It's A Pre-Tour Showdown, Honey!

Yer Flanders Ronde-Up: okay, Nick Nuyens won and serious huzzahs to him, but damn, if Cancellara could get nut-whacked by his rivals that hard that many times and still survive for third place (much less the last place that lesser mortals would've suffered), he really is just un-freakin'-touchable and every other rider on earth should just go home. Controversy o' the race: Garmin guru Jonathan Vaughters telling his squad waaaaaaaaay early on to sit up and do nothin' the rest of the race. Fine, hindsight is 20-20, and to be fair, he had his reasons, but considering Boonen made it within seconds of the break at the line, couldn't we *have* been lookin' at a Thor-n-Tyler-friendly sprint, which one of 'em could reasonably have taken? And before I get smacked for being a dimwit know-nothing armchair quarterback--because believe you me, there are *far* better reasons to tell me I bite--I note BMC and a few other boys still didn't give up the ghost 'til the very end of the game. Also not helpful: Vaughters loyally informing the press he doesn't exactly *know* why we love Thor "Holy Crap He's the World Road Champion!" Hushovd sucks so bad this season. Who cares whether it's true (which it's not, so go to hell)--stuff it, buddy!

Euskalteeeeeeeelllllll!: meantime, over in Tour de France news, it's time for the beautiful--and exceedingly mountainous--Vuelta a Pais Vasco, with we love Euskaltel god Samuel "Holy Crap He's the Olympic Road Champion!" Sanchez, hot off his weekend win at the GP Miguel Indurain, just nipped at the line by a brilliantly riding like-I-really-care-who-the-hell-it-was, earnest prettyboy Ivan Basso looking to avenge his March, and the Schleck brothers lookin' to remind everyone "hey! we're in this squad too!". And while I've almost been seduced back into believing in Basso, since it's Euskaltel, I'm all about Sanchez. Allez allez Samu'! Since I'm a crappy sport, here's him taking the GP Indurain this weekend instead:

Drug-Doping Bad, Aero-Doping Good: speaking of Schlecks, come to think of it, Frank *has* been implicated in traditional doping scandals (allegedly!), but to me, primarily because it pissed off the Italians, who usually just whine about the Spanish, this one's far worse: Frank's under investigation for smoothin' out his concave chest with a stomach-side Camelbak to nail the GC at the Criterium International. Great, next thing you know the boys'll all be donning prosthetic aero-boobs. "Chain-drop" my !@#, Andy--*this* year Contador's gonna take you out with his honkin' new double-Ds!

WADA Load: finally, I see the noble folks at WADA have called for the scrapping of B-samples in all cycling doping controls in order to cover for the incompetent lab chimps who routinely f--I mean, to save precious time, money, and resources used in the wasteful double-checking of obvious fraud. Y'know, WADA, by that system, your holy cash-cow Lance Armstrong would've been busted. So which two Tours de France are you gonna strip him of, exactly? Thought so!