How Danilo Can You Go?

Completely Missing the Point, Part I: am I on crack here, or did the Italians really just hand Danilo DiLuca down a 3-month racing ban, not for his freakish Giro d'Italia hormone levels that showed him to have something near the manliness quotient of a 2-year-old, thus raising the disconcerting possibility that he may've used masking agents for, oh, some reason, which apparently raised nary an eyebrow in the joyous celebrations over his maglia rosa, but for his association with a doping doctor UCI itself has allowed back in the peloton for the last few years and that everyone knew Di Luca was in contact with ages ago? Meantime, DiLuca himself remains tranquillo, noting unhappily that while, having already been held out of the Worlds, he's also out of the Giro d'Lombardia as he's no time to clear his name ahead of the race despite his intent to file a later appeal with CAS, but that he's not in a "rage" over the misunderstanding, even though the doctor in question has been his family practitioner since he was 8 years old. My, they're starting 'em young nowadays! And, in yet more bad news for Di Luca, his non-start this weekend combined with Cadel's possible recalibration of ProTour points when Vino gets stripped of his Tour de France time trial victory means that the Hardest Working Man in the Peloton may not have to do much more than finish the Giro d'Lombardia to take the ProTour title after all. No ill will towards DiLuca of course--who after all gets his gorgeous Giro d'Italia to celebrate anyway--but it'd be nice to see Cadel take *one* win this season!

Completely Missing the Point, Part II: and, gazzetta dello sport's reporting that UCI--just yesterday defending their failure to do 480 of 500 planned out-of-competition doping controls this season with the slightly implausible excuse that the best time to do it is between October and Christmas, not during the actual race season--is launching a "biological passport" for the riders for 2008, obtaining 5 different base blood values in order to be able to detect, later on, evidence of surprisingly increased oxygen-carrying capacity and other tell-tale signs of rulebreaking, which is surely a better basis for tossing accusations about than tarring the Spaniards and Italians with a "Mafia nations" slur only to have half the German peloton test poz or cop to doping this season, but which begs the questions, (1) doesn't this just give every dirty cheating skank the incentive to dope *ahead* of the passport to establish their desired blood values; and (2) if oxygen-carrying capacity is the issue, isn't that precisely what the 8000 Therapeutic Use Exemptions for asthma meds you clowns hand out like free samples for incipient heroin-heads are designed to address?

Say My Name, Say My Name: not content with resting discreetly out of the headlines since he scored a mere year-long doping ban for having previously--and nobly of course--submitted to the narcs, Jorg Jaksche is continuing to keep himself on the radar of the more-cash-happy Continental squads by helpfully pointing out that, given current testing's inability to detect the more subtle forms of doping, only the "dumb ones," or worse, "the poor ones, who can't afford the expensive doping," are getting nailed. Anyone else shamelessly tempted to go over the list of names in their heads from the last 18 months and trying to guess who he meant? Speaking of whom, I see Manolo Saiz is considering a return to the peloton's management ranks, opining glumly that while he must remain silent about the details of his obvious innocence now on the advice of his pesky attorneys, he dearly looks forward to the day that he can speak so that "everyone will know the truth." If we all promise not to roll our eyes at that, will you finally apologize to Joseba Beloki and every other rider you screwed, you !@$%^$# !@#$%$#?

Discovery Team Implosion Watch: and, as Jason McCartney rather surprisingly signs with CSC instead of Slipstream, there's apparently still quite a bit of hoo-ha over baby genius Alberto Contador and maillot-jaune-deserving Andreas Kloden, with Contador's manager--coincidentally a good friend of ejected and disgraced Astana head Marc Biver--saying the boy's actually looking elsewhere as joining Johan Bruyneel's new team might "damage his image," and Sean Yates joining his old boss at his new team as DS under the evergreen rationale "Johan Bruyneel has never had a positive test with a team he's been involved with," while also claiming that in fact Astana's got Contador, and Leipheimer, and Kloden for its '08 squad after all. Don't do it Levi and Andreas!

To Eternity and Beyond: where the hell is Iban Mayo's !@#$#@ B sample already, UCI? Either gack up the poz and let the humiliation officially begin, or suck it up and release the negative so he can sign a new contract while the teams have more'n 50 bucks left in their pockets--aiiiigggghhhhh! Oh well, he can always be a directeur sportif if he sobs enough for the cameras...