Johan Bruyneel Freaks Out

Smart Thinkin' There, Johan!: yep, as even relentless fan-boy hero-worshipping love-rag Sports Illustrated gives up on a national idol and names Lance Armstrong its "Anti-Sportsman" of the Year, PostalDiscovery cohort-in-slime Johan Bruyneel, in a move seemingly calculated to court even more animosity and suspicion from the relevant governing bodies, has sagely tweeted his own commitment to the new era of clean cycling: "A bunch of douches r gonna meet in London 2 change cycling. But why is @vaughters not on the list? He should be leading that group...". Now *that's* a guy who's showing (1) humble Hincapian remorse and (2) Armstrongian class! Dang, I understand he's pissed that Jonathan Vaughters gets to tattoo "I TOOK TONS OF DOPE" on his forehead hire a pack of silent complicit former Armstrong henchmen still earning tons of money off their drug-wrought fame til forced to confess write a tearful op-ed in the paper apologize profusely change course and be internationally slobbered over as the Mr. Clean Savior o' Cycling and all--and far worse, natch, that Vaughters dissingly blocked Johan on his Twitter feed--but Johan, the solution to *your* personally going down in flames for essentially similar transgressions isn't to get all snitty that Vaughters figured a way out of his mess, but for you to either (1) shut the hell up and get out of the way of, heck, at least *some* small temporary progress in this glorious tainted wreck of a sport or (2) at least shut the hell up enough not to antagonize people who can get you canned for life and make your current travails even worse. Oh, Johan, just shed a few Millaresque tears for the cameras, write a slutty little tell-all for 'cycling's own good', totally coincidentally rake in the obscene loads o' dough and retire already...after all, you still get to keep the credit for your little buddy Contador's 2009 Tour de France win, right?

Frank Rises Again: speaking of RadioSkank, poor innocent Frank Schleck is braving it out in team camp as he awaits his inevitable clearance on banned-diuretic charges, and I gotta say, much as I wish the best for ol' Frank--mainly because I think he really is a better cyclist than even his talented younger brother, at least, y'know, when he's, well, nutritionally up to date--I'm actually kinda worried if this stunt isn't just gonna make it worse for fragile Andy when his brother is torn from him *again.* C'mon, Andy, you know despite this week's sniping that Contador's still gonna get to ride the Tour--between the tenacious likes of him, Cadel, and Froome all physically and mentally poised to stalk you every turn of the pedals, you *really* better toughen up quick!

G.I. Joe is Back: finally, congrats to the fresh meat over at Quick Step for all surviving their special-ops boot camp this week! The big winner: new recruit Mark Cavendish, who as you can see here has decisively beat down Tom Boonen for team-leadership supremacy once and for all: Congrats Cav, and Tommeke, so sorry, but then, all's fair in love and war!