Watch Your Back, Vino!

Bubble, Bubble, Toil and Trouble: now, not to suggest that Alexander Vinokorouv ought to start sleeping with the light on or anything, but after Andreas Kloden's smashing and unexpected second place ("Il Doping!" cheerfully proclaimed my compatriot) in the Prologue, Kloden sure as hell wasn't sounding like the happy ambitionless helpmate Vino absolutely needs him to be in the mountains: "...it was important to get as much time as I could to my direct adversaries in the race." Um, if you have no GC ambitions Andreas, how do you have any direct adversaries? I'm sure he just meant that it was important to put the petrifying-fear-of-the-selfless-superdomestique into the hearts of all Vino's non-Astana GC rivals, is all. Y'know, Jan Ullrich was I believe the best man at Kloden's wedding, Vino...you *sure* he's forgiven and forgotten how you tried to bushwhack Ullrich a few years back, much less forgotten the hard truth that he's spent a *lot* more time on the Tour de France podium than you have?

"The Ego" Earns His 'Tude: what a mindbogglingly beautiful comeback from incessantly annoying yet astonishing Robbie McEwen, clawing back from a bad fall on a rather useful hand to blast out of nowhere to take the sprint off we love Thor Hushovd, a "lumbering" Tom Boonen (nice Versus, that one had to hurt!), and most definitely a get-over-yourself-you're-no-Petacchi-yet butt-end-of-nowhere Daniele Bennati. Of course I still want Hushovd to crush him, and in the next few days sincerely hope to see it happen, but even I have to be fair at least once in a...well, ever, and admire his brilliant victory. Okay, that was about all I can take of that. Allez Thor!

YAAAAAAWWWWNNNNN...: fine, the Prologue was lively, even if Zabriskie unaccountably tanked and Sastre appears unable to overcome his fatal weakness, and the sprints look like despite the loss of Ale-Jet we can still expect a few surprises towards the line this year. And figuring out whether Alejandro Valverde can hold it together for three weeks without imploding is, if nothing else, a more entertaining roadside past-time than "count the license plates." But, in the midst of all this half-assed insincere doping blathering from the repulsively hypocritical race organizers, can we all admit that frankly, even with probably half the blood-stoked Operacion Puerto riders still in the peloton, without the likes of Ullrich Basso and Mancebo allowed out to play, we might as well all just go take a nap for the next three weeks for all the GC fireworks we're likely to miss?