in the world today," and is, despite his imminently permissible return to the peloton, within mere seconds of announcing his retirement and packing it in. Dammit! Fine, he's a guilty dirtbag, yap yap yap. But if he hasn't gone around crying like a Miss America contestant for the cameras every ten seconds like St. David Millar (and self-preserving reticence will always earn points over self-promoting wah-wahs, in my book, even assuming he's an EPO-snorting bucket o' forbidden pleasures as I do), at least he's sucked it up despite his initially-ambiguous B-sample which should have tanked his suspension entirely while we're at it and served his time. Must it end like this?! Aiiiigggghhhh!
The Second Inconvenient Truth: which brings us to a hard-to-take reality in this gorgeous sport: let's face it, the current, near-empty peloton almost completely blows thanks to the latest round of revelations from '06 through today, and the sport's clearly still as clean as the floor of a factory pig farm on a bad day and rife with filthy cheating superstars and lesser domestiques alike nonetheless--and they're not just all in their 30s, so let's cut the !@#$ about how pure the new generation of riders is, shall we? Let's review the lost boys. The cool, elegant Ivan Basso. The glorious trainwreck that is Jan Ullrich. Danilo DiLuca. Rasmussen. Erik Zabel, who by some miracle and the sheer nostalgia of the hypocrite powers-that-be is still riding. Heras, if you'll be so kind as to block out his ridiculous improvement in the time trial in '05 and just watch him climb in re-runs. Joseba Beloki (don't even get me started on that travesty--nice work, Saiz!). Vinokorouv, a total bastard for selfishly destroying Andreas Kloden's career but, let's be fair, a smashingly entertaining and unpredictable presence in the saddle. And let's count Kloden while we're at it, who's been accused of nothing but wrecked nonetheless, no stranger to bushwhacking either but an inevitable winner of the Tour de France if let off the leash. Human rights crusader Kashechkin, who would've broken free eventually of Vino and his mere occasionally permitted stage win. Matthias Kessler. Patrik Sinkewitz, a fine, attack-happy up-and-comer. Heck, even the goofily inarticulate Floyd Landis, who while not as flashy as some, was (and, one hopes, will be again) nonetheless a quiet, relentless thrill to watch at work. While I'm sure it was right to purge them (Landis, Kloden and Beloki excepted), and I feel incredibly sorry for the (by Jorg Jaksche's count) 5 or so percent of the peloton who's constantly jacked out of winning honestly, when you look at the people who are still riding, and the astonishing amount of deliberate skankball tactics still poisoning the peloton, so far as I can tell, this sport's been completely decimated both quality-and-personality-wise to no productive effect. Add to that, the Simonis, Bettinis and Julichs who'll be calling it quits after next year. Man, if that smack-talking upstart Daniele Bennati ever goes down for any reason, we might as well pack it up and stick a pack of Stepford Wives in the remaining boys' places at the press conferences from here on out. No, I'm not excusing anybody--but is really such heresy to be honest about being bummed about it?
Saturday, November 10, 2007
Why, You Lying Little !@#$%^!
Except, You're Actually Not: yep, in the wake of Michael Rasmussen's little claim that Rabobank knew exactly where he was the whole time they were "shocked" he wasn't in Mexico, Rabo's spokes-tool has been sheepishly forced to admit that indeed, they *did* in fact know where the Chicken was as he justly alleged--but boy, if that little climbing twerp didn't even set foot in Mexico as they thought he might have for a split second between jaunts to Italy, was the team ever right to fire his scrawny lying !@#! Still, they remained determined to bushwhack the boy with *something* apparently, as they snarkily don't intend to give Rasmussen their Top Secret Report until 9am the morning of the press conference. Um, and that changes that you knew where he was the whole time exactly how? Meantime, Pat "Dick" McQuaid--oblivious as always to his complete rewrite of recent, easily verifiable recorded history--has as usual been unable to resist weighing in, hollering that Rasmussen has "no place in cycling" and, what's more, UCI damn well ought to ban him for two years (to save face), as "a lie is no different from a positive doping test." Oh, please, you repugnant blowhard chest-thumping disingenuous dirtbags! Rabo--you needed him, you wanted him, you gave him a pass for the Grand Boucle even knowing what he was up to--wah, wah, you were busted, you've now copped to it, face the music already! Pat "Dick", you and UCI sure thought Rasmussen "belonged in cycling" when you let him ride & seize the maillot jaune in the Tour de France (and damn near let him schlep it to Paris) knowing full well he was bs'ing you about his whereabouts when you couldn't freakin' find him for his pre-Tour doping controls--wah, wah, we trusted to luck this wouldn't go public and wreck our otherwise nearly starless Tour just as fans and press started getting excited again--you bet wrong, now suck it up! Y'know, I'm not excusing what Rasmussen did--nor at all assuming that he was just attending to "marital issues" at the time, though I sincerely hope those clear up-- but it seems to me that while a lying-possibly-doping cheat is a pathetic dime-a-dozen in this beautiful disgraced cesspool of a sport, UCI and Rabobank's rank hypocrisy in the face of their obvious collusion in this travesty is even worse. Lucky for them though, CSC's fine expert has carefully studied the stage-by-stage Tour blood values Rasmussen released, and pronounced them "suspicious," so as one might predict, no matter how much Rabo and UCI did to enable this ridiculous farce, they're almost sure to escape anyone's notice, much less any actual culpability. Ugh. Anyone else tempted to offer a gigantic reward to anyone who forces these two-faced freaks to endure a tenth of the career-tanking penalties and public abuse they so happily heap on the riders?
Lanced: and, I see the massive gravity-suck of Lance Armstrong's ego has blotted out yet another of his selfless lieutenants, as Chechu Rubiera, who was smashingly capable of winning (and did indeed win) races in his own right before his Postal service ground him into the dust, incredibly finds himself without a contract for next year, and, what's worse, dragged down by his other jobless teammates (not to mention the many tainted goods still left over from Op Puerto in '06) as a surfeit of talent both gluts and cheapens the peloton. Yes, he's no toddling baby Contador--but he's proven this season that despite his creeping age he still has enough skill and power to be worth at least another year in the saddle. And this is his reward for being your total slave through the grinding agony of endless mountain stages for 5 consecutive Tour de Frances? Ditch that damn Olsen twin off your lap Lance, pay back the debts you owe your lowly ex-teammates, and get that faithful boy a job!
Lanced: and, I see the massive gravity-suck of Lance Armstrong's ego has blotted out yet another of his selfless lieutenants, as Chechu Rubiera, who was smashingly capable of winning (and did indeed win) races in his own right before his Postal service ground him into the dust, incredibly finds himself without a contract for next year, and, what's worse, dragged down by his other jobless teammates (not to mention the many tainted goods still left over from Op Puerto in '06) as a surfeit of talent both gluts and cheapens the peloton. Yes, he's no toddling baby Contador--but he's proven this season that despite his creeping age he still has enough skill and power to be worth at least another year in the saddle. And this is his reward for being your total slave through the grinding agony of endless mountain stages for 5 consecutive Tour de Frances? Ditch that damn Olsen twin off your lap Lance, pay back the debts you owe your lowly ex-teammates, and get that faithful boy a job!
Thursday, November 08, 2007
Rasmussen Speaks! (Not About What You're Really Interested In, Though)
Family Leave: yes, gazzetta's got today's press conference--staged as a preemptive strike to Rabobank's announcement of the results of its "internal report" of the Rasmussen scandal scheduled for next Monday--and the Chicken indeed lied to UCI and the trusting tifosi when he said he was in Mexico in June, when he was in fact, as hallway-monitor Davide Cassini rightly claimed, in Italy (as well as France). The reason for the deception that totally coincidentally allowed him to bail on a couple of key pre-Tour doping tests? None of your damn beeswax--enigmatically, he'll cop to lying for "marital reasons," but that's all you're gonna get you disgusting rumormongering salacious press scum, because he must protect his family at all costs. What's more, it's an "absurdity" that those hypocrite pigs at Rabobank kicked him out of the Tour when UCI freakishly waited til the third week in to bust him for stuff they knew perfectly well he'd done a month earlier, because whatever bull!@#$ Rabo's selling you now, they knew *exactly* where he was at every moment. And the obvious question? He ain't answerin' that either! Anyone else getting wee little Ivan Basso "I only attempted to dope" vibes here?
Money (That's What I Want): and, I see jobless-disgruntled-broke'n'desperate-ex-soigneur-to-the-stars Jeff d'Hont's written yet another book dope-smacking poor (literally, if you consider what he apparently paid to the fine Dr. Fuentes) Jan Ullrich, charging that our boy took EPO throughout 1996. Wait a minute...didn't retired Dutch racing legend Bo Hamburger just cop to using EPO in the 90s, and claim that "everyone else" did too, so in fact "there was a level playing field" anyway? He must mean "everyone" but Lance Armstrong. Anyhoo, in light of this revelation, and even assuming that D'Hont's telling the truth (not that it seems farfetched), did our innocent little Jan really do so wrong--or at least so wrong that he's the only star in his early 30s who ought to have his @#$ hissed out of the peloton?
Equivocating Wanker Quote o' The Day: Gerolsteiner manager Hans Michael Holczer on T-Mobile's organized doping being a like problem at his squad--"I can practicallly deny the possibility, but of course I can't guarantee it." What?! Please, please tell me this is merely a problem of halfwit translation (not mine--mine's Italian), and it hasn't really escaped this clown's notice that Gerolsteiner is *his own* !@#$ing team, so if there's a line of baby-blue riders outside a Gerolsteiner-reserved hotel room with a doc on hand and a passel of syringes replacing the mini liquor bottles in the little fridge, he and his lackeys're the ones most likely to have organized it? Damn, is there no limit to the free pass the DSes and managers get from this sport?!
Goldmine: yep, the gag is off, and forensic toxicology god/key Landis witness Bruce Goldberger is finally talking about the "garbage" work done by the French lab chimps, though unfortunately for Floyd the arbitrators apparently accepted that analysis and were really only persuaded by the B sample (itself a trainwreck of excruciating proportions). Still and all, our hero's at least got a man of impeccable reputation like we love Phil Liggett on his side defending his honor--I'm sure that makes up for having your career wrecked and your place in history completely destroyed by the brainless self-interested desperate hijinks of a pack of nimrod witchhunting incompetents!
Babes in Arms: finally, in non-doping news (jinx!--now I've done it, we're doomed!), as big George Hincapie takes his young mentee Craig Lewis over to T-Mobile from Slipstream, baby Giro podium wunderkind (and patient Tour de France prospect) Andy Schleck's apparently set to stick with CSC the next two seasons, along with his exceedingly talented big brother Frank, setting up a truly smashing lineup for the team for the foreseeable future with its other new addition, the utterly underrated Brad McGee. Okay, Bjarne's really been ticking me off of late--and I still think he's an @#$ for losing we love Dave Zabriskie and jacking Bobby Julich last Tour--but even I can be nice about some damn sensible other pickups. Allez Schlecks!
Money (That's What I Want): and, I see jobless-disgruntled-broke'n'desperate-ex-soigneur-to-the-stars Jeff d'Hont's written yet another book dope-smacking poor (literally, if you consider what he apparently paid to the fine Dr. Fuentes) Jan Ullrich, charging that our boy took EPO throughout 1996. Wait a minute...didn't retired Dutch racing legend Bo Hamburger just cop to using EPO in the 90s, and claim that "everyone else" did too, so in fact "there was a level playing field" anyway? He must mean "everyone" but Lance Armstrong. Anyhoo, in light of this revelation, and even assuming that D'Hont's telling the truth (not that it seems farfetched), did our innocent little Jan really do so wrong--or at least so wrong that he's the only star in his early 30s who ought to have his @#$ hissed out of the peloton?
Equivocating Wanker Quote o' The Day: Gerolsteiner manager Hans Michael Holczer on T-Mobile's organized doping being a like problem at his squad--"I can practicallly deny the possibility, but of course I can't guarantee it." What?! Please, please tell me this is merely a problem of halfwit translation (not mine--mine's Italian), and it hasn't really escaped this clown's notice that Gerolsteiner is *his own* !@#$ing team, so if there's a line of baby-blue riders outside a Gerolsteiner-reserved hotel room with a doc on hand and a passel of syringes replacing the mini liquor bottles in the little fridge, he and his lackeys're the ones most likely to have organized it? Damn, is there no limit to the free pass the DSes and managers get from this sport?!
Goldmine: yep, the gag is off, and forensic toxicology god/key Landis witness Bruce Goldberger is finally talking about the "garbage" work done by the French lab chimps, though unfortunately for Floyd the arbitrators apparently accepted that analysis and were really only persuaded by the B sample (itself a trainwreck of excruciating proportions). Still and all, our hero's at least got a man of impeccable reputation like we love Phil Liggett on his side defending his honor--I'm sure that makes up for having your career wrecked and your place in history completely destroyed by the brainless self-interested desperate hijinks of a pack of nimrod witchhunting incompetents!
Babes in Arms: finally, in non-doping news (jinx!--now I've done it, we're doomed!), as big George Hincapie takes his young mentee Craig Lewis over to T-Mobile from Slipstream, baby Giro podium wunderkind (and patient Tour de France prospect) Andy Schleck's apparently set to stick with CSC the next two seasons, along with his exceedingly talented big brother Frank, setting up a truly smashing lineup for the team for the foreseeable future with its other new addition, the utterly underrated Brad McGee. Okay, Bjarne's really been ticking me off of late--and I still think he's an @#$ for losing we love Dave Zabriskie and jacking Bobby Julich last Tour--but even I can be nice about some damn sensible other pickups. Allez Schlecks!
Tuesday, November 06, 2007
I Will Gladly Pay You Tuesday...
For a New Team Kit Today: yep, poor loser Giro god Danilo DiLuca--tainted not, oddly enough, by his disturbingly girlish testosterone levels at the Giro, but because he knew a doctor UCI itself let loose in the peloton even after it knew damn well he was associated with doping--has been reduced to pimping pieces of himself to various (and quite pragmatic)Italian companies, hoping to make himself such a cheap date that even a skittish ProTour sponsor'll be willing take on a lowly Grand Tour winner if it'll only have to shell out a few bucks on chamois cream to get him. Oh Danilo. If you can't snag a riding gig for next season--which'd be the most idiotic thing I've ever heard, considering the other one-man-pharmacies still cavorting in the peloton--at least you've got some runway experience, so maybe there's a gig for you over at next season's "America's Most Smartest Model" anyway!
Welcome Mat: and, in vaguely related news, Eki has demurred on the question of whether Savoldelli (who gazzetta reported re-signing already) or Andreas Kloden will be staying with Discovery-I-Mean-Astana, anticipating a tough first year as the team remains stuck with its inherited Vino-picked flotsam and leaving the question for Johan to answer, raising the serious concern that if Danilo DiLuca can't get a new team, a guy who hasn't personally taken the top spot on a Grand Tour podium to date but has managed to associate himself with two of the most disgraced yellow and gold jersey winners in recent history--forget some lame-@$$ support doc--is completely doomed. That, and by my count so far we've got at a minimum Saunier Duval, Rabobank, Barloworld and Slipstream already closing rosters for the season. Hmmm, I suppose T-Mobile's rather unlikely...
Running Man: so, as T-Mobile reconsiders its sponsorship in light of the Sinkewitz debacle despite Bob Stapleton's sweetly naive commitment to purity for the '07 squad, I see that while confessed dope fiend Rolf Aldag's continued association with the team is naturally therefore "in trouble," Aldag still managed to pull off a better recent marathon time than Lance Armstrong, reassuring all his old fans that though Lance "never tested positive for anything," Rolf's efforts at least paid off somewhere. See where that tinkering with celebrity youngsters gets you Lance even with all those pretty test results? Given Aldag's apparent relative lack of income-generating star power (and fine service on behalf of Jan Ullrich), I say allez Rolf!
So Let It Be Written, So Let it Be Done: in Tour news, by the by, I see (courtesy of the inexhaustible folks over at trustbutverify, who even more amazingly seem to understand what they're posting, something far beyond my pathetic capacity) that Floyd Landis has released a whole host of arbitration documents, readying himself and the cycling public for his day with CAS where any victory on his part is sure to come waaaaaaaay after it's too late for him to participate in, much less be in shape for, the 2008 Tour de France. Does it even matter that this whole thing's been a complete farce start to finish at this point? Free Floyd!
League of Justice: meantime, Andrei Kashechkin takes his crusade for human rights to a Belgian court today, outraged at the egregious evil of waterboarding, I mean, a private organization like WADA and UCI testing riders who voluntarily choose to get paid millions of euros voluntarily participating in their sanctioned races. Y'know, coming from a country where workers have about as much right to be free of their employers' requirements as they have not to let the door hit them on @$$ on the way out when they complain about it, this seems completely ridiculous to me, but apparently my colleagues over in the considerably more enlightened EU find this actually plausible, so if Kashechkin ultimately wins his case as well as his inevitable Nobel prize, I think we can all just forget any kind of doping controls entirely til the various state bureaucracies get their act together ten years from now, and simply line up the boys at the start line with their syringe-bearing pals in lab coats and openly juice 'em up from the get-go. Hell, if a few dope-carrying little soigneurs accidentally get stampeded as the race heads out, that's not such a great price to pay for an exciting day on the roads, right?
Quote o' the Week: without question, the peerless Paolo Bettini to the hapless Patrik Sinkewitz, the day after the press claimed Sinkewitz ratted out Bettini as his doping provider but before the boy had time to shriek out his fervent denial: "if it was you that said it then you will be crying." Who knew such a wee little Cricket could give such a big roar?
Welcome Mat: and, in vaguely related news, Eki has demurred on the question of whether Savoldelli (who gazzetta reported re-signing already) or Andreas Kloden will be staying with Discovery-I-Mean-Astana, anticipating a tough first year as the team remains stuck with its inherited Vino-picked flotsam and leaving the question for Johan to answer, raising the serious concern that if Danilo DiLuca can't get a new team, a guy who hasn't personally taken the top spot on a Grand Tour podium to date but has managed to associate himself with two of the most disgraced yellow and gold jersey winners in recent history--forget some lame-@$$ support doc--is completely doomed. That, and by my count so far we've got at a minimum Saunier Duval, Rabobank, Barloworld and Slipstream already closing rosters for the season. Hmmm, I suppose T-Mobile's rather unlikely...
Running Man: so, as T-Mobile reconsiders its sponsorship in light of the Sinkewitz debacle despite Bob Stapleton's sweetly naive commitment to purity for the '07 squad, I see that while confessed dope fiend Rolf Aldag's continued association with the team is naturally therefore "in trouble," Aldag still managed to pull off a better recent marathon time than Lance Armstrong, reassuring all his old fans that though Lance "never tested positive for anything," Rolf's efforts at least paid off somewhere. See where that tinkering with celebrity youngsters gets you Lance even with all those pretty test results? Given Aldag's apparent relative lack of income-generating star power (and fine service on behalf of Jan Ullrich), I say allez Rolf!
So Let It Be Written, So Let it Be Done: in Tour news, by the by, I see (courtesy of the inexhaustible folks over at trustbutverify, who even more amazingly seem to understand what they're posting, something far beyond my pathetic capacity) that Floyd Landis has released a whole host of arbitration documents, readying himself and the cycling public for his day with CAS where any victory on his part is sure to come waaaaaaaay after it's too late for him to participate in, much less be in shape for, the 2008 Tour de France. Does it even matter that this whole thing's been a complete farce start to finish at this point? Free Floyd!
League of Justice: meantime, Andrei Kashechkin takes his crusade for human rights to a Belgian court today, outraged at the egregious evil of waterboarding, I mean, a private organization like WADA and UCI testing riders who voluntarily choose to get paid millions of euros voluntarily participating in their sanctioned races. Y'know, coming from a country where workers have about as much right to be free of their employers' requirements as they have not to let the door hit them on @$$ on the way out when they complain about it, this seems completely ridiculous to me, but apparently my colleagues over in the considerably more enlightened EU find this actually plausible, so if Kashechkin ultimately wins his case as well as his inevitable Nobel prize, I think we can all just forget any kind of doping controls entirely til the various state bureaucracies get their act together ten years from now, and simply line up the boys at the start line with their syringe-bearing pals in lab coats and openly juice 'em up from the get-go. Hell, if a few dope-carrying little soigneurs accidentally get stampeded as the race heads out, that's not such a great price to pay for an exciting day on the roads, right?
Quote o' the Week: without question, the peerless Paolo Bettini to the hapless Patrik Sinkewitz, the day after the press claimed Sinkewitz ratted out Bettini as his doping provider but before the boy had time to shriek out his fervent denial: "if it was you that said it then you will be crying." Who knew such a wee little Cricket could give such a big roar?
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