Two Down, One to Go, Baby!

Wrong Again!: right after I give my cycling-ignorant siblings a long professorial lecture on the scientific probabilities and sociological considerations of rolling stages and breakaways, I'm proven mortifyingly off-base as usual as the boys reel it back for a bunch sprint and who but we-love-and-everyone-else-has-utterly-given-up-hope on Thor Hushovd should charge ahead and take the line. Woo-hoo! All we need is for Iban Mayo to take his mountain stage, and I for one will be about ready to pack it in and blow off the rest of the race. Then again, with Andreas Kloden still going strong, Astana's own domestiques suddenly claiming to be working for both Vino and Kloden, and Alexander "I Will Crush You All Like Bugs" Vinokorouv taking the highly unusual step of confessing to mysterious and heretofore unknown ankle problems, I can't help but wonder if the team's now actually expecting Kloden to bushwhack Vinokorouv in the mountains or, as a commenter has suggested, Vino to simply crack (now having, with his ankle, a plausible excuse for doing so). Of course, from a tactical sleaze perspective, and also 'cause I really admire Vino and wish him all good health, I'd prefer the former, but either way, allez allez Iban!

Did Not Either!: wow, Jan Ullrich's scorn for his yip-yappin' ex-teammates Zabel and Aldag sure seems short-lived, or else grossly hypocritical, as Jan rushes to correct any misperceptions about his own omerta and assures us that soon, but only at the right moment and after the Tour de France, he will in fact tell all about the notorious events of 2006. While we're at it, he did not either say he's got enough money to live for the rest of his life, just that he didn't owe anything to the media, his sponsors, or the cycling federations, which sure as hell sounds like a cash-call to me, Mr. Strong-N-Silent. Anyhow, that oughta be one lively bankroll of an interview!

UCI Shows Its Colors: and, the German press has come up with a vicious snipe to the pro-, I mean anti-,doping bellowing blusterers over at UCI, who are apparently allowing key riders to meander around unattended for curious amounts of time for their post-stage doping controls, allowing plenty of time for say, a disgusting bait-and-switch or the discreet tactical application of masking agents before they've got to come up with the goods for the lab rats, instead of glomming an escort on 'em before they even get off their bikes as they're supposed to do. Glad to see you're taking your crusade seriously, UCI!

And, a Prediction: Finally, I've been asked to make predictions on stage winners, which I caution are infallibly reliable only in the sense that they are, every single damn time, humiliatingly wrong, dancing me perilously close to the Al Trautwig precipice of relentless stupidity and lifelong embarrassment. Anyway, since Popovych has just lamented that his contract negotations with Discovery have been hindered (presumably eurowise) by his crap performance in the Giro, even though he really oughta be saving his energy for the mountains next week if he truly wants to earn his keep getting Levi on the podium, I'll pick him. There, that gives you all about 186 other boys in the peloton who've got a better chance than Popo today--good luck to you!