Okay, It's Actually Il Grillo's: well, it's a smashingly badass end to a glorious career for the indomitable Paolo Bettini, who took the final race of his paid professional life at the Six Days of Milan after a vicious earlier crash that left his helmet cracked like a walnut and him trussed up like a pig on a barbecue til he was released from hospital to contemplate a crappy unbecoming end to a good 10 years of total brilliance. The tifosi, of course, are swooning even beyond their universal panty-tossing collapse at any sight of man-candy supreme Ivan "I'm Reformed Now! I Swear It! Give Me That Baby To Kiss!" Basso, and if that isn't a reason to love Italy even beyond the perfect food, impeccable collective palmares, and incredible ability of its favored riders to evade serious penalty for doping violations, I don't know what is. Woo-hoo Paolo, thank you for a career that'll go down in history--and come back, somehow in some role, soon! Perhaps, as history might indicate, on American Idol:
When It's Time to Change: so if pounding your unworthy competition into the tarmac, slurpin' on buckets-o'-starlets, and accepting endless No-Other-Cyclist-Exists-On-Earth accolades from the besotted sports press gets old, what's an even better way to annoy, embarrass, and generally kneecap your nemeses? That's right, Lance Armstrong's taken to impugning his naysayers' neglible talents, having already reminded Linus Gerdemann he's unworthy to scrub his chamois and now responding to old pal Filippo Simeoni's continued insistence that Lance is a vindictive all-doping tool who unjustifiably threatened him with grievous bodily harm and cruelly tanked his career by pointing out that if the reigning Italian national champion can't find a job or win any other damn race in Europe since Armstrong last reeled him back in at the Tour, it sure as hell ain't the *real* cyclist's fault. Nice! Anyone else having flashbacks to that nausea-inducing reality deathmatch between Greg Brady and Danny Bonaduce? I can't watch...no, I must watch...no, I can't watch...no, I...
Hera(s)tic: okay, let's get this out of the way, shall we? I'm a repugnant pro-doping Roberto Heras-missing hypocrite whose willful blindness and unquestioning desire to give him and Jan Ullrich a pass for damn near anything short of puppy-kicking is the sort of disgusting honest-guy-damning amorality that's wholly responsible for wrecking the sport, except that luckily for the more virtuous among you and the century-old tradition of cycling, I'm even more inconsequential than a sinus-stuffed overburdened messenger's flu-time snot-rocket. But our dear Roberto is in serious emotional pain for lack of a respected team to take him on despite a heartfelt 20,000 kilometers of training since his as-if-he's-the-freakin'-only-one-that-bastard-Saiz-was-stuffing-full-of-drugs-like-a-doomed-Thanksgiving-turkey ban expired, and I feel compelled to plea, WTF is *wrong* with you teams? Oscar Sevilla and half of Phonak are zipping about the Tour of Wherever Michael Ball Can Get the Most Fawning Ego-Stoking Publicity at Rock Racing, Basso had an entire team withdraw from the ProTour (and any credibility) just to score his dirty tainted !@#, the Italians likely saved half your rosters by refusing to retest any of the surely-entirely-unaided racers at the Giro, Valv--um, Valvoline is a really fine automotive product, and Heras and Beloki can't even get gigs as two-bit domestique !@#$%es for some total-crap nowheresville slugs-on-wheels much less a *real* friggin' squad? Dammit!
How Much Are Those Donuts In the Window?: finally, speaking again of scumbuckets I love, Jan Ullrich's manager has now formally refuted rumors his boy is going to return to the peloton to join the rest of his dope-fiend generation (not you Lance! not you!), saying he's got no intention of riding ever again. Aw, rats! I know he should never ride again amongst the noble, and a whole new, honest, and utterly innocent era has dawned. I know he heinously stole dozens of victories from virtually every other rider he raced with, as the entire lot of his serious nearest competition was absolutely riding unenhanced. But come on, you sainted purists--like you'd really rather watch some autobus-dwelling lumpmaster ride clean than have Jan around to abuse for his bloating off-season weight gain then deride him for his inevitable tanks then cast aspersions on his unpredictable triumphs? As if!
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2 comments:
Cheer up. If you think back to last year, Cipollini was denying comeback rumors after he was seen chatting with Michael Ball in Las Vegas, and we all know how that turned out. Wasn't it fun while it lasted, though? I wouldn't bet against Ullrich's turning up in the Tour of California. I wouldn't bet on it, either, but -- you never know.
Sigh. I do miss Jan. And, I was pleased to see he won his most recent court case.
This kind of helped me over the "no Jan racing" hump: http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.ListAll&friendID=31414033 Someone created a fake, excessively funny, Myspace page for Jan, in the season leading up to the 2006 Tour. It is funnier if you read it from the chronological beginning, and if you mentally hear it in an bad Schwarzenegger-Terminator accent.
Oh Jan, we'll always have our Tour DVDs to remember you. :)
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