10 Steps to a Pure Peloton

A Modest Zero-Tolerance Anti-Doping Proposal to Clean Up Cycling Once and for All (Or, Biological Passport My !@#!): all right folks, with the sport effectively cleaned up first after Festina, then after Op Puerto, and now with the new UCI biological passport that's but an invite for sophisticated pre-season blood value tweaking, it's clear the current protocols ain't working, and drastic measures are needed if we're truly to tidy up our beloved cesspool of a sport ahead of certain riders' triumphant return. Therefore, I humbly propose:

1. Look, we all know these filthy little !@#$s have been cheating from the winner of the very first Tour de France in 1903 through now. Ergo, all dead guys will be forthwith exhumed and subject to body-defiling testing for the advanced substances of the day. Thought you got away with it, didn't ya?

2. All live guys, regardless of age, will be ordered back on the bike to climb the Plateau de Beille. Everyone who makes it into the top third of the field will be presumed to have doped and have their title stripped. Everyone who makes it into the middle third of the field will be slapped silly for sucking so badly that even doping couldn't help 'em, and skipped over for the title anyway. Everyone in the bottom third will get a ceremonial lap around the Champs-Elysees, a kiss from a podium babe of appropriate vintage, and their name in the history books, unless they actually expire from the combined strain of effort and advanced years, in which case they can enjoy their moral and physical victories posthumously.

3. Lance Armstrong's pediatrician shall be ordered to turn over all urine samples from his elementary school annual physicals for analysis by the unbiased and untrained sports journalists at L'Equipe. All samples not so preserved will be presumed intentionally destroyed and deemed positive for banned substances. We know you've been doping since you were in training wheels, you arrogant little !@#$!

4. Anyone who ever worked for Johan Bruyneel, Patrick Lefevere, Bjarne Riis, or Hans-Michael Holczer is guilty. Off with their heads!

5. Alessandro Petacchi, Ivan Basso, and Damiano Cunego are presumed innocent and will never be tested again. They're sooooooooooooo cuuuuuuuuuuuuute!

6. All Spaniards are guilty and immediately banned from the peloton, except Carlos Sastre, whom we love, and Alejandro Valverde, who we all know never once--Alejandro! Put down that needle dammit and get over here to the microphone! Alejandro!

7. All stage winners are guilty and shall be summarily flogged upon ascent to the podium for their photo ops. Enough with the happy champagne-spraying bull!@#$!

8. All out of competition drug use, including Listerine, dandruff shampoo, and Chapstick, is banned. Don't tell me that crap doesn't enhance performance, you lying dissembling scumbucket!

9. All out of competition coke use, though, is A-OK. Come on, everybody loves Tom Boonen, right?

10. Any non-Italian who wins a Giro is guilty. Any non-Frenchman who wins a Tour de France (and let's face it, those numbers don't look good) is guilty. Any non-Spaniard who wins a Vuelta is guilty. Any non-Belgian who wins a Classic is guilty. Any Belgian who wins a race in warm, sunny weather is guilty, and any Spaniard who wins a race in cold, rainy weather is guilty. Riders so busted shall be locked in a room with the French press corps, fans, sponsors, team directors, and governing bodies and regaled with stories about the unjust fall of the native cycling empire until literally whined to death.

Well folks, I'm confident that with these new rules in place we're gonna have an impeccably clean 2009. Now let's go party--drinks on you-know-who!