I Love A Parade

I Flit, I Fly: yes, with UCI having sworn inaction on the Op Puerto blood bags until after the Tour de France, the riders are all now flocking to sign the organization's idiot Virginity Pledge, serene in the knowledge that, even if they were stupid enough to leave a bucket of their bodily fluids with Eufemiano "King of Meticulous Recordkeeping" Fuentes with their dog's name slapped on the name tag, they can continue their dope-soaked pursuit of victory and blaze across the line with an arms-raised triumph at the Tour without any threat it'll be taken away from them, even if they are forced to hand over their DNA someday in the unlikely event they're busted, til long after anyone cares about anything but that they've taken a stage win at the Greatest Show on Earth. A sweet deal for all concerned, I must say! Meantime, the riders continue to be split on the issue even as their own teams brass-knuckle them into mute lemming compliance, with even eternally-laid-back Dave Zabriskie raising polite concerns about the accuracy of positive test results--why, after the perfectly handled Landis matter, who would doubt that?-- and a disgusted Fabian Cancellara openly (and rightly) calling the whole idea "truly stupid" and our hero Pat "Dick" McQuaid "a godfather." And, in a development guaranteed to both turn Astana even more paranoid and screw Andreas Kloden's podium prospects even further, Matthias Kessler has had to be suspended for "anomalous" testosterone results while everyone waits for the inevitable confirmation by the B sample. At the same time, Alessandro Petacchi was called on the carpet over at CONI today over his little overtreatment-of-asthma problem, responding with the excellent defense of "You guys have always allowed me to snort enough salbutamol to stun a rhino, why the problem with it now?" and "But guys--it really, really works!" Well done Ale-Jet!

CSC You In Hell, Bjarne!: so at the same moment that Zabriskie is expressing optimism that he'll hit the start line in London, cyclingnews is paradoxically reporting that the boy is not only not on the confirmed CSC start list, he's not even on the roster of 4 slugging it out for the last two spots, which raises the questions, (1) what (or--no, I better not go there) the hell *do* you have to do to get a gig besides taking stages in each Grand Tour, wearing and defending the maillot jaune, and building power and showing good current form in the mountains and (2) why the @#$% are Zabriskie and Bobby Julich of all people having to compete with Lars freakin' Bak (no offense) for a slot at all? (And if you're going to come up with some bull@#$$ about saving them for the Vuelta, you can doubly bite me--I'm tired of every goddamn team using it as a dumping ground for every non-Spaniard deemed unfit to play with the big boys in Paris, a monstrous diss to a magnificent race.) Anyhow, not to doubt your brilliance here Bjarne, but you blow!

Le Teams: and, while Discovery belatedly throws a party for the wholly deserving Levi Leipheimer after 9 consecutive months of kicking him right in the nuts, Saunier Duval has, I note happily, thrown its weight (but not so hard as to scare him) behind we love Iban Mayo in the mountains, with, sadly, a concurrent vote of confidence for St. David Millar in the London opener. Y'know, I hardly ever wish anyone ill results, even if, like with the tiresome Millar, my baser instincts might lean that way. So am I still going straight to Hades if I sincerely wish Millar the race of his life in the time trial, and that everyone else in the peloton including the hopeless Euskaltel utterly crushes him?