My Fantasy Oleg Tinkov/ Team Tinkoff-Saxo Press Conference

OT (takes podium with entire Tinkoff-Saxo squad kneeling before him): Good morning. I've called you all here today to stroke my insatiable need for attention and to address the recent rumors that, despite a couple of minor early-season victories from my chief riders that have done nothing to bring me the glory that is rightfully mine, something is very wrong here at Team Tinkoff-Saxo. First, let me say, nothing is wrong at all. Instead, we have cannily been distracting you and our fiercest rivals from our inevitable immediate sweep of each of the remaining Monuments, every one of the Grand Tours, and all other races by completely sucking so far this season. Hah, I can see we've already psyched you out, you gullible weaklings!

Second, to extent anything *is* wrong over here at Casa Oleg, it is absolutely and utterly everyone else's fault but mine. !@#&, what's the point of throwing more money than God at everyone who looks good on paper in the cycling world if you can't unjustly blame them for the way I'm handling the team? At the same time, until my minions can find a way to completely screw him financially and professionally, I also want to express my complete support for Bjarne Riis. ALRIGHT I'VE SUPPORTED YOU, NOW GET OUT OF MY SIGHT OR I'LL REALLY "SUSPEND" YOU, YOU INCOMPETENT IDIOT!

Finally, I am here today to announce my great and dazzling plan to fix this team. Henceforth, *I*, Oleg Tinkov, will be the *sole* rider in every race. Therefore, I will be my own team captain, superdomestique, sprinter, lead-out train, and bottle-carrying workhorse. I CAN CLIMB THE !@#$ING ALPS BEFORE THAT ALSO-RAN CONTADOR CAN EVEN FIGURE OUT HOW TO GET HIS BIB SHORTS ON IN THE MORNING, I WILL CRUSH YOU AT THE TOUR DE FRANCE FROOME YOU OVERHYPED PIECE OF !@#$!

This of course leaves you wondering what will happen to those team members who are still under contract until they generously agree to rip them up or I break their knees off. Be assured, each team member will be assigned roles fully in keeping with his million-euro superstar status and particular talents. Peter Sagan, being so fast in the sprint, will fetch me my coffee from Starbucks first thing each morning. (Sagan runs up to him with small cup) I SAID *FOURTEEN* SHOTS OF ESPRESSO, YOU IGNORANT WORM! (throws it in Sagan's face) Alberto Contador, with his peerless stamina and climbing ability, will be in charge of carrying my luggage up to and down from the 14th-floor penthouse suite of my hotel each day until he proves to me he's sorry for making me look like a total asshat in front of everybody. And of course Bjarne, with his great tactical expertise, will be in charge of keeping everyone's dirty cycling clothes properly sorted, washed, and returned to their owners in neatly labeled laundry bags by 4 a.m. each race-day morning. DOES THAT EXPENSIVE RAPHA SOCK LOOK LIKE SOMETHING I WOULD DEIGN TO LET THAT BLOCKHEAD PETER WEAR WHILE HE STILL FAILS SO BADLY? HE'LL WEAR UNBEARABLY ITCHY SACKCLOTH KIT UNTIL FLANDERS IS MINE, MINE, MINE!

This concludes our morning press conference. Thank you for coming and I am truly humbled by your attendance. NOW KEEP YOUR EYES GLUED TO MY TWITTER FEED UNTIL I POST A PICTURE OF MYSELF LEAPING SAFELY BACK TO EARTH FROM THE INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION WITHOUT SOME WUSSY LITTLE "PARACHUTE" OR "OXYGEN" FIFTEEN MINUTES AND FORTY SECONDS FROM NOW, YOU COWERING LIFELESS LEECHES!

!#$!, What's the Return Policy on a 6.3 Million Euro Pro Cyclist Again? Oleg Tinkov Freaks Out

Desperado: yeah, it's lookin' desperate over at Rancho Tinkoff all right, as rakish-n-almost-resultsless Peter Sagan blows Oleg's--uh, his own--first big goal of the season at Sanremo with an indifferent 4th and, at the start of his second pre-Tour showdown with Chris Froome at the Volta a Catalunya, Giro-Tour double hope Alberto Contador sez he's got a baaaad cold, so don't expect too much outta him either. Translation: the team is !@#$ed, Oleg's got no idea what to do about it, Bjarne's sacked, and Oleg's now gotta figure out some non-mutilating way to inspire his high-paid starlets but quick. !@#$, Oleg, if Alberto can't handle one cold day at Tirreno this year, what the hell do think a full-on blizzard at the Giro is gonna do to his Tour chances? Dammit, am I the only one thinkin' that if the season gets on this way, we're just gonna have Froomey and Nairo for the final maillot jaune in Paris, and that freak Valverde is gonna nail the 3d spot on the podium *again*? Fix this Oleg--I don't know if we can take this !@#$ much longer!

Degen-Stone-Kolb-Killer: meantime, the glow hasn't quite yet faded off the fine John Degenkolb's Milan-Sanremo triumph, and with this smashing run to the line after half the faves went down on the Poggio, it's easy to see why. Nice job big guy--and Cav, feel better next year!

Electric Avenue: and, after a scathing report excoriating the biopassport as a handy doping baseline (told ya), TUEs as total bull!@#$, and new-gen doping pounding the crap obsolete testing equipment, UCI's taking serious action: testing 36 *bikes* for mechanical doping at Milano-Sanremo. For !@#$'s sake, you oughta be looking for the needle marks on the riders' !@#es, not the wiring in the !@#$ing top tubes! And we *don't* need you clowns giving certain riders who creep the hell outta the whole lot of us any freakin' ideas while we're at it...

When *I* Was a Whippersnapper, Fausto Coppi Got Eaten By a Yeti On the !&#$in' Stelvio, and He *Liked* It!

To the Extreme: alright, screw that masochistic cyclist hard-man crap--not only are notorious softies like Pippo Pozzato tweeting their outrage, even tough-guy Fabian Cancellara's finally had enough, and is calling bull!@#$ on extreme-weather stages like Tirreno-Adriatico's frozen Stage 5 to Terminillo because of some ridiculous wussmeister concern like the riders' "health and safety." What a pack a' whinin' weenies! "My !@# is frozen to the saddle" this, "I'm too numb to grip the handlebars on this icy deadly descent" that! Do you know how much you're getting *paid* to catch a slobbering cold virus for a month for our selfish pervert entertainment while we cheer you on from the comfort of our heated road-side campers, or splosh our hot cocoa right on the tray-table by the TV in gutted sympathy when you're passed within a few meters of the line? We're in *agony* here you crybabies! Oh, the soul's just gone out of the sport if it's gonna be about who's the best at basic ol' "bike riding" from now on....c'mon Pippo, you're just pissed you had to cover up your tats!

Well, I See That Little Pep Talk With the Hired Goons and the Cattle Prod Worked: and, welcome back to the Saganator, outlasting the rest of sprinters on yet another miserably crappy day at Tirreno and taking his first win of the year at last, with the generously-credited help of teammate Alberto Contador. Well well, maybe he *is* gonna pull it together for an all-out slaughterfest at the Classics this year. Amazing what a little "chat" with an unhappy fat-walleted Oleg Tinkov can do--now Contador, don't *make* him have to talk to you about handling the cold weather properly at the Giro!

What? She's Not Bionic?: Finally, best wishes for a speedy recovery to--no, it can't be possible--the indestructible Marianne Vos, who apparently has pulled a mortal human "hamstring", further dashing the last hope of the entire peloton that the whole reason she's able to kick everyone's !@# with such relentless perfection is that she's actually mechanically a military-grade clandestine-project android. Yeah, she can still probably wipe the floor with everybody--just count yerselves lucky someone else besides her gets to win a race or two this year!

Aw, Crap, Chaingate *Again*? I Thought Schleck and Contador Were Through With This !#$!; And, Pony Up Already, Sagan!

The Neverending Story: yep, just when you thought you'd finally heard the last of the whining over evil Alberto Contador attacking innocent Andy Schleck when he dropped his chain in a hapless mechanical and nefariously stealing that Tour de France, the same stupid !@#$ing thing is being yapfested about agai...oh, wait, this is *Cavendish*, today, at Tirreno, wholly accidentally taking out rival Elia Viviani over what Quick Step is now saying is a repeat chain-drop problem that blew Cav's nearly inevitable win at the sprint. Whoa moly, anyone know if Cav's mechanic's okay after Mark no doubt flew at him like some rabid snarling toothy badger to chew his face off? Whoever he is, I'm sure if he's not *too* roughed up, that the problem's been analyzed and damn well fixed--or else! Here, the carnage: Feel better soon, Elia!

There's Buyer's Remorse, And There's 12 million !@#$in' Euros of Buyers' Remorse: meantime, a day after Alberto Contador thanked Oleg Tinkov for his new-signed 2016 contract by bonking at the opening Tirreno-Adriatico time trial, fellow pampered flower Peter Sagan woofed yet *again* by blowing the sprint at Tirreno today, but luckily, Oleg was so charmed by Peto's wacky post-race antics that he only *threatened* to wrap 'im up like a mummy and trebuchet him across the next sprint finish line like some creepy-!@# spandex medieval missile. Just ask Alberto, Peter--batting those eyelashes is only gonna get you so far, honey! Still, panicked Tinkov minion/cycling impresario Bjarne Riis is urging everyone not to panic over Sagan's impending Classics season just yet, which he paradoxically did by pointing out how much better than him everyone else who's in contention already is this year. Jaysus, Oleg, you're already putting Alberto under freakish pressure having him try to be the first sap to win the Giro-Tour double since the allegedly more, well, highly-provisioned era--you're really still gonna screw him by putting one pedal stroke of the Tour squad's effort behind this showoff? Oh, Sagan'll take his first win of the season soon enough, and you'll melt like buttah on hot popcorn--Alberto, you'd better start vying a little harder for Oleg's affection right about now!

Narcs That Go Bump in the Night: and, in the wake of the CIRC report, the debate rages on over UCI's threat to jack up middle-of-the-night dope testing for exhausted random riders during major races, not only leading to a deluge of hotel mini-fridges mysteriously ditched in dumpsters during Grand Tour season, but a web-clogging increase in desperate Google searches asking "who was that guy who got out of a positive by saying he was doing the nasty that time?" Me, I actually very much sympathize with some poor clean schmo whose hopes for a next-day stage win are dashed by rubber-gloved goons wrecking his much-needed sleep in search of some guilty doping assclown. Oh well, that's the unjust price of cycling purity, I guess--and lucky that at least a few 'em of 'em are already taking sedatives according to that CIRC report!

French Press: finally, congrats to the wily French Cycling Federation, using the lame excuse of 'making sure nobody was doping' to screw reigning Tour de France champ Vincenzo Nibali out of a cool half million euros in prize money 'til they're sure he, and the winners of a wunk of other 2014 French races, deserves the money. So, with retroactive testing improvements and all, you're planning on paying the poor guy when, when his senior citizen pension vests? I mean, I get messing around with the small if unimpeachale Nibali's head and bank account, if you're a total jerk and all--but really, bigger guys like Niki Terpstra? On wing span alone that guy could wring the money outta you by force!

In Which I Read That Damn CIRC Report, So You Don't Have To #circ

1. Alberto Contador--too darn cute to prosecute!

2. Hein Verbruggen & Pat McQuaid: love means never having to say "you're guilty."

3. 20%, 90%, who cares? It couldn't possibly be the guys who are winning now!

4. Dr. Michele Ferrari--good !@#$. Dr. Eufemiano Fuentes--the *really* good !@#$.

5. Mmmm, Mmmm, Omerta!

6. Systemic team doping: out. Individual members comprising entire teams who totally coincidentally use the exact same team doctors, products, and doping regimens: in.

7. Corticosteroids: such total bull!@#$ even *we* can't justify these guys using 'em. Wait, *who's* still taking them?

8. Lab Equipment: so what if it hasn't been updated since 1976?

9. The Biological Passport: I didn't know how much I *could* get away with until you told me. Thanks, guys!

10. Crashes: not just for Tyler Farrar anymore. It's the drugs, too!

11. Lance Armstrong: yep. Still an !@#$^%$!

12. Brian Cookson: he can't be doing any worse than *those* !@#$in' clowns!

Well, I'm humbled and delighted if that's two hours outta your lives I just saved you, my dear readers--now, with Paris-Nice and Tirreno on hand, it's time to get back to the races!