Saturday, October 18, 2014

Holy Crap Astana's In Trouble! An Alternate Career Plan for Vincenzo Nibali #cycling

Calm Down, Everybody!: okay, so yet *another* numbnut Vinokourov protege--a stagiare, but still--has gotten popped for drugs, and boy, is UCI mad how bad it makes them look: they're micro-examining every tiny detail of Team Astana, and, worse, threatening to take away their World Tour license. And while they're realistically not gonna put down the team containing the reigning Tour de France champion--who has a rep as a raging anti-doper, no less--still, more freakish things can happen, and with damn near *everybody's* budget too blown to accommodate as expensive a rider as Nibali, if the boy wants to be entirely safe, he's gotta start thinkin' backup. My proposal: Nibali to Tinkoff-Saxo! And cool it, Contador fans, I've got good reason here: Oleg Tinkoff sheds Nibali's annual salary in euros when he blows his nose, and the Contador-Nibali matchup is headline city. Can you imagine that in combination with Oleg's ability to force both riders to take on all 3 Grand Tours ('cause no matter who's exhausted by September, Oleg's highly likely to take at least one of 'em), he gets to stroke his raging ego by having Alberto and Vincenzo cage-fight it out on the roads for Oleg's favor all season? Will Contador count on Nibali's hometown pride to drive him to the win and total exhaustion at the Giro, thereby allowing Alberto to prove himself the indisputably stronger captain for Alberto's lost Tour de France? Will Nibs leave the Vuelta entirely to Contador, or take advantage of Alberto's now-frazzled legs to smack Alberto right in front of the boy's own hometown crowds? Will Chris Froome take advantage of the internal team discord he used so effectively to screw Brad Wiggins the last couple years to grab Grand Tour glory while Nibs and Alberto mark and attack each other? I hope Astana holds on, if for nothing else because Vino's such a crazy vindictive fabulous bastard--but Vincenzo, there's hope for you just in case!

See No Evil, Rat on No Evil: meantime, Thor Hushovd's still stirring up controversy with his new autobio, getting viciously slagged for maintaining his friendship and omerta with his pal Lance Armstrong even after the latter casually admitted to Hushovd that he was a giant doping peloton-screwing scumbag. Oh sure, maybe his tacit complicity contributed to the wholesale public-relations destruction of the sport we love, but jeez, cut the big lug some slack, I say--I mean, if we apply that sort of good-sportsmanship narc-on-your-pals rule equally, there'd probably be like two guys left in Mo--uh, Montana, and *then* who would be left for us to watch? More, big Thor has also dissed Armstrong destructo-campaign victims such as Bassons for trying--and being wrecked for--calling bull!@#$ on Lance back in the day, on the theory that if Thor could win when *he* wasn't doping, Bassons and those other whiny clowns just plain sucked anyway. Thor, Thor, just because the Thunder God could take on some of the most stoked-up sprinters in the peloton on the flats doesn't mean that single individual climbers could reasonably be expected to compete in the Alps against not only Armstrong but his entire damn needle-stuffed pace-setting robot army! Oh, Thor, can't we just talk about your green jersey or something--you're not *helping* yourself here!

P.S. !@#dammit, why does we love Samuel Sanchez still not have a contract yet? Another ex-Euskie already retired this season! !@#$in' 800-year-old Alessandro Petacchi's got like three offers to choose from! I mean for !@#$'s sake Valverde's still riding! You *suck*, BMC!

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