I Fought the Law, And...You Know How That Goes: well, USADA miraculously managed to hold an entire cross-exam of Floyd Landis without once questioning him about actual doping, predictably playing instead to the nimrod soundbite-sucking press by slamming Landis on the colossal irrelevancies of (1) his manager's scumly stupidity; (2) Landis' alleged attempt to brush it under the rug and (3) Landis' trying to intimidate Greg LeMond by deliberately wearing a dark suit and tie. Gimme a break, you freaks--not only should Landis be outright congratulated for improving his sartorial sense from his backwards-baseball-cap 7-11 hangout wear, but does USADA's lawyer really think LeMond is such a candy-ass? Landis' camp, meantime, sensibly struck back with an expert who demolished the French lab chimps for their impressive inability to conduct testing, or, for that matter, even operate and understand the applicable software. God, could anyone even trust these nits with an eighth-grade science-class worm dissection? The closing arguments, meanwhile, slammed Landis yet again for being a real, real meanie, and on Landis' side, still remained focused on the science. Even if Landis is a doping testosterone-inhaling weasel--and it's USADA's job to prove that he is, which they seem sorely to have botched--at least I can halfway respect his legal team! Ah well, on to appeals....
8675309: no, not the Tommy TuTone one-hit wonder--it's the total number of longtime T-Mobile, I mean Telekom, riders who've now copped to long-term systematic doping in the 90s! And now that these boys are all the guardians of the vestal virgins over at T-Mobile Gerolsteiner and Astana, among others, they're all going to be thrown to the lions in light of the teams' zero-tolerance policy and the need to set a good example to the current riders, right? Wrong! T-Mobile's Bob Stapleton, for one, is just swooning over Rolf "I Never Took Anything" Aldag now that he's confessed he actually did, and in fact, it's indicative of just how forthright, honest, and worthy of leading the team's current crop of squeaky-clean racers he truly is, at least while the team's inconveniently between dope-providing team doctors while their old ones clean up their little mess in Freiburg. And Gerolsteiner? Well, they're not quite so happy, but they, too, cherish anyone with the guts and longtime guilty conscience to confess a day after they're already exposed in the newspapers, so it looks like pretty much every DS in the ProTour can hit the stage with Dr. Phil tomorrow for a St. Millar after-the-fact wah-wah confessional and still keep the paychecks a-rollin'. If there's anything I respect, it's that sort of dedication to clean sport that these teams all embody!
Buon Anniversario!: To Manolo "Briefcase? What Briefcase?" Saiz and & Dr. Eufemiano "It's Just Vitamins! I Swear!" Fuentes on the 1 year celebration of the Op Puerto bust. Y'know, in retrospect, I still feel entirely justified, if mortifying naive, in yelling "Liberty Seguros, how could you?" into the team car at last year's Giro after the scandal broke (and if I'd known then that that cowardly troll Saiz was going to simperingly blame everything on the insatiable drug-bloated appetites of we-still-love-Roberto-Heras-anyway, I'd've yelled in a few choice other things, too.) Oh, those halcyon youthful days when I didn't yet realize that most everyone in the peloton is a drug-snarfing amoral cheat....
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Racejunkie, I last wrote in to disagree with you over Millar and here I am again. Point being that surely we can all accept that almost everyone who was anyone doped in the 1990s. So consider this a truth and reconciliation type thing from which we can - hopefully! - move forward. And in my experience ex-dopers are often almost messianic in their zeal to protect riders from what they went through themselves. Don't attack Aldag and (I still love) Zabel. Call out the ProTour DSs who are former riders who AREN'T backing new initiatives to combat doping - don't attack those who are trying to right wrongs and have the experience to stop others doing the same.
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