Who Iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiis It?

Knock, Knock: well, it's bad news for some other s.o.b., as the Tour announces a fifth (unauthorized, of course, as the 3/4 of the peloton with Therapeutic Use Exemptions to scarf banned substances like Boonen snarfs nose candy still gets off the hook) doping poz at this year's Grand Boucle, perp as yet unnamed, which seems to make it rather likely it's a big one, and frankly, if it's dear Carlos Sastre, I'm setting myself adrift on a ice floe to congeal slowly into a racejunkiesicle in the Arctic because I'll really have had it with this septic tank of a sport. So glad to see you've managed to fix cycling since the dark days of Op Puerto and 2007, ASO--I'm sure you haven't missed anyone else who tried it!

Like Lambs to the Slaughter/They're Drinking the Water/And Breathing the Air: as the bewildered US trackies get unfairly dope-slapped for publicly wearing the antipollution masks the US training staff told 'em to wear and the USOC bought for 'em to wear, Alejandro Valverde has weighed in what he thinks is gonna decide the road race: yep, in addition to the heat, which oughta help the Vuelta-lovin' Spaniards, it's gonna be who can tolerate the pollution best. For my money, considering the dubious crap most of the cyclists have pumped into their systems, toxin-choked smog oughta be the least of their long-term health concerns, but with that said I'm reluctantly tagging our "Piti" for the road race but rooting, natch, for we love Paolo Bettini--still either glum or wily in his pronouncements of weak form, depending--to beat him down. Vai Paolo!

Sorta Like Those "World's Dumbest Thieves" Who Call 911 to Complain Someone Ripped Off Their Stash: so in a move guaranteed to spook Danilo Di Luca, a bitter Riccardo Ricco', determined not to go down alone with the ship and unerringly wrong in thinking that breaking omerta will make him as heartbreakingly pretty and easily forgivable as Ivan Basso, has now pegged Il Killer's lifelong pediatrician (who's at least not masquerading as gyno-to-the-male-stars like Dr. Fuentes) Dr. Carlos Santuccione as his supplier, whining he paid him 700 euros for a bunch of slop that wasn't even undetectable as promised. Wah, wah, you little twerp, get a job at an autogrille to pay your rent like a real man--do you realize how much more poor Jan Ullrich spent on the !@#$ that took *him* down?

What the !@#$ CAS?!: so, not to bother the tender sleepyheads over at the Court of Arbitration for Sport--no doubt still behind on their beauty rest after so exhaustively covering their !@#es as they hosed Floyd Landis--but you think, now that you've finished jacking him over, you might get around to making a decision (and I'm pretty sure we're all pretty sure what *that's* gonna be) about we love Iban Mayo before the !@@#$%in' Vuelta? After all, let's face it, with Ricco and Piepoli in the tank, it's not like Saunier Duval doesn't have another opening for our fragile superhero...

In Bocca Al Lupo, Baby!: finally, good luck to Emanuele "Gilberto Simoni Ought to Beat the Total Living !@#$ Out of Me" Sella as he faces the Italian narcs head-on Friday, which oughta go real well as the authorities, finally irked after the 800th Italian poz in two weeks and the giant consulting fees they're gonna have to pay the Spaniards to find out what the hell their boys are actually doing right, have already kicked half the national peloton out of the ranks for the next two seasons and show no sign of being reluctant to take out the rest. Oh dirty little Giro mountains king, so close to a multiyear multimillioneuro contract, yet now so far...