A Sunday in Sell(a)

Killer Queen: so as Ricco failed to successfully pound "the beach boy and the Kraut" into submission as promised the last two days, he did at least show he still had the wherewithal to put some pain into rival Contador even after athsma-whacked tugboat Leonardo Piepoli crashed out with a snapped collarbone, just enough for a charmingly modest Contador to peg him for his main rival but not enough to prevent him from knife-twistingly having to watch The Next Indurain pull on the maglia rosa after today's stage. Thankfully, Simoni survived and even fought back after an earlier series of excruciating cracks, leaving the smug smack talk ("I can still be in pink tomorrow")to his former protege and merely venturing that "at least now we know who's in the game." Our baby genius, meantime, refuses to acknowledge his emerging supremacy in any of but the most vague terms, professing he could lose the maglia rosa tomorrow and not be disappointed. Holy moly, this Mother Theresa of the peloton could give St. Ivan of Varese a run for his money in the martyrdom corsa rosa,if only he, like Basso, had the evil lapse to attempt to dope! Then again, he *did* start out his career on Liberty Seguros...oh, shut the hell up, I'm sure as the rest of his besotted sighing unquestioning fan club that the kid is clean as a first winter snowfall on the prairie, but like it never occurred to you either in the darkest corners of your miserable black hearts!

The Tifosi: and, the tifosi reactions--never understated to begin with--are in, full of admiration of Sella's smashing two-fer, endless tributes to the general superiority of Marco Pantani to all other riders(irrelevant as to the current GC, but strangely touching in the same sense it is when tanked-up sentimental Red Sox fans bellow "Yankees Suck!" from the bleachers even when we're actually playing the As at that moment), buckets o' tributes to Gibo, and, while on the whole gracious to Contador, not a few fans distinctly outraged that some Op Puerto-linked Spanish guy is blushing in the maglia rosa when certain Italians who oughta be there and certainly aren't any dirtier than Captain Innocent are barred from their own freakin' race. Me, I'm still reeling from the ignominious crack of we still Andreas Kloden, who if he hadn't exhausted himself dragging around that bushwhacking blood-doping tool Vinokorouv last season would certainly have retained enough strength not to fall apart in the Dolomites. Go for a stage win, Klodi--if you're out of GC, why not pile on the hurt for at least one day in the sun?

Now Click Your Heels Three Times and Say: there's no mountain time trial like Simoni's...there's no mountain time trial like Simoni's...there's no mountain time trial like Simoni's...