Fire Your Handlers, Contador!

Didn't We Go *Over* This Already?: all right, Alberto, we've all just about accustomed ourselves to the fact that you're not quite the brightest candle in the chandelier, but now you officially confirm you didn't even have the sense to negotiate a buyout clause out of your long-term contract with !@#$up-when-you-got-there Astana? Child, who the hell is *handling* you? Okay, I suppose you can't exactly fire your brother Fran, and to be fair, on the blood-is-thicker-than-your-head scale you'd be completely a tool if you did, but who the hell told you moving into Alexander Vinokorouv's burning kerosene-fueled balsa-wood hell-hole of a mansion without a ladder was a good idea in the first place? Get this, twerp: even if your current man-crush Garmin-Slipstream is losing the not-cheap Brad Wiggins to Team Sky (and they're damn well set for next season if they did, incidentally), Jonathan Vaughters likely *still* doesn't have the dough to buy you out of this debacle, so get set to trade in your bitchin' sports-car and luxury vacations for a third-hand lawn-mower-motored dinged-up scooter and a flybitten motel where you don't wanna know what's been on those sheets if you really wanna hang with Dave Z next season. Oh, man. Sure you wouldn't be better off taking a couple years off the bike to take some university classes?--you'd still be in your prime when you got back, right?

Samu, Samu, Samu!: and, right on Samu Sanchez for a spectacular ride without the benefits of the last-climb help Ivan and Alejandro enjoyed from their teammates, and once you'd dropped poor crushed Gesink and couldn't shake Valverde on the final descent (does that make anyone else, well, sorta queasy but me?), you were right to take it conservatively--just *please* don't lose too much to Cadel and Ivan in the time trial! Y'know, not to suggest you won't win entirely on your own next year--but if someone suggested to the race organizers that the Vuelta take a scenic one-day detour into, ooooohhhh, saaaaaay, Italy next year, that'd be totally coincidentally awfully pleasant, wouldn't it?

Mr. Clean, Mr. Clean: meantime, holy moly, maybe St. Ivan of Varese really *is* as reformed as he's thankfully stopped constantly trumpeting he is, as he gamely holds his own but doesn't disconcertingly bash the heck out the competition and still has a shot at (now don't get too ambitious, Ivan) third tomorrow after a season of highly respectable, but not freakishly, oh, Rabobankian, results. Oh my, am I feeling twinges of sympathy after that ridiculous "attempted doping" excuse that's still !@#$ing me off from two years ago, or am I just getting bedazzled by those pretty, pretty eyes and pretty, pretty pout and pretty, pretty tweets to his wife on her birthday? Focus, Racejunkie, focus! The tifosi, of course, are duly proud, but if there seems to be a soupcon of disappointment in their comments that he's not back on the juice, I mean, not quite yet able to beat the undoubtedly doped-up pigs ahead of him in every race, well, perhaps my translation skills are just off. Anyway, forza Ivan--and I doubt you'll have to worry about Alejandro at any rate next season!