It's Your Olympic Track-Cycling Roundup; And, Back to the Peloton, Baby!

Cruise, Booze, and Lose: yep, it took fabulous Aussie Anna Meares (over the retiring, and extremely still bad-!@#, Victoria Pendleton) to finally break the iron grip of the Brits on cycling gold in the sprint, but there was almost more fun outside the velodrome as Belgian omnium contender Gijs Van Hoecke was tossed out of the Games for partying just a liiittttle too hard apres-track--and really, with all the dope folks've been busted for these Games, *that's* what pisses off the Olympic etiquette narcs?--and the IOC announcing that onetime gold medalist Tyler Hamilton's finally being formally stripped of his medal over his doping admission. Okay, that's fine enough--but much as I like Ekimov, am I the only person thinking that giving the gold to any other one of Lance Armstrong's teammates from back in the day is !@#$in' *insane*? Hell, give it to Alexander Vinokourov or somebody whydontcha? Oh, wait...my bad!

It's the Tour o' Utah, Baby! And Eneco!: meantime, back in the peloton, the boys've divided themselves up quite nicely between the Tour o' Utah and the Eneco Tour, with Vande Velde heading up the pack in Utah after a typically slammin' Garmin time trial, Tom Boonen cannily taking the leader's jersey at Eneco, and, in one of the most nerve-wracking teaser-titles o' the week, Contador Tests...uh, the Cauberg ahead of taking on Chris Froome and Juan Jose Cobo in less'n a fortnight at the Vuelta a Espana. Keep on testing, Alberto--the climbs, that is, the climbs! And here's the dashing Tommeke--maybe he might give Van Hoecke a few tips on partying with a bit more dignity?