CSC-Ya Later

It's Over!: In a fairly friendly press release, Bjarne "The Waffle" Riis finally announced the mutual parting of the ways between CSC and Ivan Basso. Aw, rats! Basso, of course, was diplomatic and respectful--which thank God I'm under no obligation to be--focusing on his future and his faith that staying on his bike after his last-second ditch from the Tour in Strasbourg has kept him ready for the challenges ahead. First, am I the only law geek who wants to look at that deal, and see how much they had to pay Basso for tanking his contract on unproven allegations? Drinks are on Ivan, I suspect! Second, you suck Riis! First you whine that he's wrecked your rep and send him down the river with a cool "I've got no control over him." Then you defend his honor and attack the cruelty of a system that preemptively crushed the careers of stellar riders without concrete evidence. Then, you pull a Pat McQuaid on him again. Could you have made up your mind before you gave us all a migraine and threw a likely wrench into the career of whatever poor innocent SOB Basso's going to boot out of their expected team leadership in a late-season coup (and it better not be Levi Leipheimer)? Finally, while I'm happy for the potential CSC focus on Sastre and the Vuelta, is Riis really going to bet the sponsor's dough on the least publicly-known of the three Grand Tours, or are you going to make him work for baby golden boy Schleck or someone else in France and grossly overuse him as he experienced this season?

Fallout: Discovery's Dirk Demol, of course, immediately leapt into hypertechnical nondenial mode, claiming that "nothing concrete" has been presented to Basso, which to me sounds like the slobbering courier's only just been released from his chain to spring over to Basso's lawyer's office with the drool-covered contract in his teeth. And of course, I'd utterly forgotten that Basso used to be with Fassa Bortolo, which leaves his purported interest from mostly-successor Milram making more sense, but still begs the question of exactly who the hell is going to take him to the next Grand Tour win he can surely grab otherwise--what, Petacchi's going to drag his @$$ up the Alps? Meantime, sourpuss implode-athon T-Mobile's already snarking that the other teams which might have an interest in Basso of course have no ethics, which may in fact be a less grievous insult to cycling than the wholesale self-destruction of a brilliant and balanced powerhouse and unjustifiable screwing of serious talent which the team engaged in by jacking around Kloden and Kessler in a hyperventilating fit of anti-Ullrich fervor. You made your bed, T-Mobile, quit crying excuses about why your 2007 season's already crap!

Oh Johan. Don't do this to poor Levi!

Sex, Drugs, and Rock 'n' Roll (Well, Drugs Anyway)

Ouch!: So ex-Postie/Credit Agricole rider/now TIAA-CREF management Jonathan Vaughters had quite the lively email exchange with confessed doper/ongoing thorn in Lance's side Frankie Andreu in 2005, in which Vaughters apparently claimed he could explain "how Lance fools everybody" and "with everything Floyd told me, I know the method exactly." Not only that, but if you want to know why a huge lump of Posties ignominiously cracked en masse the day after the Dauphine stage of the 2005 Tour, look no further than their blood, which was removed for doping leaving the boys a bit short on a rolling stage even a sprinter could handle. In fact, he claims, Floyd even said he had photos of doped blood being transported by moto, presumably to avoid the hard-to-explain inconvenience of some antidoping spoilsport finding it in the team bus fridge next to the Gatorade. Vaughters, however, gamely backtracked under questioning by the media, and apologetically claimed he was just passing along gossip he'd heard totally indirectly from someone else. What is this, the high-school girls' bathroom? However, Vaughters at least exonerated fellow Credit Agricole rider Christophe Moreau, which makes it at least one clean guy we know of in the peoloton. Right on Christophe!

Hmm...:so Basso, in the midst of discussing the Riis estrangement in diplomatic if perhaps distinctly lovelorn terms, did address the question of why he wouldn't take a DNA test after vowing to prove his innocence by any means possible, wisely blaming it on his lawyer and keeping himself the helpless good guy by saying the attorney's not opposed in principle, but with all the confusion around the Op Puerto investigation, he can't trust the state of conservation of the blood bags seized by the officials. Good work Ivan! See that Floyd? Blood samples bad. Me good. That's it, get it? On the other hand, given the tsunami of sympathetic mail flooding the cycling press, perhaps I'm entirely wrong and Landis is doing the right thing after all. Oh, no I'm not, and like hell he is! We've all accepted from past skirmishes that the lab guys are a pack of circus clowns in white coats; the only question that matters to the fans though is did you actually, really do it or not, and proper procedure is a technicality that most nonlawyers don't give a rat's @#$ about. I stand by my plea, be quiet Floyd!

Back to Basso, I'm still dearly hoping that if Ivan and Bjarne don't kiss and make up, which will completely suck for CSC though it'll put more focus on we love Sastre I imagine cause no way is Riis gonna hire Ullrich if Basso's crap case is scaring him off, Basso doesn't go to Discovery where I'm convinced he would certainly, if unintentionally (that doesn't include you Bruyneel!), screw poor Levi, who after all's got a lot less time to play with than Basso, though to be fair to Basso I'm not sure (if the other rumors are true) what a still sprint-heavy Milram can do for him in the high passes and he'd clearly be better off for Grand Tour purposes with Johan & Co. Anyhow, if Basso's closing the door on DNA samples, good luck to ProTour team organization manager Roger Legeay, who's calling for DNA testing of all the Op Puerto riders before they can return to the peloton. Let's be honest here before we do the right thing, which it would be--you sure you want to knock that many heavy-hitting sponsor-pleasing cash cows off the podium Roger?

D'oh-pe!:And, speaking of Jan Ullrich, after the latest round of rumors of too many visits to Madrid, two bags of blood labeled 'Jan', signed photos for Fuentes, DNA swabs, doping payments new docs and a heightened Swiss investigation, Jan, the Swiss, and pretty much everyone else on the plaet are engaged in a massive hoo-ha of denials obfuscations and am-not-eithers, which leaves virtually nothing regarding the Swiss proceedings except that...nah, Jan's been smacked around enough already, I'll just leave it there. Good luck Jan!

Race Roundup

Are We There Yet?: Well, this is a week late, but anyway, it was a surprising if slow-moving 100th anniversary Paris-Tours, as a huge chunk of the peloton--including likely top finishers Erik Zabel and Tom Boonen--threw a collective tantrum after realizing that their failure to join the rest of the bunch in chasing an early break had actual consequences and whiningly bailed out en masse at the feed zone. Presumably, they were all sent packing in tears off to their team buses with their big sponsor stuffed animals for naptime after they were finished with cookies and juice. Anyhoo, the few survivors set off in halfhearted lumpen pursuit after later break obscure Frenchman FDJ's Frederic Guesdon, we love CSC's Kurt-Asle Arvesen, Cristian Moreni, Kevin Van Impe, and Enrico Gasparetto. Finally, with the break too blase to organize itself for victory, and the peloton finally hitting what appeared to be dizzying speeds of 15 mph in pursuit, Guesdon takes off, Arvesen eventually goes for the wheel, Van Impe might've but was jacked by a slow-hissing rear leak right when the race organizers had sent the support cars back on the bogus theory that the peloton was interested in taking some sort of action, Guesdon (who rightfully deserved the win for being the only guy all day to take any real initiative)and Arvesen suddenly engaged in such egregious tactical dithering that your average three year old on a Big Wheel could've taken em without even a Kool Aid sugar high, the peloton inexplicably stopped virtually dead rather'n take advantage and chase em down, and Guesdon took off again as Arvesen ill-timedly looked back to the limping non-threats in the bunch and handily, and justly, took the win, with we love both O'Grady and Hushovd first in the group. France is having quite the year at last coming out of Lance's shadow, no? Right on FDJ!

Tearjerker: And, at the Giro di Lombardia, a sobbing Paolo Bettini saluted the heavens as he crossed the line after a typically spectacular world's-reminiscent Bettini, while smacking around a promising Gerolsteiner threesome of Fabian Wegmann, Davide Rebellin, and Georg Totschnig, also blew apart the rest of his fellow breakaways (Sammy Sanchez, Danilo Di Luca, Frank Schleck and Cristian Moreni among them) on the Ghisallo, screams down a hair-raising (and arm-scraping) descent down the Civiglio where he leaves everyone but Wegmann far in the dust and viewers in a heart attack as he veers into guardrails and sheer stone drop-offs, then charges up the San Fermo, with a miserably suffering but tenacious Wegmann forced to slug it out fruitlessly with a surging Sanchez for second. Ticked as I am over the Iban Mayo contract debacle, I gotta concede that Euskaltel-Euskadi's hit the jackpot with this boy. Anyhow, no podium for Bettini nonetheless as the ProTour teams boycotted in in solidarity against the race organizers' diss of Valverde's official receipt of the ProTour trophy, which he got anyway in a later gala, but easily the most emotional race win I've ever seen, and a well-deserved end to an incredible and tragic season for Bettini. Vai Paolo!

Bass-kicked

Dammit!: So it's no Giro di Lombardia for newly-cleared Ivan Basso, per an unfruitful talk with Bjarne Riis, who apparently didn't want any threat to (justly) rising star Frank Schleck on the course or at the line. Well then, that's it--if Riis is throwing his weight behind Schleck instead of jumping to slag the press and antidoping hounds for screwing Basso and CSC and shoving Basso back into the peloton for the last chance he'll have this season, it's over between Basso and Riis entirely. Basso, of course, was gracious in deference to Bjarne's divine right of team leadership, but since I'm not obligated to be either diplomatic or fair, go to hell Bjarne! If Basso really is guilty--and I ain't saying he's not--why don't you have the stones to head to court and try break his contract for it? And if he's innocent, why aren't you kneecapping the overeager slandering bloodhounds who just jacked you Basso and CSC out of a Tour podium (at least) and cast a noxious cloud of drug-fueled doubt over your spanking-new Giro? Not to detract from your unquestioned brilliance, and the fact that CSC is clearly currently the best team on the planet with a truly high-class, not just winning, lineup due entirely to you, but if you won't grow a spine about Ivan Basso you suck Riis!

Dream, Dream, Dree-aaam: I find it almost dear that Andreas Kloden, who presumably really wants a Tour de France win but insists on continued devotion to merely another Tour podium spot, remains confident that he, Vinokorouv and Kashechkin will be "handled equally" by Astana next year at the Tour. Now, I don't know if I'm the only one who's noticed the golden triumvirate of (1) Astana's ruling Kazakh sponsorship; (2) Vinokorouv's total domination of the formation and structuring of the team; and (3) Vino's tendency to bushwhack his actual team leader, much less his equals (though he's fair, to be fair, to others), but...good luck with that in 07, Andreas!

Swiss Family Ullrich: So, the docs are all in (but for a few from Germany and Spain) and properly notarized to warm the hearts of anal-retentive paper-pushers everywhere, and the Swiss are now all set to go Neanderthal on poor Jan Ullrich in a way the Italians never even considered for fellow babe Ivan Basso. Given that neither boy has tested positive in any race test (except for Jan right a hundred years ago?), this seems exceedingly unfair and crappy, but then, one's been implicated primarily by a renegade gyno and a bag with his dog's name on it, and the other is a reckless party boy with a rep for lazy early-season training, 10 years of rumors and non-Lanceness to combat, and a penchant for disco drugs. We're still pulling for you Jan! After all, has anyone been so @#$-slapped in the press and by the fans for the grievous failure of winning the Tour de France and endless time trials and classics?

Except, that is, for poor Tom Boonen this year, who I rather think deserves a moratorium on references to his "troubled" "disappointing" or "lame" season. Sure, he tanked in the Tour, if you're gonna berate the sort of loser who gets to wear the maillot jaune, and like lots of the really big boys, he could've had a better worlds. But he did win a few other races this season that I heard off, so knock it off already everbody!

Man, I *hate* defending guys who win all the time, instead of my underdogs (the overdogs)? Anyway, free Joseba!

12 Angry Men

It's Up! Yep, against all sane (that is, my) advice, Floyd Landis has posted a handsome powerpoint, a spirited attack, and 300-odd pages of material on his personal website, most of which seems to point out the French are really, really crappy recordkeepers--which is certainly a sin against bureaucracy--but not point out why Landis is actually innocent--which would certainly be the relevant sin against Landis. *What* have I been telling you for months about the appearance of nitpicky lawyerly weaselling, Floyd? Aaaaaarrrrrrgggggghhhhhh!

It's Out!: Yep, in the wake of the Spanish court's order that the national cycling federations not use any Operacion Puerto documents against riders until its own investigation is complete--which regarding the boy at hand were pretty lame anyway I gather--the Italian Olympic Committee did indeed formally recommend that the (not necessarily unjustified) witchhunt against dreamy-eyed man-candy Ivan Basso be dropped. And, as expected, pending talks with Bjarne Riis, the happy babe magnet may indeed ride this weekend. Right on Ivan's lawyer! Of course, the bloodied but unbowed bottom feeders over at UCI still say they're gonna drag his sorry @$$ into arbitration anyway, but then, with the fat new paychecks he's sure to reap in hand (either from CSC or someone else), hey, he can afford to spread the wealth to his paid minions. Go Ivan!

Yawn: In other impotent crybaby news, FDJ's Marc Madiot doesn't want any of the Op Puerto riders back in the peloton at all, particularly Basso and Ullrich. As for Jan, "one will quickly forget about him, as one has quickly forgotten Armstrong." Right, because if Paris-Tours hadn't been just this weekend, we'd all be remembering FDJ lately for...uhhhh...As for both the dirty dopers, Madiot's disgusted any team would negotiate with them, as, after all, "how do you sell this to the sponsors?" Well, how about you'll make millions of euros selling endless newspaper photos pimping the pearly-toothed visages of a shirtless-posing Basso or a curly-haired Ullrich in prominent team kit to swooning women and men alike on several continents?

Justice, Shalt Thou Pursue: Rabble-rousing Belgian senator Jean-Marie Dedecker's been kicked to the curb by his own party no less for "damaging their reputation"--not over his cycling crusade apparently, but then again, if you're a "Top 3 Beligan Cyclist" so subtly slandered by this guy, who cares?

Let's be clear, I'm not trying to be an apologist for any of these guys, most of whom probably are guilty of doping, and I feel more than sympathetic to any poor clean SOB in the peloton who's getting cheated. But with Boss Hogg and Roscoe P. Coltrane running the investigations, how sympathetic are we supposed to be to the arbitrary moronothon of a process that's going after these guys anyway? If you have the evidence, present it fairly. If you haven't, then condemn the system's technological flaws and the underhanded doctors who tell riders how to beat them all right, but don't convict whatever riders you've got a grudge against for possibly beating you with a bunch of snarky innuendo. For one thing, you're usurping my job. So put up or shut up already, you whiners!

Not About Dope: Finally, major belated props to Greg Lemond, who in a recent local apperance was more than generous to all who sought his time and general reflected glory. Between that, his amazing contributions to cycling (American in particular), and his relentlessly pleasing ability to tick off Lance Armstrong, what more could one want in a living legend?

Are Too! Am Not! Are Too! Am Not! Are ...

Disco Fever: Well, Johan Bruyneel is vigoriously putting the kibosh on persistent rumors that it's going for Jan Ullrich to lead the team ("Am not!"), and also that he's in hot pursuit of Giro pinup/Lance sorta-protege Ivan Basso ("Am...uh,is that my mother calling? I gotta go into dinner now!") Which would certainly leave the Giro and the Vuelta for Basso if he wanted 'em both, but would more likely leave...what? Levi Leipheimer completely screwed into accepting the consolation prize of a stage win opportunity (like Basso would give away a mountain stage) in the Tour instead of the team leadership he signed up for? Basso agreeing to work for someone else at the peak of his power and after he was completely jacked out of the last ride into Paris (ha!)? Poor Levi!

In half-@#$edly translated intercontinental gossip, it seems to me (and again, with my pidgin Italian, I caution that I could actually be talking about the latest Janet Jackson wardrobe malfunction) that Gazzetta dello Sport is reporting that CONI, the Italian olympic honchos, are actually gonna cough up a decision today on Basso instead of later in the month as expected, and if, as expected, the case is adjudged utter crap on the basis of a few phone calls a fax and some dog slander, Basso could actually be cleared to ride the Giro di Lombardia this weekend. But for whom, you ask, now or in the future? Well, Riis has still got him at the moment, of course, but with Basso allegedly in a perhaps understandable (if perhaps factually unjustified--not to accuse Ivan of anything, particularly because he's got a dmaned good lawyer--I'm just sayin') snit at Bjarne, not for long I imagine! Anyhow, vai Ivan, and bite me and everyone whose career you tanked this season UCI!

Legal Strategy 101, *Again*

Dope-ing: Floyd, let us review, shall we? In yet another egregious departure from my crack (at least, free), legal advice, you have apparently decided to outline your offense/defense for the upcoming public arbitration well ahead of time on your website this week. Floyd, I quite possibly believe you are innocent--I certainly believe that the Dr. Do-nothings at the lab botched the job as usual--but for everyone's sake and particularly your own, shut the hell up already! I know you want to say that the samples were mislabeled and the wrong number improperly corrected with white-out instead of a cross-out and all this other procedural crap, and you want to post 300 pages of documents too. But the only one of these things that makes you look actually innocent, as opposed to just goddamned lucky that the lab's incompetent and clearly has an axe to grind against any poor bastard it can find to soothe its bruised ego is the allegation about only one of four testosterone/epitestosterone benchmarks showing a problem, when all 4 have to show a problem for a positive test. 1 out of 4 sounds like a mistake, plain and simple. Leave it there. Trust me, a surfeit of scientifically illiterate boneheads like myself rifling through 300 pages of incomprehensibly sophisticated scientific jargon looking for paranoid conspiracy theories, Floyd, is the last freakin' thing you need. The rest of the stuff you're saying, frankly, sounds like Typical Lawyerly Weaselling. So put the benchmark failures issue out there in the most moron-friendly terms possible if you must--and again, really, you mustn't--but otherwise, please, for your own good, Floyd, SHUT UP.

Dope-Slapping

Right On!: A brace of the disgraced-and-uncharged Liberty Seguros boys, among them we love Joseba Beloki, Izidro Nozal,Aitor & Unai Osa, Allan Davis, and Jorg Jaksche, have finally hit the bricks to the courthouse and accused the Spanish cycling federation of "spreading information incorrectly, which violated their rights of personal data protection." An odd claim to be sure, at least by US pitbull standards, but it's a start. Free Joseba!

Ugh: Perpetual weeping penitent St. David Millar is back in court again, as the French courts have been a bit leisurely in tidying up the 2003 Cofidis affair; and, though he just took the Brits' 4000m track pursuit in fine fashion, still won't get to go to the Olympics as the British Olympic Committee has some inexplicable rule about even dopers who really, really publicly feel really, really bad about it not getting to ride for gold medals. Am I the only one who'd almost rather see a baldly lying current doper than some smarmy mea culpa-spouting smurf racing at this point?

Hmmm: So CSC's aggressive new antidoping program has apparently gotten a bit delayed due to some bogging down in pesky details in less than fruitful talks between a Danish antidoping specialist and Bjarne Riis. I think I'll stop right there, particularly as, to be fair for once, they've got plenty of time before the next round of serious testing starts up with the 2007 season. Looking foward to it! Meantime, coy Belgian Senator Jean-Marie Dedecker has coughed up the name of a freelance soigneur to the national cycling federation, but not the public--pickin' on guys without the euros to hire a Boonen-worthy legal goon squad, are we?

Roadtrip!: The cycling museum of the Madonna del Ghisallo, pope-stamped the patron saint of cicliste in the 1940s and reasonably located at the foot of the fear Ghisallo climb near Lake Como, has been newly expanded and reopens to the tifosi on Oct. 15. Anyone up for Italy?

Contract Dramedy: Crap sport AG2R's Lavenu's still blaming Francisco Mancebo's cash-eating contract for its inability to give a contract extension offer to sprinter Alexandre Usov. Am I on dope here too, or shouldn't he be wanking at the team-hired nits who presumably drafting this document for AG2R (innocent til proven guilty, indeed!)rathern' the rider who sensibly signed it? Take it up with the lawyers, Lavenu!; Phonak's Jean "See No Evil" Lelangue has an offer from old boss Tour de France organizer, ASO, but apparently wants to stay in the peloton (no wonder) and is considering ProTour hopeful Unibet. Any riders you want to rescue from Continental team obscurity due to Phonak's self-destruction, perhaps?; and Toyota United's Tony Cruz' headed home to Disovery. Anyone else feel that, fine as some of the lineup a huge number of loyal Lance lieutenants who are great talents in their own rights are being entirely unjustly smacked out the door suddenly for the egregious crime of Not Becoming Lance in the wake of his retirement?; and, last but certainly not least, Saunier Duval denies signing we love Iban Mayo, but admits interest, while Mayo confirms a counter-offer to Eusakltel still for less than he's been making this year on the humble admission that despite his results in Burgos and the Clasica San Sebastian his record this season fairly merits it (we still believe Iban!), no word on the veracity of Cofidis' alleged interest (don't do it !), and Gerolsteiner pretty bitchily denies an offer to Mayo with a cold "totally ridiculous" and he "will most probably never appear on the roster of Team Gerolsteiner." Geez, couldn't you've just said, "no, it's not accurate"? Kick a man while he's down, why dontcha!

You Say Goodbye/And I Say Hello: a bummin' goodbye to 37 year old Estonian Credit Agricole's Jan Kirsipuu, for whom I admit bias because of his excellent name, retiring after this weekend's Paris-Tours with 4 stages in the Tour de France and 6 days in the maillot jaune under his gloves. Nice work Kirsipuu! However, 38 year old ex world champ Laurent Brochard has signed on for one more Bouyges Telekom. Meantime, Liquigas has finalized its pretty intimdiating 2007 lineup, with newbies Leonardo Bertagnoli and Baby Giro winner Daniele Cataldo, plus previously-set Triki, Pozzato, and Guido Trenti, with DiLuca, big Maggy Backstedt, and Luca Paolini all still in the fold as well. We love Triki!

TV News: Bizarrely enough, given that OLN has in recent years decimated its classics and even Grand Tour coverage in light of cycling's ratings obliteration by the likes of such captivating video alternatives as bass-fishing and Bambi-shooting shows, NBC is going to air the new "US Open Cycling Championships" next year. They're genuinely hoping that whacking "US Open" on the name will link it in Americans' dimwit minds to big important sporting events with big important athletes. So why don't these wily marketing pimps just slap on a graphic so people will watch teh "US Open Vuelta a Espana" or the "US Open Paris-Roubaix" and bring some real bike races back to TV? In TV news not being shown in this country, Sunday's Paris-Tours is gonna be 254.5 km of wind-drive sprint madness. Zabel got it last year; Daniele Bennati wants to avenge his second place this year; and O'Grady and Boonen are going for it along with Uros Murn and Fabrizi Guidi in Phonak's Last Stand. Allez Erik!

Riposa in Pace: Finally, world champ Paolo Bettini has decided to race this weekend in memory of his brother Sauro Bettini, killed in a car accident, a particular reason to hope Paolo takes anything he races. Plus, good work to Quick Step for offering to stay out of the Coppa Sabatini in the wake of Paolo's loss and to the race itself for its moment of silence in his brother's memory. Vai Paolo!

Cyclysm

Judge Dredd: UCI, deeply annoyed at the Swiss federation's likely grant of a 2007 race license to Jan Ullrich over some whiny technicality like lack of actual evidence against the besmirched babelicious dopester, is loudly proclaiming via impotent avenging angel Pat McQuaid that it'll take Jan to the Court of Arbitration for Sport if the Swiss don't act. For what? A lunch date, you babies? Spit out the evidence if you've got it, otherwise take the defeat like men and quit crying already! In other doping news, Bjarne Riis is apparently overcoming his strong moral objections to even a whiff of scandal near his team and striking a more conciliatory tone towards likely-soon-to-be-exonerated cash cow Ivan Basso. Sure as hell beats a Basso breach-of-contract lawsuit, as his lawyer's so far batting a thousand. And hey, if some feckless opportunist like Fuentes allegedly names a doped-up blood sample after your dog, and your two-year-old categorically states that the dog's name is something else entirely, well, what more do people want? Meantime, Floyd Landis, soon to be back on the stationary bike with his new rollerball hip, insists his innocence will be soon be proven (as I dearly hope it is) and in fact plans to be the first in the peloton to take his arbitration hearing public. Take that, you leak-happy incompetent petty bureaucrats! And, to Landis' credit, he's limited his press-smacking to UCI and WADA for trying his case in the press (ironically), specifically giving the lone-holdouts professionals at USADA credit for following the rules. Good sportmanship there, Floyd!

Astanashing: noble reformer Walter Godefroot says that, at least as long as Ullrich's accused of doping, no way is Jan gonna be on the Astana list of high-end recruits (no surprise given powerhouse team organizer Vino's unfortunate experience at the Tour this year); what's more, T-Mobile is absolutely talking trash in suggesting that Andreas Kloden is coming on to be some lame stunted superdomestique to Vinokorouv--rather, they're gonna aim a triple threat of Vino Kascheckin and Kloden on all cylinders right at the entire Tour Podium. Of course, on a practical note, we've all seen at T-Mobile and by Vino no less what happens when not everyone signs on with the game plan, but anyway, now what're you gonna do about us at the Tour next year, T-Mobile? Well, there's...um...and, uh...

True Baby-Blue Continental: what is it, beyond merely the Phonak-implosion talent glut, that's leading to the wholesale blowout of the major talents in the ProTour peloton to the (very fine, to be sure) Continental teams this year? Are there really enough wild cards around to justify all these guys not being guaranteed (their teams, anyway) a spot in the Grand Tours? Stefano Garzelli, Jose Acevedo, about 10 others I must've written about already, now Phonak's Alexandre Moos (for Andy Rihs' new USA cyclocross/mtb/road combo team, no less) and Patrick McCarty...what gives? Am I the only one who's gonna miss this guys? Free Stefano!

Wide World of Wrongdoing

The Ick Factor, Due: poor Jan Ullrich, already in the doldrums I suspect with the recent loss of some high-paying sponsors, now figures in the most gack-inducing rumors since the Hamilton pregnancy-hormone allegations, namely the hottest new masking product on the market: a detergent enzyme, amusingly enough a stain remover, that brings one's EPO level down to zero, a tip-off as some ought to be naturally occurring, with more than 10 over-clean samples so far at the Swiss antidoping federation checks alone. The unappealingness: apparently, you dip your fingers in the powder, manhandle the works and the issuance therefrom, and voila! clean as a whistle (the sample, that is.) Aw, yick! Jan, have you *no* dignity?

Meantime, in yet another career-tanking screwup from the circus clowns at UCI, Phonak's Santi Botero has been cleared of any wrongdoing by Colombian cycling authorities for his Operacion Puerto links, interestingly enough after admitting contact with the fine Dr. Fuentes but only, of course, for his health. Where this leaves Botero in the wake of Phonak's collapse, current sponsor paranoia and the recent devolution of equal talents to continental teams is anyone's guess, though I imagine T-Mobile's most unlikely. And, in bigger fish, the Italian federation says it needs more time, one presumes to either clear Basso entirely, bolster themselves against the inevitable road rage from bogeyman UCI, or to get a jump on the monster litigation which is sure to follow either way against any poor SOB the CAS allows him to sue. Basso's attorney has also said he's not currently under investigation in Spain. I must say, much as I hate to see lawyerly skill triumph over actual justice, and the circumstantial evidence against Basso sure doesn't look optimal, I am developing quite a collegial soft spot for Basso's most excellent attorney, if not his actual client--lessons some other scandal-infested riders' hired guns might do well, if not do good, to emulate. Perhaps it's really more my visceral disgust with UCI's voracious incompetence than any professional admiration kicking in, given my own relentless legal-martyr impulses, but either way, allez Basso's counsel!

Anyhow, segueing to race news, the Basso decision, assuming it's "do nothing," will likely kick-start dormant chats between Ivan and CSC king Bjarne Riis on his future, though I imagine someone out there is willing to risk the taint to put a proven Giro-winner back on the podium in glaring sponsor garb. And race organizers are dearly hoping that Basso will be racing in the upcoming non-UCI two-man tt at Trofeo Citta di Borgomeanero, which already has the formidable matchups of Bettini/Tosatto, Cancellara/Basso or Peron, Tour marvel Sergeui Gonchar/Eddy Mazzoleni, Luca Paolini/Stefano Zanini plus Vuelta challenger Danilo DiLuca signed on, despite UCI's likely, and predictable, rabid foaming over suspending any of the scandal-free pros who might participate with the filth-clad Basso. Give it a rest, UCI, and try to focus on actually catching someone, already!

In other race news, Euskaltel up-and-comer/indispensable World's launcher/Vuelta stage winner and top ten finisher Sammy Sanchez took his first classics win in a rainy Zuri Metzgete in an uphill charge over #2 Stewie O'Grady #3 Davide Rebellin new world tt champ Cancellara and a bummed out Michael Boogerd. That oughta be money in the bank for (the amply deserving) Sanchez, particularly with Euskaltel hell-bent on cheapskating poor Iban Mayo! Speaking of whom, Saunier Duval's denying the latest reports that they've signed an unhappy Mayo, who is reportedly looking to recreate his Lance-challenging dream year at a new team, though he's still apparently got til Oct 11 to accept Euskaltel's dope-slap of a deal. Well, with Sanchez and 2-year re-signer Haimar Zubeldia on a tear, and we love Iban in a seemingly permanent semi-funk, can you really blame Euskaltel? Why yes, not being bound by journalistic objectivity, we sure can! I note though, that if being nestled in with the climbing gods in orange isn't enough to make Iban live up to his potential, perhaps an internship with peerless Italian mountaineer Gilberto Simoni would do the trick. We still believe, Iban! And, speaking of Spaniards we like, Valverde's now got the ProTour jersey comfortably in hand ahead of his run to the Giro di Lombardia, with Sanchez vaulting into 2nd over Cadel and, with the spat with the Grand Tour organizers out of the way, I think the boy deserves a podium, a party, and photo op with the babes at last. Cough it up already!

While we're on contracts, disgraced and demoted alleged dope fiend Danilo Hondo's off to a new Italian continental team; CSC's extended with Inigo Cuesta, Gustov, and Ljungvist; and several young Comunidad Valenciana refugees (no word on the oldsters) may have a new home with a reformed team under a new group of Spanish sponsors; and, despite a rumored deal with ProTour hopeful Unibet, Phonak's Lelangue is looking for a new gig. Hmmm. Doping disasters...Tour de France win. Doping disasters...Tour de France win. I'm sure someone'll take the chance!

Bionic Men: poor Floyd Landis' hip resurfacing went well, and with luck (and a team, and a smacked-down UCI in his post-New Year's hearing), he'll be back in time to race and on form next year. And, about the only guy today who hasn't been busted in a doping scandal, amazing Credit Agricole youngster/new US inspirational figure Saul Raisin is back schlepping up the cols already with the sole limit that, due to ongoing brain injury issues, he can't race for fear of crashing for another 12-18 months. Venga Saul!

Interbike Me: last but not least, my on-the-ground intrepid reporter at Interbike tried out some sweet road rides in the desert, passed a bread basket to and had a chat with phenomenal voice of cycling we love Sir Phil Liggett (quite politely declined the former, was most amiable in the latter), met Dauphine king Levi, Vuelta/Tour standout Thor and esteemed talent Fast Freddy, gained nutritional wisdom from George Hincapie and Jason McCartney, saw a natty Greg LeMond, a rather more casual but always lovable Bob Roll, and a suavely unbuttoned Mario "the Chest" Cipollini on a panel, met the artist of the very fine "mike the bike" (no promotional connection here I swear, though I'm open to offers), brought back buckets of "Clean Sport" and "Dopers Suck" gear for the pure of heart and bod everywhere(my enthusiasm for which is only slight selfishly diluted by the lurid entertainment value of the pleasingly slutty ongoing scandals); and tossed back countless cold ones with the only mildly debauched cycling industry, all to the betterment of this beautiful sport I'm sure. How does one scam a way into this thing, exactly?

Contract Sports

Well, the final post-Lance bloodletting tally at Discovery seems to be in, so let's review a few changes: Out: Azevedo, Michael Barry, Triki, Leif Hoste, Benoit Joachim, van Heeswijk, and several more worth having. In: Sergio Paulinho, Phonak's Uros Murn, Tomas Vaitkus. Homecomer Levi Leipheimer gets to captain the '07 Tour, and I'd just like to point out that despite all the press wanking and management write-off classics-trouncer Hincapie really bore the impossible weight of recent history pretty darn well considering, and I hope the maillot jaune/stage winner/new US champ has a good Tour in his own right next year. Allez George! Meantime, is anyone else in mourning over the utter decimation of Discovery's perfect team time-trialing? Always reminded me of Fasso Bortolo's blue train leadout in the sprints--flawless. At the moment, I think, only CSC's coming close, and still not quite.

Where in the world is Axel Merckx? Why, to T-Mobile, along with CSC's dissed Brian Vandenborg. Again, another good move by T-Mobile to be fair, though I still doen't think either they or fine new recruit Barry can save them, and given their presumptive performance next season I dearly hope Axel's going out with at least the consolation of buckets of cash. So T-Mobile's 'team of the future' (cause it sure as hell ain't gonna be the team of the present) now has Barry, genuine boy wonder Ciolek, Bernhard Eisel, Bert Grabsch, Axel Merckx, Jakob Piil, Aussie Michael Rogers for the Grand Tour captaincies, Linus Gerdemann, time trial-smoker Sergeui Gonchar, Kirchen and Sinkewitz. Some excellent talents to be sure--but seems to be oddly a lot of support in place for a team without a serious GT contender, an egregious split between youth and experience with no one at the top of their game in the middle which heralds a few rough years ahead I think, and of course their relentless stupidity with regard to monster talents Kloden and Kessler. Oh well, there's always the occasional stage win through 2009 or so T-Mobile!

Meantime, a really sportsmanlike #$%%^-slap to prior Tour contender Francisco Mancebo by his own team no less, particularly when it appears that everybody ought to be happy that the boy isn't going to be facing any doping sanctions (congrats to the Tour for wrecking yet another career on apparently speculative evidence, by the way--it takes a lot of work to unjustly [or, if really justly, still incompetently] bulldoze that many people for no objectively verifiable reason), when AG2R manager Lavenu joyously praised the news thanked Mancebo for all his stellar team results and welcomed him back with an enthusiastic "I will probably be obliged to respect the remaining two years on his contract" and "If he were to leave the team, the team could sign at least 2 others to take his place." Now, if that's not the sort of embrace that'll motivate you next year, Mancebo, what the heck is?!

Watch and Learn: And, over at CSC, Riis' waffling on the beleageured studmuffin Ivan Basso is paying off with Basso presumptively off the team despite his likely exoneration on dog-defaming blood-labeling charges, and the team continues its other changes--more cautious and less self-destructive than T-Mobile for sure, as the far-smarter Bjarne has a current tally I believe of Andrea Peron, Giovanni Lombardi and of course Great Dane Piil out, but Dutch comers Anders Lund and Chris Anker Sorenson, sprinter JJ Haedo and Spaniard Luis Perez in, and of course the stellar existing bank of classics, grand tour and stage contenders who are ready willing and able right now that T-Mobile's dopus management utterly lacks. I wonder how they're gonna use Haedo and O'Grady together, or will they simply split them up til they see if Haedo can hack the GTs as well as Stewie?

Actual Race News: yep, it's not over yet, as king of the world Bettini heads to Zuri Metzgete and the Giro di Lombardia, and instends to race at least through 2008 to defend his spiffy gold Olympic lid; women's world champ Marianne Vos celebrates her 20th birthday with a huge party in her Dutch hometown; Phonak says goodbye at Paris-Bourges and Paris-Tours with Disco-bound Uros Murn plus Aurelien Clerk at the helm; 2x Giro god/Basso-battler Gilberto Simoni plays hooky from the road and takes third in an Italian mountain bike marathon near Trentino, mercifully not busting anything Saunier Duval'll need next season; an understandably knackered Valverde's skipping Paris Tours but may do Giro di Lombardia in October; bus-boxing Petacchi's mortifyingly done for the season as his hand has failed to heal compeltely yet; and the antidoping clowns continue their ignominious record of testing defeats and preemptive career destruction as 2 of the Austrian U-23s kicked out of the Worlds for initially skipping doping controls were exonerated after secondary testing failed to confirm initial positive results. Nice work boys! Finally, Tyler Hamilton, cleared to race in the US at the moment pending further action just in time to watch the Worlds (he's still banned in Europe) from his Barcalounger, will be riding in a pro relay race in Nevada, but don't try anything Tyler because the race organizers already cautioned there'll be doping controls at this race too. Allez Tyler!

Not So Fast: the UCI ProTour bans for team doping infractions won't be immediate it turns out, even if they occur during a ProTour race, but will instead start on the first day of the next ProTour race (except for the 3 grand tours)--that's quite an out, there, guys! Nothing like holding management's feet to the fire, even though it's only a matchstick. And, over in Belgium, the same senator Tom Boonen is considering suing is now up to 20 folks on his doping hit list, this time including soigneurs as well as just "top cyclists"--of course, better to slander by speculation than to actually release the names. I love politics!

Finally, get well soon to poor Floyd Landis, who's about to get his rotten hip replaced at last after a valiant, if perhaps mildly clouded at the moment, season of racing on the painful thing. While he's at it, he might think about getting his legal team replaced as well--hell, he can always blame it on the post-surgery narcotics!

Law Is a Many Splendored Thing

But First, a Worlds Wrap-Up: Women's Time Trial: Quite the nailbiter and an apple-pie patriot's dream of a two-fer as US queen Kristin Armstrong takes the win over Swiss Ironwoman Karen Thurig despite an ordinarily devastating chain pop on the final climb, while 37-year-old rheumatologist Christine Thorburn grabs the bronze. Holy crap, can you imagine if guys like Bettini had to race while holding down a real job? Get those riders some rippin' podium babes and buckets more cash for what they have to do! Women's Road Title: out of a break of 15, Dutch teen Marianne Vos in a surprise takes the sprint with time to spare over German Trixi Worrack and Great Britain champ Nicole Cooke. What is it about the women in GB that they're completely kicking @## relative to the men? Top US finisher: Amber Neben, at a highly respectable 12th. Meanwhile, over at the U-23 road race, boy-genius 2005 German national champ Gerald Ciolek (unencumbered by 3 Austrians, busted for dope or for missing the morning's surprise quiz) takes the race, a nice trophy along with his 2-year contract with T-Mobile (possibly the only sensible move they've made in ages.) Finally, over at the big boys' road race, massive accolades to top US finisher Freddy Rodriguez, who still managed to finish 15th despite a bum knee, a tough enough accomplishment when you're in one piece. Poor Bernhard Kohl, though, seemed not unreasonably exasperated at tanking after 7 laps when his team was forced to chase to down the 14-minute breakaway (nice to see US domestic pro Tyler Farrar in the group) to no ultimate national benefit; Boonen bonked from thrist and still pulled off 9th with kind words for Quick Step teammate Paolo; and, in one of the few times I've ever been glad to see the perennial Erik Zabel lose a race, he was apparently one wheel away from retiring had he taken the worldss over Bettini, but now will stick it out through 2008. Whew--losing Eki was quite enough for one season,I think! And, on a side note, I see the Devil was out with trident and cape careening besides the riders (at the women's race too), along with his spiffy new van--for some reason, always a heartening vision in too-much-information tight red satin.

Bureaucracy is Beautiful: Now, while it's sadly true that my foreign language skills range somewhere due south of pig Latin--frankly, I could never even master that--it seems to me that the Italian sports press is reporting that, in high contrast to the simpering-lap-dog-of-management approach of WADA's Dick Pound, the ProTour has actually approved doping sanctions for the teams: as of Jan 1, a team gets suspended for 8 days for two doping positives or two anomalous readings in the last 12 months; 4 weeks if 3 doping cases in 2 years; and 4 violations gets your ProTour license revoked. If I'm even halfway reading that right (again, I caution, a dubious prospect), well, finally! Though I can't imagine why they'd do such a thing really, given Dick's totally plausible theory that teams are never remotely responsible for the actions of their riders...

Speaking of tools, no class from Kelme whistleblower/perpetual whiner Jesus Manzano, who in addition to snarking about some anonymous drug-scarfing footballer playing with Fuentes also took the pointless (and completely spineless) opportunity to slag the perforce defenseless and still much-missed great, if tragically flawed, Marco Pantani. Given the endless tributes to Pantani by loyal tifosi along the roads of even this year's Giro, I hope for Manzano's sake (sort of) that he's not planning to visit Italy anytime soon, as I imagine his welcome would be less than warm. Skank! In a similar mode, I see Brad Wiggins was crying about how Landis totally destroyed his love of the sport and the Tour, and it's all a big farce anyway so he only cares about the Olympic record from here on out. Am I on crack here, or is Floyd Landis not the first guy to ever bring the Tour--or the Olympics for that matter, you hypocrite--into disrepute? If that's all it takes kill your love of the timeless roads that Coppi and Indurain and Hinault once rode, unclip and let one of the million unpaid unheralded amateur cyclists who'd kill for the opportunity you're complaining about take your bike you ungrateful jerk!

Oops: An Italian federation official says there's no concrete evidence against Basso, and he can't see him getting prosecuted on the colossally insufficent evidence of the mere mention of his name in some phone call. McQuaid, of course, is quite ticked, and no matter what outrageous nonsense the Italians are spouting UCI is still gonna decide if there's enough to go the Court of Arbitration of Sport and, I imagine, they are ego-bound to do so whether there's anything above the miniscule on Basso or not. Christ, Saiz still hasn't been completely untangled from Astana after being caught with a briefcase full o' vials and cash, and you clowns kicked Ivan out of the Tour preemptively for that twink evidence? Whether he actually did anything or not (and I take no position on that), what the hell are you thinking? Ah, the sweet smell of impending litigation!

And, in more legal hijinks, UCI is considering demanding DNA samples and other performance benchmark tests from the riders; Swiss cycling authorities and UCI are busy productively wanking over the proper notarization of documents instead of analyzing them; and a German prosecutor is investigating whether Ullrich lied under oath in connection with his injunction against tiresome gadfly Dr. Werner Franke. Jan's career is already in the tank, give it a rest already (and I say "tank" notwithstanding Discovery's purported interest in Ullrich--because hiring Lance's bridesmaid, however brilliant and frankly more versatile he is, still isn't gonna make him into the bride.)

Contract Season: finally, Michael Barry says goodbye to Discovery to head over to (gulp) lucky T-Mobile; US domestic cycling takes a blow but Bjarne Riis continues his winning streak as sprinter JJ Haedo leaves Toyota United for CSC; and potential ProTour squad Unibet has their eyes on a purportedly unhappy Thomas Dekker at Rabobank. All of which stil begs the question, where in the world is Axel Merckx? Allez Axel!

Benissimo!

Che stupendo, Paolo! After scaring the hell out of me by starting his attacks seemingly too early many and fast in the last lap to go, it's apparently simply a case of brilliantly strong overeager legs as Bettini jumps ahead at 500 meters to go with Zabel Valverde and Sammy Sanchez, Valverde hops too soon, neverending class act Zabel goes for the wheel but Bettini punches forward and takes it with time to raise his arms at the line--fantastic! A huge bacio for the camera, a leg-wrapping pounce on his big soigneur, a great hug for his wife, a quick sit-down for his interview with the near-hysterical Italian commentator--which is swiftly cut off by you suck WCSN which can't be bothered to stick around for interview, the podium presentation, or even confirmation of the final standings, presumably in favor of world championship shuffleboard or similar nonsense. Right on Paolo!

And though it wasn't a pure sprinters' finish, with guys like Paolini Cancellara Vino and Boogerd smacking around the field with a few km to go, most of em (not Hushovd--dammit!) made it up there nonetheless, so major congratulations not only to the amazing Erik Zabel of course but also to big Tom Boonen, who had to haul his unfortuante carcass up the same sharp stretches of climb 26 times and still managed to come in comfortably in the top 10--a noble if failed defense on a course that reasonably could have seen him much farther back. Hooray for Stewie O'Grady as well (and to be fair for once, some admiration for McEwen too), as the former's versatility has really made him an asset and a surprise this year in some unexpected places.

Well, I can't imagine what else Bettini could have wanted out of this season--from classics to Grand Tours to mountains to rolling terrain to a pure sprint in the Vuelta to this, he's really been not only astonishing, but incredibly consistent from the start of the season to the finish. Vai Paolo!

The Worlds, Natch

You Monstrously Suck, WCSN!: In three, count 'em three, weeks of watching streaming web video of the Vuelta every day on another site, despite the occasional technical glitch and utter lack of Phil Liggett and Paul Sherwen, I *never* had to read the damn stage results *before* I watched the stage in the evening I had waited so patiently for all day instead of following my true desire, to screw around at work and watch it there live instead. Today, by contrast, not only was I rewarded by both distracting and irrelevant badminton coverage, which to me is a sport along the lines of Olympic 4-square, but just above the on-demand click which I must apparently use to access the video was helpfully splattered the winner of the TT in large letters. Bite me you clowns, what the hell am I paying you for? I can get perfectly dandy written coverage on any number of other sites for free for &#$%'s sake!

Right, the Rest of the Worlds: having concluded my thoughtful media critique, and being too pissed to discuss the time trial except to note that we love Dave Zabriskie was an excellent if heartbreaking second and the excellent Fabian Cancellara completely obliterated the rest of the downcast field by 90 seconds even over Dave, I say let's take a look at the men's road race field, and who to watch or not, before it's utterly moot. It's 265.2 km of rolling badassness, and we'll see whose legs are likely to hold up:

Aussies: Cadel Evans, McEwen, Simon Gerrans, Stewie O'Grady. Among the teammates, Cadel's eh late season and O'Grady's versatility could still hold up in the hills over flat-loving McEwen. Notable Absence: Allan "charge him or exonerate him already you career-tanking mudslingers!" Puerto casualty Davis.

Austria: not the U-23 team, as one scalawag was already busted for EPO and 2 others tried to sneak out of the tests, that's for sure! Among the big boys: Haselbacher, Bernhards Kohl and Eisel, Georg Totschnig. Notable Absence: they're in pretty good shape really, dontcha think?

Belgium: Big Tom Boonen, Stijn Devolder (tired from the tt), Nick Nuyens. Again, not Boonen's sort of layout, but he's been well on the mend from his midseason. Notable Absence: poor Marc Wauters ended his fine career with a lousy crash and busted collarbone. Get well soon!

Canada: Ryder Hesjedal.

Denmark: Lars Bak, Jakob Piil, Nicki Sorenson who I really admired in the Vuelta.

France: Sylvain Chavenel, Thomas Voeckler, Sylvain Calzati, Tour shocker Cyril Dessel.

Germany: we love Erik Zabel, Robert Forster, Gerolsteiner 2-year-k signatory Stefan Schumacher, Fabian Wegmann, Sinkewitz, Kloden. Notable Absences: can they have a team this strong and still be missing anybody? Yep: yet-another-reason-T-Mobile-blew-next-season Matthias Kessler, sacked-out Jens Voigt, and that guy who won the Tour a ways back. I really wouldn't count out Schumacher.

Italy: the other powerhouse on my top 2 list: Davide Rebellin, Matteo Tossato, Filippo (yep, it's Liquigas next year!) Pozzato, Danilo DiLuca, Bruseghin, Luca (say hi to the cops! that was really crappy of the authorities to make him schlep home then back to Austria for his home invasion on the eve of the Worlds) Paolini, presumptive podium finisher/canny strategist Paolo Bettini. Notable Absences: late-blooming boxer Petacchi, oh Ivan!

Kazakhstan: everyone who scared the hell out of the rest of the peloton all season. Notable Absences: right, it was everyone else from Liberty Seguros who got busted!

Netherlands: Boogerd, Brams Tankink and de Groot, Karsten Kroon, I already know van Heeswijk's result in the TT--thanks again CSN!

Norway: we love Thor Hushovd but it's not his terrain, Kurt-Asle Arvesen from we love CSC.

Russia: Ivanov, Petrov, poor Denis Menchov, who despite his 2005 Vuelta jersey cruelly ripped off Roberto Heras' clearly deserving if EPO-soaked back has had such a crappy Tour and Vuelta I genuinely hope does well.

Spain: Inigo Cuesta, Vuelta fighter Jose Gomez Marchante, Valverde of course who I'm liking for top 3, Ventoso, Triki, Sastre (I thought he was out?), Flecha. Notable Absences: Beloki and every other rider on Liberty Seguros, oft-injured intermittent genius Oscar Freire, Pereiro, oh Iban!

Switzerland: Stefan Wesemann, Martin Elmiger, Aurelien Clerc, Zberg. Notable Absence: Cancellara, from my pre-tt predictions, because I was #%^&&% out of them. Dammit!

US: attack fiend Chris Horner, who I would love to see take it after his hard if thwarted work in the Vuelta and stellar late-career renaissance, Fast Freddy, Christian VandeVelde, Trenti. Notable Absence: you-know-who, Levi, big George Hincapie. Go Horner!

Likely winner: what the hell do I know? The Herminator's predicting a bunch sprint and if not any idiot could pick my likelies above. And this time I'm catching it live, gosh darn it!

All the News That's Unfit to Print

La Vuelta, El Fin: While Alejandro Valverde was certainly gentlemanly in defeat, Iles Balears was ticked that the infighting between the UCI and the Vuelta organizers precluded him from getting publicly awarded the ProTour leader's jersey, on which he has such a fine stranglehold--no jersey, no photo op, no kisses from the babes. Speaking of which, after 2 years of catfighting, Grand Tour organizers officially want out of the ProTour, or at least want more leeway to slip in continental teams--I'd say given Relax/Gam's valiant if futile breakaways, and Comunidad Valenciana's ignominious tank, give em a break already. Meantime, back to the Vuelta, Oscar Pereiro wasn't selected for the Spanish world's team due to his middling Vuelta form, though I assume he was trying to get around that with his part in the seven-odd man break in the runup to Madrid before a mechanical apparently took him out entirely after the lot of them got swallowed up. Man, there's no mercy in cycling--didn't he do okay in some other race fairly recently? Floyd Landis, maintaining his innocence and for once having the sense to keep it brief, was in Madrid as well, hitting the nightclubs and saying goodbye to his pals at Phonak, who I imagine may have had a few fond words to say about the utter destruction of their livelihoods on his behalf, given that at least a few of them wasted no time in b(*&^-slapping him to the press before the ink had dried on his dope-sample label.

Naturalmente, Las Drogas: While we're on that (and when aren't we, like it or not?) WADA okays high-altitude tents for now, even if it really, really thinks they're sneaky; the cops have disavowed earlier reports that they took a DNA sample from Jan Ullrich, given that he sensibly wasn't around to be swabbed; defending world champ pinup Tom Boonen is considering legal action agaist a Belgian senator for saying 3 top Belgian cyclists (no names) received doping in Italy in February, and despite the surfeit of stellar Belgian bikers his name might reasonably come to mind; CSC, still unaccountably if perhaps gingerly clinging to the mudslung Ivan "e cute, no?" Basso, is instituting new doping controls, though they seem to be the least of the pack to need 'em; Basso has his day in front of the Italian Olympic Committee on the 29th; and the endlessly scrappy Manolo "Briefcase" Saiz is now whining that a director of Spain's Superior Council of Sports sent unvalidated docs to Spanish cycling without a judge's OK--not that the docs aren't accurate, but that they're unvalidated. Weasel! That, though, doesn't seem to have impressed the UCI ProTour council, which finally booted Saiz and replaced him with a manager from Credit Agricole. Does it seem excruciatingly lame to anyone else that this seems to be the most effective action UCI--and I don't count their constant self-makeout in the press--has taken in this whole affair?

Goldmember: Over at emasculated ex-powerhouse T-Mobile, incoming general manager Bob Stapleton says T-Mobile will be an "international team of character" that will no longer concentrate on the Tour. Sweet! Why waste energy, after all? I'm sure that losing their constant stage wins and perpetual podium slots in the highest-profile race in the world was a carefully calibrated move to impress the sponsors, improve morale, and raise their stature anyway.

Contract Season: Finally, Quick Step DS Lefevre says recent stage stunner Filippo Pozzato's likely off the team after Quick Step already blew the bank on Boonen Bettini Steegmans and Van Petegem, certainly worthy choices all including youngster Steegmans, but leaving the poor DS (and even poorer Pozzato) without enough bucks left to meet Pozzato's (not presumptively unreasonable, given his season results) demands. Still and all, there's reportedly interest from Liquigas, T-Mobile (don't do it, Filippo!) and Astana, so sounds like he'll land on his pedals just fine. Speaking of Astana, Rene Haselbacher's headed over after a stint at Gerolsteiner; and, in "where in the world is Iban Mayo" news, Haimar Zubeldia, who does damn well deserve it, signed a 2 year contract extension with Euskaltel Euskadi. Come on Iban! And speaking of Gerolsteiner, which sure as hell has more sense than T-Mobile, relative jailbait Giro-due-stage-winner maglia rosa-wearer Stefan Schumacher is back with the German waterworks til 2009. Nice job Gerolsteiner!

Next Up: a slightly belated Worlds Preview. Vai Paolo!

Vuelta Wrap-Up

Having been informed that I was an ungracious ass (not unfair, but I'm at peace with it) for not wanting to see the podium presentations after three solid weeks of watching the Vuelta, I sucked it up nonetheless and watched. It's nothing personal against Vinokorouv really--though I still think he was a backstabbing wank to Ullrich when they were on T-Mobile together for the Tour, he was completely jacked out of the Tour and team leadership in his own right this year through no fault of his own, and this must have been a really satisfying smack to UCI to take his first grand tour, even if it's clearly not the one he wanted. I'm still just crushed about Sastre, whose wishful third would have been out of Vino's purview anyway, and not being a journalist I am fortunately under no obligation whatsover to be fair, so I'm sticking to my foul mood just or not. But, what can you do? Vino earned it. He is bar none the best attacker in the business; no one can touch him. And, I must say he was an exceedingly good sport in not challenging Tommy Danielson for the sprint in the stage that clinched Vino's win, nor Kascheckin's after his smashing hard work as superhelpmate, both of whom richly deserved their victories. Anyhow, on the podium, Vinokorouv was gracious in victory; Valverde was gracious in defeat (as much as it's a defeat to come in second after a grueling stage race); and Kaschechkin, whose attacks can nearly rival Vino's and whose powers of recovery are amazing, was up there fair and square. Next year, Carlos--you took two grand tour near-podiums this season, I believe!

All in all though, an uncommonly thrilling Vuelta! The indomitable we love Erik Zabel took the lead out after a fantastic sprint, with his Milram teammate raising his arms in victory right behind him; stage winner Thor Hushovd took the sprint jersey; Sastre wore yellow, CSC had it's stage, Valverde rode beautifully in the mountains, Chris Horner took the Spanish teams' intrigue in stride and still managed to attack in Madrid and keep 20th overall; Danielson redeemed himself, Euskaltel's mountain gods (if not Mayo) took two stages, we love Triki but you suck Discovery for letting him go kept neatly in the top 10, and finally, anyone who criticizes Carlos Sastre anytime anywhere ever can bite me. On to the Worlds!

Mayo d'Oro

Well, not really of course, but we love Iban anyway for finally making a heated if brief attack on the final mountain stage, even if it's not going to be enough to get Euskaltel to cough up more dough or satisfy heartbroken yet still stalwart tifosi. Just wait til next year! Meanwhile, dear little Sastre was cruelly knocked off the podium after a huge climb where he was mostly able to fend off Kaschechkin's attacks for third, until Vino as always popped like a champagne cork off the front, Kaschechkin beautifully bridged the gap, they could work together there on out and it was completely over for Sastre. Dammit! Well, he busted himself for Basso in the Giro, and handled the pressure of impromptu team leadership in the Tour extremely handsomely, so who can be too sorry over what will still be (particularly under the circumstances) an excellent result in the Vuelta? Viva Carlos!

Back in the world of slutty intrigue, as to the botched EPO tests of foot-racer Marion Jones and the testosterone test of Floyd Landis, Dick Pound remains convinced that "in the long run, the system works." Cold comfort I'm sure, on the off chance that Landis really is innocent, to the highly talented but at the moment dime-a-dozen Phonak riders still desperate for new contracts, and the soigneurs, masseuses, mechanics, doctors, and support staff that're also out of jobs at Phonak as a result.

Over at Discovery, in addition to the righteous slams by Armstrong we can all spout in our sleep, Discovery is considering "all legal options" aginst Frankie Andreu. As Lance points out, "we've never had an athlete test positive. I think that's a strong statement." Yep, it's a strong statement all right--a statement that the riders are good at cheating and that the testing efficacy is crap. Andreu never tested poz; neither did his fellow 1999 Tour team Mystery Man, who notes that there was indeed an unwritten (Dr. Fuentes: pay attention! Un-written!) rule on the team that you were expected to. Neither did Tyler Heras Landis, or, outside the Team of Sainthood, Ullrich or Basso. Well, I'm sold, Lance!

Of course, Discovery (which in its current form anyway has no pony in this race anyway)'s whining that WADA and UCI ought to investigate and crush Andreu now, which'd surely encourage those sincerely intent on confessing their sins and baptizing the repentant sport anew to come forward. And, in more pointless flogging, UCI contacted USA Cycling and requested that it open disciplinary proceedings against Tyler, again, this time over his (or his wife Haven Parchinski's) dope-addled contact with Fuentes years ago. What's the point, already? El Pais gacked up these allegations over the summer. Tyler's been out for two years already. He's not gonna get up to speed to take his grand tour win before his advancing age precludes it anyway. Why even bother? The good example's been set. Or should he have fessed up like David Millar on much crappier evidence and we'd all be waxing rhapsodic over what a sterling example he is to malleable trike-riding Hinaults-of-the-future everywhere? Y'know, when the egomaniacal grandstanding prosecutors make you more sick that the cheating crooks they're hunting, it's time to rethink the system. Speaking of which, I see the German authorities took a sample of Jan Ullrich's DNA on his honeymoon home raid, and if there's anything more squicky than the spectre of some latex-glove-clad perv rooting through one's linens looking for a stray hair or glomming on to one's toothbrush, I'm hard pressed to think of what it is.

On to the time trial!

In Vino Veritas

Explosive: just when I thought the stages couldn't get any more exciting, they do--and on a mere roller, no less. Sastre's CSC boys, in a rare miscalculation, chose to blow apart the field on the bottom of the last climb, safely enough shepherding Sastre along but despite leaving Valverde unprotected and Vino with Kaschechkin well up the road in a deteriorating break still couldn't shake them at all, keeping the GC status quo and in fact endangering Sastre substantially as Valverde showed no signs of stress whatsoever. But then--Vinokorouv! He blasts out of the tiring podium trio leaving the other two completely unable to respond, bridges the gap to helpmate Kashechkin, screams down the descent at 80km an hour, makes it up to Tommy Danielson, and lets the hardworking all-day breaker Tommy take his first Grand Tour stage at the line, his own maillot d'oro, in an incredible time make up of over 1:50, on his back. I swear this boy is bar none the best attacker in the business. Meanwhile, Valverde takes off in pursuit and actually rides quite smashingly down the descent (with a couple of wheel-sitters clearly making him insane by refusing to help til too late), which leaves Sastre far behind and scrambling desperately to catch up even enough to keep his podium spot--which he somehow does at the last possible minute, crossing the line with Valverde (no thanks to the TV coverage for not showing us how)--after I finished hyperventilating, I had time to sit back and take it all in. Fantastic!

La Ley: The cops raided Jan Ullrich's home (enjoying that honeymoon Jan?) as well as manager Wolfgang Strohband and good pal Rudy Pevenage, plus several others, in connection with contract fraud for cheating the sponsors by doping--holy crap, they take breach of contract seriously in Germany! And "cheating" the sponsors? Let's face it--only getting caught "cheats" the sponsors, not the doping itself. And even that can be ameliorated to a significant extent by a press package full of earnest/shocked/saddened/repelled good-corporate-citizen condemnation, headshaking, and pledges of prompt and righteous housecleaning. Every undeserved dope-fueled breakaway, every leechlike lock on a leader's wheel, every sprint to the line, every time trial vicotry and every riser shot with the podium babes in a garish neon spandex team kit is money in the bank for these sponsors. And no offense, but the way T-Mobile's contract negotiations are going at the moment, there's not going to be a hell of a lot of reasons for the tifosi to be looking for their shiny pink logo-plastered uniforms next year anyway.

Meantime, two ex US national junior men's team riders have, after a judge rejected the defendants' motion to dismiss, settled their claim that they were unknowingly injected with steroids up to 3x/day in 1990 when their team coaches told em it was simply vitamins and cortisone, which shots allegedly caused serious enough health problems (lung infections, etc.) to end their nascent elite cycling careers. Of course, despite the judge's determination that there was enough to go forward on at least some of the suit, these allegations couldn't possibly be true, because as WADA's Dick "Dick" Pound can tell you, management is never responsible for doping because it can always be blamed instead on the inevitable aberrant renegade cheating amoral drug freak acting in total isolation from any other influence from anyone anywhere anytime ever and completely against the sincere wishes of the sponsors, the management, the doctors, and the teammates whose jobs and profits all depend on it. Why anyone would ever believe a rider on that issue is beyond me!

Adventures in Doping, Part Endless

Giving Lance the Lance: so the New York Times reported today that Frankie Andreu and another ex-teammate who sensibly wants to remain anonymous, the former of course having testified that he and his wife Betsy personally heard Lance Armstrong admitting doping to his doctors while being treated for cancer, have now admitted that they used EPO in 1999 to help Lance in that year's Tour de France. Not that that's surprising--but the admission certainly is. Let's leave aside for the moment the question of whether Lance himself actually doped (if only because his lawyers immediately go for the jugular of anyone who suggests it.) What would be more surprising, frankly, is if control-freak Lance, who was given such massive unquestioned unilateral control over his teams once he began winning the Tour, didn't know about it. Even the noble admissions are in doubt, though, as a presumably chastised (if not subpoenaed) Andreu promptly issued a statement saying he never told the Times he doped in 1999, only that he did dope, but he still wasn't gonna say when he doped, which is a heck of retraction all right.

I must say as an aside that I'm really quite caught on this issue. On the one hand, it only took a week at a European grand tour this year to strip me of my American apple-pie naivete and convince me, in accordance with what seems to be the prevailing view of the perhaps less sentimental European fans, that these spectacular feats of athleticism and yes, showmanship simply aren't possible on a diet of carbs and Red Bull and that something extra is indeed common, even necessary, to compete at the most elite level. Then there's the question of the inherent unfairness or at least seemingly random bad luck of who actually gets caught vs. who doesn't--are we truly bent on punishing the guilty here, or merely the unfortunate and those of limited budgets? If the latter, that seems not only wasteful and ridiculous, but borderline offensive. And to natter on about the evils of illegal doping, but to advertise products like "EP-NO" after every ten seconds of Vuelta coverage, seems an incongruous message at best. On the other hand, I wear my "Doper's Suck" paraphernalia (if hypocritically modified to excuse riders I particularly favor) with pride, and despise the endless trajectory of ever-more-sophisticated cheating that has brought this mind-bogglingly gorgeous sport into such disrepute, especially among cycling-ignorant Short-Attention-Span-Theatered Americans. And need we even discuss the unknown future health threats these pregnancy-hormone-popping boys are facing after they retire, and there's no longer a cash reward for those long-ago runs to the line, much less the calculated rip-off to those (even if they are only a few) who really do ride clean? Perhaps what I really am though is less genuinely accepting than just plain resigned. What is a cynic after all but a hearbroken idealist?

On a less pretentious philosophical note, Floyd Landis' legal team has formally filed its appeal on the grounds that the urine sample was grossly mishandled, the testing protocols failed to meet WADA's standards, the B sample's identifying number did not match the A sample's, and the results are therefore crap. Good luck Floyd!

Yes, Virginia, There is a Vuelta a Espana: In our happy return to the mountains today (happy in the sens that I don't actually have to climb them), a Euskaltel rider (not Iban Mayo, dammit--can he please not crack for *one* day in the high passes?--we still think you can do it Iban even if it's only 'cause I'm a helpless martyr sap for underdogs!) finally took a stage; Danielson held on for a late resurgence and recovered a bit of his post-hype dignity; DiLuca continued to ride the Vuelta he was powerless to pull off in the Giro; and, in an utter nailbiter, Sastre attacked then cracked then just clawed back on again, decimating a hell of a fine larger grupetto in his fruitless attempt to break the incredibly calm and easy Valverde while Vino slugged it out with them both in an immovable trio, leaving Sastre to bonk just in the final kilometer to the tune of luckily only 5 seconds back, while poor Kaschechkin's off the virtual podium and Vino's tied with the quite-suffering Sastre (though he always looks worried, poor thing)at still over a minute back. I don't think anyone can take out Valverde at this point, he looks so cool and strong, but then, Vinokorouv not only clings to a wheel like a tick but really can power out of nowhere once he decides he's had enough of that, but if you can't crush Valverde or get rid of Vino, I'm still pulling for you on the podium Sastre! Plus, we love Triki Beltran moved up to 6th. Right on Triki!

St. Millar, and More

Vuelta News, Of Course: Redeemed and repentant ex-dope-fiend David Millar just snatched Saturday's key individual time trial over CSC's we love Fabian Cancellara, and nicely smoked the rest of the field as well, upon which Millar promptly delivered a near-tearful Miss-Americaesque speech praising the virtues and just rewards of clean living as the press fair spasmed in admiration and delight. You really did ride beautifully. But please, I beg you, shut the hell up already! First, if you're testing clean, you're only testing as clean as the rest of the peloton, and we all know from recent events how perfectly the current doping control system is working. And second, if you're testing clean, and you're testing as clean as the rest of the perfectly clean peloton, then you're only doing what you're already supposed to be doing, so just shut your yap and do your job without making such a self-massaging fuss about it. Man! In other time trial news, Vinokorouv didn't take half the chunk out of Valverde's time gap that he and pretty much everyone else was expecting, and absolutely apropos of nothing I completely and utterly swear I note that Valverde joins Roberto Heras and Ivan Basso in a long fine line of riders whose time trialing has suddenly exploded exponentially. Speaking of whom, the great Miguel Indurain, who ought to know, has pegged Vino as Valverde's only real remaining serious threat, and basically given we love Carlos Sastre the kiss-off (and even I, though not conceding defeat by any means, do think that unless Valverde cracks, and I don't think he will, Sastre, brilliant as he is, will have a hell of a time shaking Valverde in the mountains, if only because Iles Balears will not let him go whether Valverde's personally up to sticking on his wheel or not). Venga Sastre anyway!

Oops! Yesterday's flat-to-downhill sprint stage ended dramatically when, after yet another Relax-pleasing breakaway by one of their boys in red, it became clear that Milram was setting up its lead-out not for Erik Zabel, but for a finally-resurgent Petacchi, though neither they nor Thor Hushovd's Credit Agricole nor Bettini's Quick Step boys could outdo Giro-ulimate-stage-winner Robert Forster of Gerolsteiner in his powerful and canny run to the line. Where's the drama, besides the ordinary liveliness of a bunch sprint? Why, it's in the tender bone-bashed hand of poor Alessandro Petacchi, who, after Rainbow Brite-clad Danilo Napolitano apparently cut him off in the sprint, thereby destroying the chance for a season-salvaging win for which he'd worked so long and valiantly after his pre-Tour crash-out, went off to the Lampre bus in search of said boy for an amiable chat, and, failing to find him, promptly (if not incomprehensibly) punched the team bus quite firmly, breaking his hand and taking it and the rest of him right out of the Vuelta. Smooth? No, but given that any sprint without Petacchi on form is always something of a what-if letdown, and that he was so cruelly robbed of most of this season by sheer stupid fate, I'm really quite sympathetic, even if to Forster's eyes it did look in the sprint as if Petacchi was putting the moves on Napolitano and not the other way round--perhaps he just caught the tail end of the dispute, after all. Plus, Petacchi did apologize (to his own team of course, not to Lampre that I heard), so bonus points to him for belated sportsmanship, if not for spot-on self-control. Anyhow, an unfortunate end to an unfortunate latter season for a most excellent sprint god. Get well soon, Petacchi!

Finally, Cancellara has sadly if sensibly left the Vuelta after Saturday's disappointment to prep for the Worlds, with Paolo Bettini presumably soon to follow as the course looks to suit him well. Tomorrow, it's back to the high mountains where the Vuelta belongs, and beyond past time for we-love-but-are-deeply-exasperated-by Iban Mayo to reward our felicity and fatten his next-year's Euskaltel paycheck with a stage win. Allez, Iban, already!

T-M, the Impossible Team: It turns out that T-Mobile's fine Andre Korff bailed out of the Vuelta not for the stomach problems previously claimed, but for the noble cause of being best man in Ullrich's recent wedding, with the courtly blessing of T-Mobile no less. Not to scare the poor boy, nor to dismiss T-Mobile's sporting gesture, but has anyone told Korff what happened to the last guy to openly support Jan Ullrich? Speaking of whom, T-Mobile is still trash-talking poor Andreas Kloden for inexplicably refusing the team leadership they offered him so warmly to instead set up shop as Vinokorouv's downtrodden superdomestique over at Astana. Now, true, it's been a bit since I've seen the replays, but as I recall Kloden looked actually rather happy standing repeatedly on the Tour de France podium, and the idea that he would gleefully bail to play some hapless Dean Martin to the still-relatively-unTour-tested Vino's Frank Sinatra not due to any action of T-Mobile whatsoever is perplexing, to say the least. I'm sure, though, that the weeks of public slagging to the press in the face of Kloden's persistently fine season results really, really, made Kloden feel welcome. As usual, management, fine work!

I Want a New Drug

German prosecutors are about to charge Jan Ullrich with 3 solid years of doping at the tender hands of Rudy Pevenage; French doping chief Pierre Bordry is ticked that 12 of 13 riders testing poz for banned substances at the Tour and a giant slew of other riders have a therapeutic use exemption for drugs that coincidentally happen to cause performance enhancement, mostly due to a totally legitimate plague of asthma among elite athletes who can take hors category climbs after 6 hours and a few simpy cat-1 climbs already in the saddle; and, no points again to Floyd Landis' legal team for annoucing they're about to seek dismissal due to "inconsistencies in testing protocols and methodologies," which sounds so much like legalese for "we've got webcam footage of him getting a testosterone patch slapped on his $!@#" that you hardly even get to the totally legitimate-sounding and genuinely entirely possible part about how a review the just-received lab docs will "support Landis' innocence." That's all your lawyers really needed to say Floyd, is the latter part. Sigh. *Must* we go over this again?

T-Immobile: well, Rolf Aldag apparently almost got the unbeatable Jens Voight for 2007, but for the minor inconveniences of a CSC contractual commitment through next season, Jens' alleged lack of desire for a court battle, and Bjarne Riis' perhaps understandable reluctance to let a truly stellar asset go to a rival team which seems incapable of snagging a Voigt-worthy team to support (or a team leader to properly use) him anyway, so all the better for Jens to stay put as-is. Nice try T-Mobile! As Aldag diplomatically notes, this will be a "transitional" season ahead for the team, so let's just hope than with Jan and Sevilla sacked there'll be someone to watch in pink in the mountains next season who's actually riding somewhere north of the autobus. There's gotta be someone left without a new contract who you haven't alienated yet!

Nailbiter: Finally, in actual Vuelta news, yesterday Luca Paolini took his first Grand Tour win in a hell of a powerful breakaway-from-a-breakaway at 4k to go leaving Bettini & co. in the dust; and today, mountain gods/lately flat-attack freaks Euskaltel's Samuel Sanchez positively shrieked down the descent of the Cat 3 Alto de Castillo to leave DiLuca, omnipresent Bettini, Valverde, Landaluze, Davide Rebellin, and no-fool Sastre desperately moto-dodging to catch up, only to have them (with the adddition of Vino, now sensibly locked back in with the GC contenders, and we love Thor Hushovd) finally whack the hammer down on his 7 or so second gap as they cut things dazzlingly close at the corners in the final charge, but still gasp-inducingly beat them to the finish with only 3 or so bike lengths to spare. Right on Sanchez! Now, if only we love Iban Mayo could get his act together for the mountains next week...

Speaking of the motos, is it too much to ask that they get the hell out of the way particularly on a decisive twisty descent before a rider already vision-impaired from his aero-slump beneath the handlebars bodily rams his bike up their @#$es to the presumptively severe detriment of all parties? Given the disasters that have already ensued in the Grand Tours this season with a surfeit of nimrod spectator encounters, might not the race organizers have these clowns actually watch a damn bike race first to give them the heads-up that the riders are there to actually use the roads to win the race, and that it might cause them more than a bit of inconvenience to be churned under the wheels of a motorbike like so much inconsequential road grit? Not to diminsh the valuable function the motos serve, though aside from the ironic job of road-clearing (and that pretty cool chalkboard job) I'm at the moment hard-pressed to remember it. I'm just sayin'.

Three Is a Magic Number

And, with Sergio Paulinho's exciting win on a rolling stage, Astana makes it 3 on top of Vinokorouv's prior two-fer. Take that, UCI! Unfortunately for Astana of course, young Paulinho is headed to Discovery next year, but considering he was initially implicated in Operacion Puerto (free Joseba!) I think Sergio's giving them a fine farewell. The stage finished in dramatic fashion as an excellent breakaway of stage contenders (Mayo, Ventoso, Karpets, etc) began trading alternating attacks and wait-and-see slowdowns, and I was utterly crushed when Iban Mayo, who clearly had legs yesterday, took off but was immediately glommed on to by fine-sprinter Ventoso, obliging Mayo to call it a day as he lost out in all the politicking, and leaving it to Paulinho to eventually pounce and leave the rest of the gruppetto several seconds back. Venga Iban--reward my faith already! Meanwhile, ever-equable Sastre finally snapped after CSC, which didn't even have the maillot oro to protect, was forced to chase down the break because of vague GC threat Karpets, and slapped Iles-Balears for wanting to win the Vuelta without ever doing any actual work. Valverde, of course, whacked back, saying if CSC didn't have a GC threat up in the break unlike his team then it was their own damn fault they had to work. Fair enough, but because I'm personally not under any obligation to be whether the merits demand it or not, I'll still arbitrarily take Sastre's side on this one. We love Sastre! Today, Discovery continued its top-20 takeover as Egoi Martinez took the stage alone with time to spare to zip up his jersey for the sponsors.

The Old Cog and Chain: Congratulations to newlywed Jan Ullrich, who sure as hell needs some good news, and a big "you stink!" to the German sporting authorities for their wedding-gift demand that Ullrich immediately submit to a DNA test. Might we not be sporting enough to let the boy eat his wedding cake (and whatever else he wants to celebrate with) before we break out the handcuffs? Meanwhile, Ivan Basso's most competent lawyer shut the door on that one with a nice clean "as long as I'm defending him, Basso will never have a DNA test", and that he'd better be treated along with the usual protocols instead, unless of course they want every pro rider to submit to the same, which I admire from a purely tactical standpoint, but which does leave me wondering why the waffly Riis isn't taking a stand on that and suspending rather than "he's just not riding" him, particularly since Riis was so recently crying about how Basso's making him look bad. In other news, Italy's antidoping head Di Rocco is punching back at McQuaid's accusations of dirty Italian Basso-backing by reasonably pointing out that he's been begging UCI to investigate actual team management as a possible source of the doping problem (heavens no!), but sponsor-coddler Basso-bigot McQuaid has refused to do so. I love infighting. Finally in the nefarious world of drugs, Great Britain world's team manager has conceded that appointing St. Millar to the team "is not the greatest message", but of course he really, really feels very bad (*cough* about getting caught *cough*) after all.

Aw, Heck!: We love Oscar Freire, thwapped out before the Vuelta due to yet another entry in his annals of odd medical troubles, is looking out of the Worlds now, still whacked from his endless dizzy spells and his resultant lack of training and race time. Rats, can't anyone worth watching this season catch a break? Certainly not poor Denis Menchov, who finally bailed out of the Vuelta with stomach problems, or perhaps just an overall mental and physical crack under the weight of his sadly-won 2005...title. There, I finally said it, even if I still can't stand it. Free Heras!

Phonak Phallout: phinally, I note that the very fine Nicolas Jalabert has found a new home at Agritubel, and Aurelien Clerk is headed to Bouyges Telekom. Which is all very nice I'm sure (though I hate seeing any of these guys going to continental teams, no offense), but which begs the question, where in the world is Axel Merckx?

Alejandro the Great

Yes, Alejandro, not Alexander, though major admiration again to Vino as he managed to redeem his earlier humiliation at Valverde's hands as he held off the latter in the runup to the line at La Cobertoria after he was obliged to drop the Kashechkin he'd been properly serving when Andrey's legs bonked after a valiant 2 man breakaway about 7k from the line. They really do work well together. Anyhow, dear little Sastre, Valverde and DiLuca trade attacks as they work to reel in the Kazakh break, when Valverde takes off, DiLuca and Sastre look at each other and realize neither one of em's got anything left in the tank, and Valverde overtakes the bonking Kascheckin but can't quite overcome Vino's dented pride despite his previous day's surprising win and comes in around a quarter-minute back. Still, Valverde takes over yellow, and if the perfectly consistent Sastre can't ditch him on a subsequent mountain stage or in next Saturday's tt, I don't know that anyone, except maybe the Astana boys (and remember Vino is a couple of minutes back on GC still), can take him out. So venga Sastre, but I'd still be pretty happy with Valverde as well!

Gnurk!: Iban Mayo (so promising yesterday) continued his recent bout of ill-timed cracks in terrain he ordinarily stomps on and came in a hearbreaking 9-odd minutes back. I'm still ever-hopeful he'll take the stage win he wants, but less optimistic that after that performance that Euskaltel will show him the money I'm still convinced he's deep-down worth. Come on, Iban--I believe!

US News and World Report: Well, Hincapie handily took the USPRO road race championship in a nice consolation prize for his nasty luck at ENECO over we also love Levi Leipheimer, making me wonder how they're going to split up responsiblities next season over at Discovery, since the latter had a damn good classics season and came up quite a bit higher on GC in the Tour as well. Johan, is there a strategy here we all ought to know about? Across the water, Belgian pinup Tom Boonen continues his handsome (get it? handsome?) run up to the Worlds by taking the ultimate stage in the Tour of Britain, and next season will have brilliant, savvy (if slightly post-prime) uber-vet Peter van Petegem along at Quick Step, where he'll hopefully teach promising new leadout jailbait Gert Steegmans a few of the tricks he has yet to pick up for the Tour--shouldn't take much I imagine, as considering he took over on no notice when Fast Freddy crashed out, he really did rather well anyway. And, T-Mobile, which may very well be taking on ascendant comet Luis Leon Sanchez if Saiz plays fair and lets him out of his Active Bay gig (a whole nother world of doubt, given the way he's been jacking Astana around so far), still swears it's gonna sign a big current star, though having either tossed, alienated, or waited too long on almost every GC god worth pursuing I'm at a loss to think of who's next. Well, one hopes the fact that 3 or 4 years from now they'll have a hell of a team to beat (if they keep all their newbies) will keep their management, and their sponsor, warm at night through the coming cold seasons in the interim!

Being Alexander Vinokorouv

What a thrilling and heartbreaking mountain stage yesterday, as Mayo came into his legs at last, Sastre stayed right up there with the final breakaway, Valverde definitively called team leadership over a flat-whacked Oscar Pereiro, and a gorgeously surging/almost certain winner (I thought so, anyway) Vinokorouv visibly crumpled like wet tissue paper as he was overtaken by stage winner Valverde then swept up by the rest of the break as well only 200 m or so from the line. Holy moly, what a finish! Either way, it was dandy to see Vino both set himself apart from the stronger-so-far Kaschechkin and, even better, firmly slap the reminder into the powers-that-be exactly why he had no place whatsoever being jacked out of his rightful participation in this year's Tour. Though I'm not his biggest fan by any means, nice work Vino!

Then today, redemption on a sprint finish of all stages, as big Maggy Backstedt's perfect set-up for Liquigas was utterly blown when an overconfident Luca Paolini mistakenly thought he could hold off the bunch in an attack a whole kilometer from the line, and it was Vinokorouv of all people blasting around him and leaving Paolini and the rest of the confounded sprinter's teams quite in the dust. Wow!

Meantime, back on US soil, Dave Zabriskie handsomely smoked the rest of the field in the USPRO time trial, and he'll back on Sunday as he, Hincapie, and a pack of really very solid domestic pros take on the road championships. Had poor Hincapie, who was so cruelly (if not unfairly) denied his ENECO Tour win by Stefan Schumacher's unfortunate fan-dodging crash-inducing swerve and along with Discovery understandably went nuts, not been quite so wanky as to say he'd thrown away his second place trophy, which seemed to me to be a crappy gesture to an apologetic Schumacher and the judges who rightly placed the blame on fate and a stupid spectator and not on any malice by Schumacher, I'd be rooting for him, but as it is and in recognition that unlike Hincapie we love Zabriskie did not get to wear the maillot jaune this year, and his penchant for asking random weird questions to fellow riders in the peloton, I'm rooting for the latter in the road race as well. Go Dave!

Tomorrow--watch out! It's the nastiest stage of the Vuelta, and after 3 cat 1 climbs, 2 cat 3 climbs, and an hors category mountaintop finish, we'll see who is in the race for GC, and who is out of it. Since Iban Mayo has said he's opted himself out of the overall and instead professes to be shooting for merely a stage win, I'm hoping that with his legs clearly under him this time around and guys like Zubeldia (and basically everyone else on Euskaltel) to lend a hand in the high passes he'll make the showing he's more than capable of and prompt team management to seriously up the dough on his contract offer for next year. Come on Iban!

Ugh, More Doping: So Germany's decided to massively expand its antidoping efforts and plans to keep an extended blood profile on each of its riders from next year, which is certainly a noble calling, except they're also including the 15-and-under riders. That's great. Let's just rip the pudding cups right out of the hands of the cheating little @#!%@%$! among the training-wheel set at snack time and subject em to lab analysis right after we bring the tots in for a urine test when they get up from their post-recess naps, why don't we? And, a number of pro cyclists allegedly hit the road to Hamburg (even after Fuentes' arrest)in May and June to have blood taken coincidentally ahead of the Tour coincidentally by associates of Fuentes, but I'm sure again it was just to protect the riders' health, and it was a pack of squeaky clean Boy Scouts one and all on the slopes of the Alps, but I assume the paper trail that Fuentes seems to keep so diligently will clear all that straight up, assuming he's not been running around incorrectly identifying riders by the wrong dog name again like he's accused of doing with Ivan Basso. Can there be just one day without some ridiculous drama?

Anyway, tomorrow's Vuelta will certainly be dramatic, and like I said despite my wish for Sastre for the overall (particularly if Mayo's called it quits, and I would also be pretty happy for Valverde to take it after his nasty crash-out at the Tour), venga Iban!

Bite Me, Pro Tour!

Halls of Justice: So in return for exercising the due process rights he's been provided, Tyler Hamilton is getting another 2-year extension of his ProTour ban, over the same old (in fact, even older) doping accusations. Apparently, if you're a self-righteous Oprah-confessional chest-thumper like David Millar, who gutsily copped to doping charges only after being directly caught with a bucketful of scrimy syringes in his own hotel room and issued a whiny mea culpa and saintly redemption song thereafter, you get a ticker-tape parade down the Champs-Elysees, and if you have lesser proof against you and protest (even if your protest is frankly probably crap) according to the rules you're given to follow which are after all voluntarily set by the authorities accusing you, you're burned at the stake for the egregious act of as-of-right self-defense. Bite me, ProTour!

Black Hole Forming: T-Mobile continues its implosion of cosmic proportions with its apparent failure to make a contract offer to the very fine Stefan Wesemann, though it's redeemed itself a bit by its uncommonly intelligent retention of Patrik Sinkewitz (who already had a contract through 2007 I believe anyway) and the surprise move of reliable vet Jacob Piil from the House that Riis Built (which is gaining promising youngster Matthew Goss) to T-Mobile. Which is good news for the German squad, because if they keep trash-talking and hemorraghing guys like Kloden and Kessler while other teams maintain their peculiar attachments to their Grant Tour GC contenders and stage winners, they'll only have about two lesser fading backup domestiques (noble a calling as even that is) to choose from for 2007 and to carry up the water bottles to their nonexistent team leadership. Keep up the good work guys!

On the flip side of teambuilding, Astana "Beg Beloki's Forgiveness, Dammit"'s apparently snagged 2x Giro god/impeccable descender Paolo Savoldelli from Discovery, making me tangentially wonder how seriously Discovery's going to take the Giro next year despite Il Falco's rather wheezy rocky ride this year, and continuing, with the recent additions of Kloden and Kessler, to build one of the strongest on-paper teams in the ProTour for this coming year (assuming they can either pry a license out of Saiz' fruitless deathgrip or take on Phonak's).

More Contract News, Of Course: Perdiguero is recovering from his snit enough apparently to be looking for a new gig after all, and Gibo Simoni, shut out in the Giro to Ivan "Non E Uomo" Basso, is done with the road for the season and playing on his mountain bike the rest of the year. Don't bust anything you'll need on the road for 2007, Gilberto!

Legion of Doom: Frank "Tom Boonen" Vandenbroucke is headed to Acqua e Sapone--with Stefano Garzelli? he's hardly fit to breathe the same air!; and fellow disgraced doper/Kelme sellout-or-savior Jesus Manzano is assisting yet further investigation into a German doc accused of working with Fuentes. Hell hath no fury like a doper scorned, particularly when he knows the names of other dopers who haven't been!

At Last, the Vuelta, Baby: Danilo DiLuca finally freed himself from the sobbing remonstrances of a slew of crushed Italian tifosi in the Giro to definitively announce his return to form with a gorgeous stage win and maillot d'oro capture at the top of la Covatilla over impressive Discovery jailbait/relentless wheel-sitter Janez Brajkovic, which almost made me forget the look of suffering on poor (yet still valiant 4th-place finisher) Carlos Sastre's face, and that I'm thinking that if Oscar Pereiro doesn't get some snap in his legs soon, he won't even be able to wage a mutually self-destructive leadership war with cucumber-cool Alejandro Valverde, which would certainly benefit the team overall (and the Tour's not such a bad consolation prize, Oscar, so you might let this one go this year anyway). Still, DiLuca with his eyes on the Worlds is not looking towards GC contention. Rats!

Meanwhile, a rather sad (as sad as I get over him anyway) goodbye to a bonking Robbie McEwen, who finished outside the time limit, leaving Fast Freddy Rodriguez whom we love for the sprints. So the amazing we love Thor Hushovd had one less contender in the extremely tight sprint which he finally took the day before yesterday having already worn gold without one, but I note that even in recovery Alessandro Petacchi placed an impressive 4th, reminding one how he can rip the face off pretty much anyone in the bunch when he's actually in health. Welcome back Petacchi! And, I'm hoping that Iban Mayo's Tour-regurgitating crack in the mountains the other day is but a flat-and-heat-induced anomaly before a smashing performance in the mountains ahead, particularly since Haimar Zubeldia's already looking great, and I dearly want Mayo to be able to slug it out hard with Valverde and Sastre for GC. Venga, Mayo!

Finally, I note without the slightest trace of snarkiness that 2005 second-place finisher Denis Menchov is so in the tank so early that his directeur sportif has already given up on him (in which poor tired Michael Rasmussen perhaps can be cut some slack to rest), and I can't help but feel total satisfaction to see "HERAS" written in huge letters in fresh white paint all over the road this year. Free Roberto!