Pollution, Pollution, Wear a Gas Mask and a Veil/

Then You Can Breathe/'Long as You Don't Inhale: so I see the Olympic track stars are started to get a wee bit concerned about sucking in solid black clouds o' smog as they run about (tho' visually it might have a sort of cool smoke-machine heavy-metal-concert effect for those of us at home), which begs the obvious question for a much more bitchin' sport: how dare these selfish goons expect we love Paolo Bettini to breathe this filthy crap, particularly when he's comparing his form unfavorably to that in Athens 4 years ago? Oh, okay, Tom "Sniffy" Boonen maybe, he likes to party, surely he's no stranger to, for example, smoke-filled nightclubs--but to ask our boy Paolo to deign to ride in that lung-gunking garbage? Now, *here's* a chance to make that disgraced (and disgraceful) rugrat Ricco' useful again--let's force him to pedal ahead of the squadra azzura with one of those "Sharper Image" ionic air purifiers bolted on his handlebars to ease the way for his betters, why don't we? See, little Riccardo, there's still a place for you in cycling...

The Road to Beijing: meantime, Cadel Evans, having recovered sufficiently from the knee injury caused by his stumbling drunken fall at the Silence-Lotto "Boys Gone Wild" post-Tour party (just kidding, Cadel's massive humorless bodyguard!), is gonna be at the Olympics after all, certainly at the road race and possibly even at the time trial along with such notable competition as returning broke-back Giro-bashed American speed god Dave Zabriskie. Good enough luck to you in the time trial Cadel, 'cause at least you're not dull as dirt to watch in that--but I'm still hoping Dave Z and (in the road race) the Italians wipe the tarmac with you!

Yes, Comrade: and, the Party line on doping continues in perfect lockstep, as the boss over at the International Olympic Committee parrots WADA's bizarre insistence that every single doping poz proves that no elite athletes are doping. Um, not to rain on the Lions Club parade here, but in light of Ricco's little revelation that he was snarfing enough EPO every day to fuel a rampaging herd of wolf-spooked buffalo and mostly not getting caught, isn't it slightly, slightly within the realm of mathematical possibility that you're just culling the stupid and leaving the very best (in wiles or financial backing) skanks in sport to set the world records?

I Wanna Be A Supermodel: sleek studmuffin-o'-the-Cannondale Ivan "Man-Candy" Basso is the subject of yet another humble, fawning interview with Gazzetta dello Sport, ruminating on the pure love of family and eye-opening charity work that has inspired him to work long and hard for the privilege of perhaps once more honoring his beloved sport by riding, and dare he even think winning, clean (as indeed he always did anyway, having merely "attempted" to dope) to earn the world's forgiveness, and, not coincidentally, getting enough dough out of Liquigas from his smarmy rehab efforts to get his favorite Ferrari out of hock (oh, give me a goddamn break, you Pollyannas, like you weren't thinking it!). Oh, Ivan, convince me again how the earth is flat as I lose myself unquestioningly in those beautiful starlit eyes of yours...

His Goose Is Cooked: finally, a shout-out to Anonymous for his or her question about Vladimir "Goose" Gusev's "irregular blood values" and subsequent immediate expulsion from the Astana House of Purity, to which I can only say, if one of Johan Bruyneel's boys actually had the astonishing ineptitude to come up "irregular" while he was currently *on* Johan's team, Gusev *must've* been taking some !@#$ on his own without...um, nuthin'. There, that won't get me sued by him or Armstrong I hope! And hey Anonymous--didn't you mean internal *anti*-doping programs? I thought so!