The First Wives' Club

Tried and True: wow, is Johan Bruyneel quite the trendsetter, as he officially ditches his flashy young mistress Contador for his wrinkly ol' bag first wife Armstrong, despite his bull!@#$ promises to his naive protege to the contrary and the fact that Armstrong's value as an actual cyclist is only going to decrease while Alberto's is on the upswing. One might question the wisdom of presiding over the festivities as Lance's ravenous narcissistic adoration cravings train-wreck his sporting legacy, but big points to Johan for loyalty! I wouldn't worry about our pretty new spandex king-o'-the-world too much though--aside from the fact that he's apparently rethinking yesterday's vow to head for the hills if Armstrong tries to muscle in, he'll inevitably move on to even more besotted, deep-pocketed squads, who'll no doubt lavish him with gifts so generous it'll make Tom Boonen's Ferrari collection look like a rustpit full o' Pintos in exchange for the not-overly-onerous duties of establishing himself as a legend in the sport with his next half-dozen Grand Tour wins and only a minimum of tedious love-ins with the sponsor high honchos. If Contador does leave, though, it's hard to imagine who he's going to get to domestique for him next year, after he nastily threw his selfless nursemaid Leipheimer under the team bus by denying that Levi ever helped him win the Vuelta in the first place and--horrors!--charging that Levi might even have won the whole thing in his own right if the time trial had been 20 kilometers longer, the treacherous servant bastard. Damn, Levi, at least if you stick around Astana to be dope-slapped by Lance next season, you only gotta put up with this prima-donna crap for one more year! Can we all just cut the Teen Beat heartthrob !@#$ now on how sweet and dreamy and gentle and generous and fairy-princess rainbow-sparkly Alberto is, and concede that--once-in-a-generation brilliant or not, and he's certainly that--he's clearly been learning a lot more from Lance "the Ego" Armstrong's example than just race tactics of late? Get *out* of there Levi and Klodi, Bruyneel can't pay you enough to deal with *either* of these soul-sucking remoras!

The Fourth Estate: meantime, from CNN to the New York Times, the non-cycling American sports press is simply rapturous over Lance's return, particularly, one imagines, since with the Great American Hero and his Great American Story (and I don't demean either one) to glom on again, they're now utterly free to cover cycling with a guaranteed cash-cow in hand without having to trouble themselves to learn (much less explain) such arcane and inscrutable terms as "sprint," "seat post," and "time trial." Don't let these nits dumb you down, dear newbies (leave that to the rest of us)--there is so much more to know and love even about this tainted filthy debacle of a sport than this one famous socialite-slurpin' camera ho!

Faster Than a Speeding Bullet: finally, in actual race news, the dandy Worlds is underway, with Amber Neben scorching the field in the time trial and Judith Arndt--who I'm presuming, despite the fact that the Italians are apparently favored, is gonna lead the badass German squad to a gold in the road race--snagging the bronze. As for the gentlemen? Dropping like flies before they even get their boarding passes, sadly, as now we love Stuey O'Grady becomes the latest to bail out from fatigue, tho' the Spaniards remain largely intact even without the presence of Sastre to challenge (if fruitlessly) the smashing squadra azzurra. So you got four boys for the price of one to replace Bettini, Lefevere?--enjoy, as (win or lose the podium) your reject gets ready to kick Belgian !@#!