The Tour That Wouldn't Die

It's a New Anti-Doping Protocol, Baby!: so if you thought a *positive* test at the Tour de France was gonna get you in trouble with the narcs, wait'll you see what happens to you when you come up *negative*: yep, in a move that makes even the hypocrite tools at UCI and WADA look good by comparison, the paranoid French conspiracy theorists are gonna naturally assume that means you're a filthy cheating dirt-weasel, unearth a passel of half-forgotten blood samples from the AFLD office beer cooler, and make those incompetent lab chimps at Chatenay-Malabry test that !@#$ til the results come up *right*. Y'know, so long as we're utterly throwing due process, common sense, and objective analysis out the window, let's just cut to the chase, shall we? The only way to truly kill doping in cycling is to rip it out from the roots. Let's arrest Lance and Eddy and Bernard and Miguel, and we'll hang 'em upside down from racks by their ankles and squeeze 'em like toothpaste tubes til we can figure out once and for all what those cheating bastards were winning on. Hell, why don't we just dig up Anquetil? *That* oughta teach 'em to !@#$ with you!

Last Meal My !@#: what's more, according to the new WADA rules just announced, antidoping penalties for the boys and girls in all the races become more "flexible" in 2009, ditching the two-year one-size-fits-all time-out, and allowing for milder penalties for inadvertent or non-performance-enhancing use, and up to four years for such aggravated first-time offenses such systemic doping, multiple product use, and--here's the kicker--"deceptive or obstructing conduct," which I'll damn near guarantee means not only actual lying, but also such heinous defense tactics as demanding a hearing expressly guaranteed by WADA procedural rules or, even worse, protesting one's actual innocence. So don't even think of suggesting that the same testing protocols which have been proven to pop up with an occasional (or more than) false positive didn't work perfectly on you, you worthless dissembling scumsucker--you can ask for your last cigarette if you want to, but we're still gonna shoot you first! Can you imagine what they'd've done to Floyd Landis if he came up poz this coming season instead of when he did? Yeesh...

All About Alberto: yep, on the eve of his historic victory in the noble Vuelta, Contador's really done now with that starry-eyed ingenue bull!@#$, as he tells gazzetta dello sport in no uncertain terms that if Armstrong comes home to big daddy Bruyneel, he's *still* riding the Tour de France for himself alone to win it, so any old-bag interloper who wants it is gonna have get it without him. Boy, Lance, have things changed since you were head Moonie over at PostalDiscovery--even Ivan Basso would've wiped your rump for you if he'd managed to stick around long enough! Needless to say, the press is rapturous (as am I, slimily) over the possibility of such outright warfare, and with Columbia flat-out nixing the idea of Armstrong coming in to boss around his ol' pal Hincapie, looks like Lance is gonna have to pay up hard to steal the few loyal minions still left in the peloton. I *told* you that spun-sugar kid wasn't gonna take any crap if you pushed him!

Cape Fear: so Paolo Bettini's talking Worlds, and this is what he thinks: the Spaniards should be afraid, very afraid, because if he can't take 'em out, he'll make sure Davide Rebellin will. Who's keeping Il Grillo up nights? Mainly, Oscar Freire (as he should be), Valverde's coming in tired but you still can't take your eyes off him, he ain't so impressed with his imminent replacement at Quick Step Schumi, and, while he's pretty sure this isn't the corsa for big Tom Boonen, he just hasn't seen enough of the Schlecks of late to know if they're gonna crush him or not. (It's a pretty bitchin' interview actually in terms of discussing his past career, so if anyone wants more details and is willing to take my craptastic Italian on faith, let me know and I'll happily, if inaccurately, oblige). Y'know, I gotta say I'm caught here on which losing underdog cause to root for--Paolo, so he can dope-slap that bastard Lefevere for jacking him, or Freire, who inevitably loses 3/4 of every season to freak injuries like bowling-ball-sized saddlesores. Oh heck, no one's ever pulled a 3-fer--forza Paolo, and stuff it Quick Step!

Let's Play Dodgeball!: after Euskaltel's brutal humiliation at the Vuelta via poor Igor's embarrassing sunny-day dry-descent crashout, and the horrible defection of Haimar Zubeldia to be Contador *and* Levi *and* Lance *and* for God's sake lowest-rung-on-the-ladder Andreas Kloden's subservient !@#, the team's finally got some good news: Olympic gold medalist (woo-hoo!)/future Vuelta champ Samuel Sanchez *is* gonna stay with the team, as even the flush folks at Cervelo aren't gonna pony up the 900,000 euro to buy him out of the last two years of his contract. Still, those oligarchs over at Tinkoff/Katusha remain perhaps a dark horse, so I ain't gonna believe it til he turns up in team kit next season--please Samu, please, for the sake of all that is pure in this repulsive sport--and I've gotta believe *something* is--stay with the humble but glorious Basques. Aupa Sanchez--can anyone but their fanatic orange army award you so well in sheer adoration?

Viva, Viva, Viagra!: finally, what's the latest word on the war against drugs after Andrea Molletta was unceremoniously yanked by Team Gerolsteiner from this year's Giro after his dad was oddly busted with a bucket o' mystery syringes a freelance DS and a truckload of Viagra tablets, in theory advantageous for their blood-flow-enhancing properties? Well, the peloton studmuffins have both dodged a bullet and gotten some help making up to their significant others in the off-season for all those long, lonely spring-and-summer nights on the road, as thankfully, according to the UCI's medical commission, Viagra doesn't count as doping. Um, anyone else thinking that whatever the actual scientific merits of this finding, the elder statesmen at the antidoping agencies just can't bear the thought of making such a handy substance contraband?