Let's Build Giorgia Bronzini a Giant Gleaming Golden Monument to Her Brilliance!

A.goddam.mazing: One sprint is boss. Two is great. Three is awesome. Four is astonishing. Five--well, for my money, five in a row is enough to enshrine you as the greatest sprinter of all time. What's more, she always, always compliments her rivals and thanks her great team. Yep, Emma Johansson's still in the lead at the Route de France, but moly, Giorgia is truly unstoppable. Bow, bow before la Bronzini, you (well, we) peasants! Here, some stage 4 highlights: Forzaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!

Blinded By the Light: in "oh my god!" merger news, a Basque newspaper's reported that Lampre "Home of a Thousand Mantova Investigations" Merida is interested in merging with our beloved Euskaltel, which I suppose I can accept without having a total breakdown under a just couple of minor conditions: (1) everyone at Euskaltel gets to stay; (2) anyone who's ever left Euskaltel (you know who you are!) gets to come back; (3) the team kit remains orange and black; and (4) the team still gets to be called Euskaltel. Still, I do rather love Lampre for not only its Bedazzlered Disney-princess team kit, but the delicious irony of Michele Scarponi getting awarded Alberto Contador's Giro after his later-season doping DQ a ways back. Just don't bring any of yer poison into my beloved orange army, you heathens! Oh, for heck's sake, can't you guys just sell off a few assets to save some money *and* save the team in its own right, y'know, maybe a team "donkey cart" instead of a fancy team "bus" or somethin'll do....

Welcome Back, Manolo!: and, for those of you too morally superior to hire reprehensible outcasts like Bobby Julich or Eric Zabel, but who now inconveniently can't find anyone cleaner to fill the management ranks, the great ONCE-Eroski/Liberty Seguros mastermind Manolo "Briefcase" Saiz has announced he's interested in being back in the game, perhaps in such a tender role as mentoring innocent young riders in their starry-eyed journey to cycling superstardom. Y'know, to be fair, he's right to point out he did a darn good job with a jailbait Alberto Contador and a spring-chicken Rodriguez--and heck, his palmares-o-sleaze isn't *so* too much the worst of the bunch, amiright?