Belgian 'Step Dancing

Ready, Aim...Sing!: so Patrik Sinkewitz, lately poz for doping, recipient of a grueling 1-year suspension, and cruelly forced to donate to charity waaaaaaaay less than the egregious year's salary he piously swore to forfeit by signing UCI's idiot Purity Pledge, has apparently decided to take everyone but other riders down in a howlin' ball o' flames with him, as he first charges that the 2000 Worlds German Jailbait Squad officials damn well knew he doped, and only sent him home when it began to show up in his blood values, and second claims that systemic doping was de rigeur at Patrick Lefevere's Quick Step team from at least 2001-2005, the years of our boy's employment thereon. Um, not to regurgitate earlier unpleasantness, but didn't anyone notice that similar revelations were already made last year by a purportedly then-current QS rider in an article in the Belgian press delicately titled "LEFEVERE: 30 YEARS OF DOPING"? And while Sinkewitz is on the topic, Gerolsteiner's a pack of lying skankbags too, and there's no way short of willful stupidity that Hans-Michael "I'm Pretty Sure We Don't Dope Systematically" Holczer didn't know about it, particularly after someone had the breathtaking lack of discretion to video Davide Rebellin doing it. The impassioned denials? Well, the German cycling fed swears that "the past will be explained," though it concedes some small "mistakes" made by then-Worlds trainer Peter Weibel (what? like "Oops, was that EPO I just jammed into your arm? I meant to pump you full of stored red blood cells instead"?); Lefevere isn't even going to bother with more'n a lukewarm "nuh-uh" til his lawyers have the chance to finesse a statement; and Holczer, a mysterious "this was all explained--just not publicly." Holy crap, is there no end to the utter lack of fat-cat puppeteer accountability in this sport? Well, I gotta admit Pat "Dick" McQuaid, you're clearly spot on with your paranoid "Mafia nation" conspiracy theories--fry those Spanish bastards, I say! Oh, wait...

Mr. Green, in the Drawing Room, With the Candlestick: and, in other Spanish doping news, T-Mobile's Bob Stapleton has allegedly been sending out a pack of subtle sleuths to see if his squad truly knew about the doping it promoted, I mean, that rogue riders acted utterly alone in heinous opposition to the team's righteous principles of total virtue, with Stefan Wesemann claiming both he and Jan Ullrich were approached but sadly knew nothing of management's role, and an irked staffer claiming he'd been chased all the way home like hounds on fox. Goodness, was that actually a pang of sympathy I just felt for Sinkewitz, at least on "what are you Bob, an idiot?" grounds?

Love, Love, Love: meantime, the mutual admiration society over at LPR goes on, as Paolo Savoldelli, evidently unwilling to hit the ol' has-been scrap heap just yet, returns Danilo DiLuca's praise of his amiability and "reasonableness," saying that when he heard the Killer was coming he was "very happy," as a man like that can only improve the squad, extolling their fine rapport, and--here comes trouble in Paradise--noting that it will be the road that decides which of them will be the captain this year. Right on Paolo--if you're gonna get taken out, at least go down in pedal-to-pedal combat!

Gripe o' the Day: so Danilo carphedon-snorting Hondo gets a new gig this season riding with Gilberto Simoni, while Joseba Beloki is freakin' forced into ignominious premature retirement because of his Machiavellian owner's missteps? What kind of lame-@#$ justice is that? Aaaaiiiigggghhhhh!