Gag Me With a Spoon!

Or Rather, Un-Gag Me: capitalizing on the fact that the Floyd Landis investigation has been botched beyond the remotest chance of fairness or legitimacy, the dysfunctional trolls over at WADA have brazenly decided to make things even worse by lifting the USADA "gag order" on yapping unrestrained to the press basically whenever a rider has the temerity to assert his rights or innocence. Why? Of course, it's all Floyd Landis' fault, for publicly questioning USADA's actions for no valid reason whatsoever and thereby leaving the hamstrung innocents helpless to defend themselves against the boy's hideous unprovoked assault. What? Am I absolutely on hallucinogens here, or was any WADA pretense at silence and self-restraint utterly flushed down the toilet before the ink was dry on the mislabeled B samples by leaking the news of Landis' positive tests to the press without even the courtesy of a heads-up phone call, eviscerating Landis in a Sunday New York Times interview for a know-nothing non-cycling-fanatic public utterly unable to put Dick "Dick" Pound's remarks in context, and happily supporting USADA and the disgusting hacks at the French lab while they violated every substantive and procedural rule in the book throughout this entire filthy tainted process? Where exactly does USADA get off as the wronged party in all this?

Wonder of Wonders, Miracle of Miracles: And, in the latest example of team-management smarminess, CSC--the team sponsor itself--has decided it supports Bjarne "Clean Sport" Riis against all allegations of prior career doping, despite his angry but decidedly vague nondenials to the Belgian press on that point, sympathetically demurring that they "understand" Bjarne doesn't want to "talk about old times." That's so sweet, and I can't imagine why something like that would tend to undercut the fans' confidence in the teams' current commitment to purity. Speaking of which, T-Mobile is shocked, shocked! that the doctors they've had under contract for umpteen seasons might have participated in doping--or that if they did, they're sure they had no choice--as if a twentysomething rider with no medical training and a distinct lack of hired goons to back up their requests can really force a couple of physicians to come up with complex doping products and inject it strategically into them in amounts coincidentally undetectable by then-existing testing protocols. Hey, I'm convinced the teams have nothing to do with this!

Il Grande Giro: with ever-tranquillo Ivan Basso professing to have planned not to defend his Giro even before his "mutual agreement" to separate from Discovery (which was somehow "100% [his] choice" yesterday, but I digress), Savoldelli smoking the time trial at the Tour de Romandie, Simoni losing the latest target of his verbal rampage to aim for, Di Luca taking Liege , Tyler in the tank all season and doubtful for the race at all and Cunego still aching to redeem his boy-wonder cred, my thoughts are turning to who is going take the dear Giro in this tumultuous year. First question: if Michele Scarponi goes down at the meeting with CONI tomorrow, who on continental squad Acqua e Sapone can really do Stefano Garzelli any justice up against the ProTour likes of Astana and Saunier Duval?