Here Come the Men In Black

The Pink Panther Strikes Again: In an astonishing reversal of their determination not to nail anyone for doping pre-Tour, UCI has announced that they've been tailing an incredible 6 or 7 "well-known riders", brought under suspicion by the nefarious act of...training in the high passes without their team kits, in an obvious and wily (but not wily enough, you fools!) attempt to draw suspicion away from their open and notorious doping practices. Well, that's "6 or 7" out of 107 implicated in Op Puerto who're gonna be barred from the Tour--let's forget about everyone else in Quick Step and, frankly, most of the rest of the peloton--a fine and comprehensive job by UCI, I must say! Does *anyone* see the sense or justice in excluding 6 or 7 riders who are actually entertaining to watch in favor of keeping 100 completely stoked second-tier contenders and guys whose main job is schlepping back to the team car to stuff their jerseys full of water bottles for their team like some ignominious camel?

The Reaction: interestingly, and having nothing to fear I'm sure, the boys in baby blue over at Astana, led natch by clean freak Alexander "oops, I better ditch Godefroot...oops, I better ditch my personal doctor..." Vinokorouv, immediately flipped out out of nowhere and having been actually accused of nothing, issuing a frantic press release that if their riders ever trained out of team kit it was to avoid the stalking fanatic tifosi who haunted them by car inch-by-inch as they trained up the Cote d'Azur. Feeling twitchy, are we? I'm certain it's just the normal pre-Tour nerves. Just move along now--nothing to see here, you Looky Lous!

Spanish Fly: Meantime, the Germans, French, and Belgians, none of whose riders have ever doped, went ballistic over at the UCI/ProTour meeting at the suggestion that Alejandro Valverde was clean enough to ride, at least if no-one got around to reading the Op Puerto file, which resulted in UCI's brave reversal and decision to...let Alejandro ride anyway, plus most everybody else from Liberty Seguros, including Discovery's Allan Davis and Alberto Contador, which begs the question (or just the rant), you completely screwed we love Joseba Beloki you repulsive cowardly clowns, now go find him a contract and the suitcase full of cash he deserves, you !@#$%#s! Naturally, unemployed sad-sack/media whore Jesus Manzano immediately went on the attack, saying that in 2002 Alejandro meandered into dinner with a testosterone patch brazenly displayed on his arm, and while we're at, his many current friends in the peloton, apparently eager to get their own !@#es investigated by UCI, are constantly complaining to Manzano that while of course they are all still doping, they are cruelly and unjustly obliged to be more discreet now. Cry me a river, boys! And Jesus--doped or not, he's still better than you ever were--accept the cold hard truth and just let it rest now, willya?

While we're at it, if all these dope-snarfing skeezbags are really gonna be allowed to ride the Tour unquestioned so long as they have a team doc or soigneur with the savvy to beat the tests-- unless they're one of the newly-tracked "6 or 7" that UCI suddenly has some petty targeted grudge against, thereby showing even their latest antidoping crusade to be a total farce--I'm wondering why, in the interests of fair play, they oughtn't *all* just be allowed to play in Paris. Hell, let's bring Floyd, Jan, and Basso back in, too! Sure, they lack contracts and a team--but that's again the injustice of selective enforcement--so why not just hand 'em over to the still-unemployed boys from Liberty and let 'em all wild-card in as a supergroup? Don't give me this "but we promise to bar *somebody* from the Prologue" crap, UCI--fair is fair!