Will He? Won't He?: yep, it's mere days to the start of the Tour de France in London, and the race is on to see who the UCI will actually have the cojones to boot out of the Tour and who they'll let in with the astonishing spinelessness that has become, in addition to their impotent hypocritical blustering, their disgusting and cowardly trademark. So far, it looks like Alejandro "Blood? What Blood?" Valverde is in, Alessandro "I Only Get Asthma in the Sprint Stages" Petacchi is likely in (if only because the Italians won't want to give Milram's sprint leadership to actual confessed doper and German Erik Zabel), Alexander "It's A Total Coincidence That Every Rider Trainer DS and Doctor I've Ever Worked With Is Implicated in a Doping Scandal" Vinokorouv is in, and @#$%ing Jan Ullrich and Ivan Basso and Floyd Landis, who let's face it are likely no dirtier than any of these guys, are @#$%ing out. And, in a further sign that the handy oxygen-carrying drug OD his handy Therapeutic Use Exemption permits has nothing on the useless illicit crap that guys like Dr. Fuentes are pushing, Petacchi's happily agreed to sign the UCI Virginity Pledge just in time for the prosecutors to let him off the hook and send him straight to this weekend's start line with inhaler in hand. Aiiggghhh!
Mata Hari Strikes Again: So, thinking of UCI, I've been pondering the fact that they promised that "6 or 7 high-profile riders" have not only been shadowed in their pre-Tour training for the nefarious crime of training without their team kit, but have been so clearly busted for blood-value irregulaties as to guarantee that half the podium contenders are going to be viciously knocked out of the Tour de France. Now, I know that Saturday is very, very far away, and as we all know, UCI's desire to truly keep the dopers out of the Grand Tours is famous--witness, for example, their extreme dedication to, say, studiously ignoring the Op Puerto file they've had for a month that actually identifies 107 guilty riders until after the entire '07 season is over. But am I really supposed to believe that, oh, domestique Matthias Kessler--fine an asset as he would've been to Andreas Kloden's hopes of bushwhacking Vinokorouv for supremacy--is the GC contender that UCI was talking about? Riiiiiiiight!
Godefrootloop: And, as everyone shows the moral righteousness to clean house in timing totally unrelated to the Tour de France's start date, Astana's consultant Walter Godefroot--implicated by every rider he's ever worked with in handing out drugs to riders like grown-ups passing candy to kiddies at Halloween--has suddenly developed "agonizing back pain" and will, regretfully, be unable to assist the team at the Tour de France, or anywhere else for that matter til his monstrously lucrative contract runs out at the end of July and a relieved twitchy Vinokorouv has his yellow jersey, and the attendant giant champagne bottle and armful of podium babes, firmly in hand after his triumphal lap on the Champs-Elysees. Am I the only one thinking that this guy ain't the only manager in the peloton who could use a little pre-Tour mystery malady to help his team's rep?
Holy Crap!: and, I edit to note I've apparently just been proven wrong yet again, as Gazzetta dello Sport is just now reporting that the Italian prosecutor has formally requested that Alessandro Petacchi be suspended from racing for a year for his mindboggling salbutamol levels at this year's Giro d'Italia. Oh, why the hell not, he's already got his 800 stages at the Giro, the Italians don't really care about the Tour anyway...anyway, if it's true, sorry to miss you Petacchi, but go Zabel!
Tuesday, July 03, 2007
Tour de France 101
Welcome, Tour de France newbies!: You know all about cancer survivor/celebrity babe magnet/notorious egomaniac Lance Armstrong winning the grueling 3-week Tour de France an astonishing 7 times, and you even know that last year's winner US' Floyd Landis got busted for some sort of weird testosterone thing, though it's not clear to you whether he really did it like the baseball players who suddenly double in size in one season or whether it's all just typically whiny French sour grapes. Still, the Tour's caught your attention for good, and you're ready to see what all the fuss is about. Maybe you've even--despite committing the egregious sin of ignoring the beautiful Giro d'Italia in May--read my handy pre-season cycling dictionary here. But to understand why six whole hours--not just the last five minutes, trust me--of any Tour de France race-day coverage specifically is so exciting--you, as did I and many fans before you, could really use a primer on the greatest (or at least most prestigious) show on earth. So, my humble intro:
The Commentators: follow the Gospel of Phil (Liggett) and Paul (Sherwen) and you can't go wrong, and if you don't have the sense to obey, I have no use for you. They will not only educate you on the history of the Tour and who to watch when why in this one, but you will gain an invaluable knowledge of local attractions, regional agricultural outputs, and every bottle of wine they've enjoyed at each prior stage in this area since about 1969. Follow Bob Roll, and you'll not only be entertained, but, tho' he pimps just a little too hard for Discovery for my taste, you'll learn a lot despite yourself. Listen to Al Trautwig, and you'll burn in hell for all eternity; I'm sure he means well, but he's--how does one say this delicately?--an idiot.
The Teams: identified by the hideous, flourescent, and distinctly un-macho tight spandex outfits that crack you up because they look like a pack of wussies compared to say football players. Don't be fooled by the prom-dress colors--while you're sitting there drinking beer and scratching yourself, any one of these pretty boys can whup your !@# six ways to Sunday. Colors of the main ("General Classification" or GC) contenders to watch: Discovery's uncommonly studly blue and black for American Levi Leipheimer; pregnancy-test-sponsor Predictor's pink and black Aussie Cadel Evans; Astana's baby-blue Alexander Vinokorouv and Andreas Kloden; and Caisse d'Epargne's and CSC's red-and-black Alejandro Valverde and we love Carlos Sastre, respectively. Blue-and-orange Rabobank's Denis Menchov wants it, but I'm still pissed that he took Roberto Heras' last Vuelta a Espana over some inconsequential EPO bust then largely sucked every since, so we're not counting him. Hmmm, despite the overwhelmingly easter-egg colors of the rest of the peloton, I'm just noticing that the GC contenders are mostly on very manly-colored teams....
The Jerseys: besides their team kits, different types of riders are aiming for the honor of wearing different colored jerseys that signify different things, and massively increase your chances for a truly extortionate cash-cow of a deal come contract-renewal season:
--Yellow: the coveted Maillot Jaune or leader's jersey. Yes, Lance's. Even wearing this for one day is the proud highlight of any rider's career, though of course what really counts is who's wearing it on the final day in Paris. Contenders: see above.
--White: Young Rider's. You're 25 and under, which means generally too young to have any tactical brains or to be at your physical peak for a three-week trek through hell. Contenders: I can never pick this one right, ever, but T-Mobile (hot pink)'s lacking a strong GC contender after losing or kicking out every rider that matters, and has lots of high-caliber jailbait, so maybe one of their boys'll take it.
--Green: Points, or, more accurately, Sprint. You rack up points by breaking off the front of the pack and racing across selected mini-finish-lines at various places along the course--and sometimes, if someone is threatening your team's big sprinter's chances for it, you'll have no hope for the jersey but be ordered to go take the points just to keep them away from someone else--but what really grabs the cameras is for you to wear it as you thunder across the line in a tight bunch finish on a sprint stage. To watch: light-blue Milram's Alessandro Petacchi; green Credit Agricole's we love but he's been in crap form all season Thor Hushovd; teal-and-fuschia Lampre's upstart Daniele Bennati; pink Predictor's Robbie "Head-Butt" McEwen.
--Polka-Dot: it's the King of the Mountains, baby! The most exciting race within the race for my money, these are generally tiny little mountains monkeys who can crush the entire Alps, and their gasping sap fellow riders, at an astonishing pace. To watch: Rabobank's Michael "the Chicken" Rasmussen, and...well, everyone else, despite some brilliant climbers over at orange Euskaltel, Caisse D'Epargne and Astana, is pretty much toast.
--and, Another Anomaly: the national champions have all just been crowned, and they get to wear their national champion jersey all race while the rest of the team is stuck with their general-loser team kit. If you're a national time trial champion, you only get to wear it in a time trial.
The Stages: generally divided into Prologue (the stage-before-the-first-stage), which puts someone into the yellow jersey for the real start of the race; Sprint, mostly flat; Rolling; Time Trial, an individual race against the clock with no teammates around to protect you; and Mountain. In the prologue (which is a time trial) and other tts, look for: CSC's Fabian Cancellara; US national tt champ we love Dave Zabriskie; yellow Saunier Duval's irritating reformed dope-fiend St. David Millar, keen to win in his hometown start in London; Discovery's George Hincapie or Levi Leipheimer for, if not the win, a nice high placement. For the Mountains: we love yellow Saunier Duval's Iban Mayo, who once beat Lance and has since been psychologically-crushed-now-recovering in the wake of the resulting Next King of Cycling hype; CdE's Alejandro Valverde, who's never made it through a Tour; Alexander Vinokorouv, who may hand the stage win off to whatever superdomestique hauled him up the mountains if it won't threaten his chances for the yellow jersey in Paris; CSC's surging Frank Schleck. Rolling'll be whatever breakaway won't threaten any team leader on any particular day, and Sprint is the green jersey suspects above, except it's Robbie who'll snake around from the out-of-contention butt-end of the group and surprise you every time.
Finally, an Oddity: the Tour riders are usually numbered with No. 1 being last year's winner, then his teammates, and sequentially down the line, which not only helps you identify individuals in a sea of indistinguishable spandex @#$es, but provides a handy guide to who to hope for. But this year, with Floyd Landis about to be hosed out of his Tour title despite the bungling of incompetent French lab nits, but of course not in time to confirm the numbering, and 2nd place Oscar Pereiro not having had a chance in hell of being there frankly if all of last year's serious contenders hadn't been kicked out just before the start on doping charges, the befuddled Tour organizers are starting poor Pereiro at 11 and everyone else muddles in after that. Y'know, craptastic field last year or not, he did almost take the thing, and has been a good sport about the whole Landis hoo-ha despite the lingering suspicion he should've been the boy swarmed by podium babes and champagne spray in Paris--could they have found it in their hearts not to emasculate the boy quite so much?
Anyway, there's lots I'm forgetting, or flat blowing off, for now, but I'll get around to it as we go. In the meantime, stake your place at the side of the road with the other screaming nationalist wingnuts, try not to take out any riders with your camera, and don't forget to yell, Allez Allez!
The Commentators: follow the Gospel of Phil (Liggett) and Paul (Sherwen) and you can't go wrong, and if you don't have the sense to obey, I have no use for you. They will not only educate you on the history of the Tour and who to watch when why in this one, but you will gain an invaluable knowledge of local attractions, regional agricultural outputs, and every bottle of wine they've enjoyed at each prior stage in this area since about 1969. Follow Bob Roll, and you'll not only be entertained, but, tho' he pimps just a little too hard for Discovery for my taste, you'll learn a lot despite yourself. Listen to Al Trautwig, and you'll burn in hell for all eternity; I'm sure he means well, but he's--how does one say this delicately?--an idiot.
The Teams: identified by the hideous, flourescent, and distinctly un-macho tight spandex outfits that crack you up because they look like a pack of wussies compared to say football players. Don't be fooled by the prom-dress colors--while you're sitting there drinking beer and scratching yourself, any one of these pretty boys can whup your !@# six ways to Sunday. Colors of the main ("General Classification" or GC) contenders to watch: Discovery's uncommonly studly blue and black for American Levi Leipheimer; pregnancy-test-sponsor Predictor's pink and black Aussie Cadel Evans; Astana's baby-blue Alexander Vinokorouv and Andreas Kloden; and Caisse d'Epargne's and CSC's red-and-black Alejandro Valverde and we love Carlos Sastre, respectively. Blue-and-orange Rabobank's Denis Menchov wants it, but I'm still pissed that he took Roberto Heras' last Vuelta a Espana over some inconsequential EPO bust then largely sucked every since, so we're not counting him. Hmmm, despite the overwhelmingly easter-egg colors of the rest of the peloton, I'm just noticing that the GC contenders are mostly on very manly-colored teams....
The Jerseys: besides their team kits, different types of riders are aiming for the honor of wearing different colored jerseys that signify different things, and massively increase your chances for a truly extortionate cash-cow of a deal come contract-renewal season:
--Yellow: the coveted Maillot Jaune or leader's jersey. Yes, Lance's. Even wearing this for one day is the proud highlight of any rider's career, though of course what really counts is who's wearing it on the final day in Paris. Contenders: see above.
--White: Young Rider's. You're 25 and under, which means generally too young to have any tactical brains or to be at your physical peak for a three-week trek through hell. Contenders: I can never pick this one right, ever, but T-Mobile (hot pink)'s lacking a strong GC contender after losing or kicking out every rider that matters, and has lots of high-caliber jailbait, so maybe one of their boys'll take it.
--Green: Points, or, more accurately, Sprint. You rack up points by breaking off the front of the pack and racing across selected mini-finish-lines at various places along the course--and sometimes, if someone is threatening your team's big sprinter's chances for it, you'll have no hope for the jersey but be ordered to go take the points just to keep them away from someone else--but what really grabs the cameras is for you to wear it as you thunder across the line in a tight bunch finish on a sprint stage. To watch: light-blue Milram's Alessandro Petacchi; green Credit Agricole's we love but he's been in crap form all season Thor Hushovd; teal-and-fuschia Lampre's upstart Daniele Bennati; pink Predictor's Robbie "Head-Butt" McEwen.
--Polka-Dot: it's the King of the Mountains, baby! The most exciting race within the race for my money, these are generally tiny little mountains monkeys who can crush the entire Alps, and their gasping sap fellow riders, at an astonishing pace. To watch: Rabobank's Michael "the Chicken" Rasmussen, and...well, everyone else, despite some brilliant climbers over at orange Euskaltel, Caisse D'Epargne and Astana, is pretty much toast.
--and, Another Anomaly: the national champions have all just been crowned, and they get to wear their national champion jersey all race while the rest of the team is stuck with their general-loser team kit. If you're a national time trial champion, you only get to wear it in a time trial.
The Stages: generally divided into Prologue (the stage-before-the-first-stage), which puts someone into the yellow jersey for the real start of the race; Sprint, mostly flat; Rolling; Time Trial, an individual race against the clock with no teammates around to protect you; and Mountain. In the prologue (which is a time trial) and other tts, look for: CSC's Fabian Cancellara; US national tt champ we love Dave Zabriskie; yellow Saunier Duval's irritating reformed dope-fiend St. David Millar, keen to win in his hometown start in London; Discovery's George Hincapie or Levi Leipheimer for, if not the win, a nice high placement. For the Mountains: we love yellow Saunier Duval's Iban Mayo, who once beat Lance and has since been psychologically-crushed-now-recovering in the wake of the resulting Next King of Cycling hype; CdE's Alejandro Valverde, who's never made it through a Tour; Alexander Vinokorouv, who may hand the stage win off to whatever superdomestique hauled him up the mountains if it won't threaten his chances for the yellow jersey in Paris; CSC's surging Frank Schleck. Rolling'll be whatever breakaway won't threaten any team leader on any particular day, and Sprint is the green jersey suspects above, except it's Robbie who'll snake around from the out-of-contention butt-end of the group and surprise you every time.
Finally, an Oddity: the Tour riders are usually numbered with No. 1 being last year's winner, then his teammates, and sequentially down the line, which not only helps you identify individuals in a sea of indistinguishable spandex @#$es, but provides a handy guide to who to hope for. But this year, with Floyd Landis about to be hosed out of his Tour title despite the bungling of incompetent French lab nits, but of course not in time to confirm the numbering, and 2nd place Oscar Pereiro not having had a chance in hell of being there frankly if all of last year's serious contenders hadn't been kicked out just before the start on doping charges, the befuddled Tour organizers are starting poor Pereiro at 11 and everyone else muddles in after that. Y'know, craptastic field last year or not, he did almost take the thing, and has been a good sport about the whole Landis hoo-ha despite the lingering suspicion he should've been the boy swarmed by podium babes and champagne spray in Paris--could they have found it in their hearts not to emasculate the boy quite so much?
Anyway, there's lots I'm forgetting, or flat blowing off, for now, but I'll get around to it as we go. In the meantime, stake your place at the side of the road with the other screaming nationalist wingnuts, try not to take out any riders with your camera, and don't forget to yell, Allez Allez!
Sunday, July 01, 2007
Che Bella!
Jorg Washington He Ain't: so Jorg "Bella" Jaksche decided to sing early, and as promised, admitted he was a Fuentes client in '05 and '06 while at Liberty Seguros, scarfed EPO and growth hormone handily stashed in a sponsor's household appliances in the team car at Polti, chomped through substance upon substance at CSC and ONCE, and, perhaps least surprising, routinely held out his arms for needle sticks from the team docs at Telekom with the full knowledge and approval of management without even bothering to ask what the hell he was ingesting. Still, he had a good word to say about Bjarne Riis, noting that no-one likes to do it, but as everyone else is, it's the only way to level the playing field, and by the way, there's an agreement between UCI and some of the teams to studiously avoid surprises at the doping controls. UCI? Complicit in doping? No way Jorg! Meantime, Jorg was immediately condemned as a shameless money-grubbing media ho-bag (true) who's not only a lone wolf but a damned liar as well (highly likely untrue), ironically by, among others, Alexander Vinokorouv, who's just been obliged to concede his longstanding connection to doping icon Michele Ferrari, who naturally is and has always been his humble training coach (and, in good news for the other Tour contenders, he sez he's been pretty psyched out by all the controversy, as if the rumor mill needed a reason to accelerate as everyone watches who's going to get booted from the lineup before next Saturday). Is anyone else thinking it's just plain better if everyone else who rode on Telekom and/or T-Mobile suddenly started keeping their mouths shut?
UCI See He's Even More Annoying Than I Thought: and, in a similar vein, Pat "Dick" McQuaid has finally seemed to realize it doesn't look too cool to have half of the most astonishing athletes on earth diagnosed with ailments that totally coincidentally allow them to down elephant-killing quantities of performance-enhancing drugs at the start of every stage they're interested in winning, and has professed complete outrage at the proliferation of Therapeutic Use Exemptions with the amazingly timely amnesia that he's the clown actually responsible for handing these things out like party favors. So are we gonna suddenly see a million miracle cures for chronic lifelong afflictions, or is anyone actually gonna admit that such-and-so a rider isn't exactly the worn-out invalid we thought he was, Pat? Somehow I can guess how this one's going to turn out...
Vindicated: so I'm sure it's enormously comforting for the jacked riders over at Unibet that Christian Prudhomme, finally forced to confront the massive hypocrisy of letting every other gambling outfit to advertise on the peloton's @#$#@ at the Tour de France except them on legal grounds, has now mindbogglingly admitted that Unibet was not barred on legal techicalities against gambling sponsors, but on the basis of their crap results all season. Was I missing something, or wasn't that Unibet taking half the spring races despite never being allowed to ride with the big boys for the vast majority of the season? Unibet, too, remains skeptical, noting that despite their lack of ride of time, they've still racked up more wins than Milram, who've hit the courses twice as much. Keep trying Prudhomme, you're bound to come up with something halfway plausible sometime!
Finally: big points to we love Paolo Bettini for his pre-nationals interview with Gazzetta dello Sport (www.gazzetta.it, click on "Ciclismo" then "Home ciclismo", if you don't speak Italian unfortunately I believe you're stuck with my abysmal translations), dope-slapping the hypocrite goons at UCI for their meaningless Virginity Pledge that doesn't even begin to ditch responsibility at the feet of anyone who counts, and as usual exploits the riders for problems they bear but don't (at least primarily) cause. Right on Paolo!
UCI See He's Even More Annoying Than I Thought: and, in a similar vein, Pat "Dick" McQuaid has finally seemed to realize it doesn't look too cool to have half of the most astonishing athletes on earth diagnosed with ailments that totally coincidentally allow them to down elephant-killing quantities of performance-enhancing drugs at the start of every stage they're interested in winning, and has professed complete outrage at the proliferation of Therapeutic Use Exemptions with the amazingly timely amnesia that he's the clown actually responsible for handing these things out like party favors. So are we gonna suddenly see a million miracle cures for chronic lifelong afflictions, or is anyone actually gonna admit that such-and-so a rider isn't exactly the worn-out invalid we thought he was, Pat? Somehow I can guess how this one's going to turn out...
Vindicated: so I'm sure it's enormously comforting for the jacked riders over at Unibet that Christian Prudhomme, finally forced to confront the massive hypocrisy of letting every other gambling outfit to advertise on the peloton's @#$#@ at the Tour de France except them on legal grounds, has now mindbogglingly admitted that Unibet was not barred on legal techicalities against gambling sponsors, but on the basis of their crap results all season. Was I missing something, or wasn't that Unibet taking half the spring races despite never being allowed to ride with the big boys for the vast majority of the season? Unibet, too, remains skeptical, noting that despite their lack of ride of time, they've still racked up more wins than Milram, who've hit the courses twice as much. Keep trying Prudhomme, you're bound to come up with something halfway plausible sometime!
Finally: big points to we love Paolo Bettini for his pre-nationals interview with Gazzetta dello Sport (www.gazzetta.it, click on "Ciclismo" then "Home ciclismo", if you don't speak Italian unfortunately I believe you're stuck with my abysmal translations), dope-slapping the hypocrite goons at UCI for their meaningless Virginity Pledge that doesn't even begin to ditch responsibility at the feet of anyone who counts, and as usual exploits the riders for problems they bear but don't (at least primarily) cause. Right on Paolo!
Friday, June 29, 2007
The Lumberjack Song
I'm a Lumberjack and I'm Okay: yes indeed, in the wake of being smacked out of the German national championships, Jorg "Who, Me?" Jaksche has decided it's time to sing, and his lawyer gleefully assures us that not only has he himself decided to confess to the doping he somehow mistakenly said he never did in Monday's Der Spiegel, but he's ready to fell half the peloton along with himself, and name every sap who's had the misfortune to encounter him on the way to the doctor's office. Watch out management! Word of caution: having also sworn to pimp yourself to WADA UCI and everyone else who'll take a piece of you, Jorg, can you please not go *too* unbearably Jesus Manzano on us, and just get a nice quiet job somewhere as a blameless Directeur Sportif like every other cheating filthy skank?
You *Still* Blow, Bjarne!: and, CSC's finalized its Tour roster, which, while happily letting in Dave Zabriskie, and of course the usual suspects like we love Jens Voigt and O'Grady, has completely crappily left poor we love Bobby Julich out in the dust. Y'know, it's his last year in the peloton. He's a mentor to the younger riders; a mellow presence in the midst of your roiling cesspool of a troubled team; both a Classics and a Grand Tour stalwart; a damn good time trialist; and he can *still* set a blistering pace for his team leader when he's called on. He's had some crap luck this season but also shown some pretty decent form, and he's about the only guy in the field you can count on to actually be having a stomach ailment when he's claiming one the day before a doping control. And this is thanks and the @#$%y farewell to his fabulous career you give him Bjarne you total son of a !@#$%?! Bite me!
A Little Late to the Party: and, I note that Danilo di Luca, scheduled for the Italian Inquisition on July 5th, has now grandly signed the UCI Purity Pledge right when he's guaranteed not to need it for the Tour, expressing astonishment that any rider wouldn't sign this eminently reasonable promise, and that naturally, the entire hoo-ha over his chilling in a dope-prepping doctor's office right after he got a phone call imploring him to come take his EPO before the control-evasion window closed was merely some sort of misunderstanding about coming by for a shot of espresso. Good luck Killer--if CONI finally caved and went after national treasure/pinup studmuffin Ivan Basso, I think you're really gonna need it!
Perry Mason Rides Again: finally, big points for Discovery guru Johan Bruyneel, righteously insisting that of course every one of his fine and spotless riders is proud to sign the official UCI Invitation to Perjury, while at the same time pointing out that--not like this matters or anything--but he's confident it's not legally binding on anyone. Um, not to bring up any bad memories Johan, but didn't this same overconfident philosophy rather come back to bite you in the !@# with Ivan Basso and the ProTour "No Op Puerto Riders" agreement?
You *Still* Blow, Bjarne!: and, CSC's finalized its Tour roster, which, while happily letting in Dave Zabriskie, and of course the usual suspects like we love Jens Voigt and O'Grady, has completely crappily left poor we love Bobby Julich out in the dust. Y'know, it's his last year in the peloton. He's a mentor to the younger riders; a mellow presence in the midst of your roiling cesspool of a troubled team; both a Classics and a Grand Tour stalwart; a damn good time trialist; and he can *still* set a blistering pace for his team leader when he's called on. He's had some crap luck this season but also shown some pretty decent form, and he's about the only guy in the field you can count on to actually be having a stomach ailment when he's claiming one the day before a doping control. And this is thanks and the @#$%y farewell to his fabulous career you give him Bjarne you total son of a !@#$%?! Bite me!
A Little Late to the Party: and, I note that Danilo di Luca, scheduled for the Italian Inquisition on July 5th, has now grandly signed the UCI Purity Pledge right when he's guaranteed not to need it for the Tour, expressing astonishment that any rider wouldn't sign this eminently reasonable promise, and that naturally, the entire hoo-ha over his chilling in a dope-prepping doctor's office right after he got a phone call imploring him to come take his EPO before the control-evasion window closed was merely some sort of misunderstanding about coming by for a shot of espresso. Good luck Killer--if CONI finally caved and went after national treasure/pinup studmuffin Ivan Basso, I think you're really gonna need it!
Perry Mason Rides Again: finally, big points for Discovery guru Johan Bruyneel, righteously insisting that of course every one of his fine and spotless riders is proud to sign the official UCI Invitation to Perjury, while at the same time pointing out that--not like this matters or anything--but he's confident it's not legally binding on anyone. Um, not to bring up any bad memories Johan, but didn't this same overconfident philosophy rather come back to bite you in the !@# with Ivan Basso and the ProTour "No Op Puerto Riders" agreement?
I'm Too Sexy For My Shirt...
...So Sexy It Hurts: well, it's a good thing that Danilo DiLuca's got a new gig strutting the catwalk for fashion house Byblos, because it sure doesn't look good for his cycling career that he was both recorded (1) cheerfully discussing his need for an immediate EPO injection with his doc over the phone and (2) filmed in the waiting room while said drug pimp prepped the syringes (which at least thankfully doesn't further downgrade the increasingly weak Tour de France roster, as I believe he was planning to ride elsewhere for even more embarrassing sums of cash.) And our pal Eddy Mazzoleni? Yes, Astana and its Tour squad takes another whack, as he too gets called on the CONI carpet for having the breathtaking lack of discretion to text the same doc about his doping needs. Y'know, eventually Astana's just gonna run out of firepower here, which if crap luck for Vinokorouv at least raises the possibility that someone else might get within half an hour of the podium at the Tour (lame as that race will be, at this rate). Your one-team antidoping crusade is going great, Vino!
Monday, Monday: well, it's not like Alessandro Petacchi's got anything else to do next week, like, say, train for the Tour, which is lucky cause he gets to spend all next Monday answering questions about the same Therapeutic Use Exemption that UCI has been all to happy to grant him and every other rider who gacks up a polite cough for the officials like so much sprinkled fairy dust. Y'know, I have limited sympathy for dopers, particularly the wah-wahing "I'm sorry I was caught with a needle in my @#$" types (you know who you are!), but given that the date of the Tour de France isn't exactly a big freakin' mystery, and, for example, the Mazzoleni scandal has been lying around gathering dust for 3 years now, might the prosecutors and assorted cycling feds try getting in gear a reasonable period ahead of time so that at least the riders know if they oughta be training for a post-stage-win podium-babe-infused champagne spray, or sitting at home in front of the TV in a funk scarfing beer and frantically consulting their lawyers?
Monday, Monday: well, it's not like Alessandro Petacchi's got anything else to do next week, like, say, train for the Tour, which is lucky cause he gets to spend all next Monday answering questions about the same Therapeutic Use Exemption that UCI has been all to happy to grant him and every other rider who gacks up a polite cough for the officials like so much sprinkled fairy dust. Y'know, I have limited sympathy for dopers, particularly the wah-wahing "I'm sorry I was caught with a needle in my @#$" types (you know who you are!), but given that the date of the Tour de France isn't exactly a big freakin' mystery, and, for example, the Mazzoleni scandal has been lying around gathering dust for 3 years now, might the prosecutors and assorted cycling feds try getting in gear a reasonable period ahead of time so that at least the riders know if they oughta be training for a post-stage-win podium-babe-infused champagne spray, or sitting at home in front of the TV in a funk scarfing beer and frantically consulting their lawyers?
Wednesday, June 27, 2007
I Love A Parade
I Flit, I Fly: yes, with UCI having sworn inaction on the Op Puerto blood bags until after the Tour de France, the riders are all now flocking to sign the organization's idiot Virginity Pledge, serene in the knowledge that, even if they were stupid enough to leave a bucket of their bodily fluids with Eufemiano "King of Meticulous Recordkeeping" Fuentes with their dog's name slapped on the name tag, they can continue their dope-soaked pursuit of victory and blaze across the line with an arms-raised triumph at the Tour without any threat it'll be taken away from them, even if they are forced to hand over their DNA someday in the unlikely event they're busted, til long after anyone cares about anything but that they've taken a stage win at the Greatest Show on Earth. A sweet deal for all concerned, I must say! Meantime, the riders continue to be split on the issue even as their own teams brass-knuckle them into mute lemming compliance, with even eternally-laid-back Dave Zabriskie raising polite concerns about the accuracy of positive test results--why, after the perfectly handled Landis matter, who would doubt that?-- and a disgusted Fabian Cancellara openly (and rightly) calling the whole idea "truly stupid" and our hero Pat "Dick" McQuaid "a godfather." And, in a development guaranteed to both turn Astana even more paranoid and screw Andreas Kloden's podium prospects even further, Matthias Kessler has had to be suspended for "anomalous" testosterone results while everyone waits for the inevitable confirmation by the B sample. At the same time, Alessandro Petacchi was called on the carpet over at CONI today over his little overtreatment-of-asthma problem, responding with the excellent defense of "You guys have always allowed me to snort enough salbutamol to stun a rhino, why the problem with it now?" and "But guys--it really, really works!" Well done Ale-Jet!
CSC You In Hell, Bjarne!: so at the same moment that Zabriskie is expressing optimism that he'll hit the start line in London, cyclingnews is paradoxically reporting that the boy is not only not on the confirmed CSC start list, he's not even on the roster of 4 slugging it out for the last two spots, which raises the questions, (1) what (or--no, I better not go there) the hell *do* you have to do to get a gig besides taking stages in each Grand Tour, wearing and defending the maillot jaune, and building power and showing good current form in the mountains and (2) why the @#$% are Zabriskie and Bobby Julich of all people having to compete with Lars freakin' Bak (no offense) for a slot at all? (And if you're going to come up with some bull@#$$ about saving them for the Vuelta, you can doubly bite me--I'm tired of every goddamn team using it as a dumping ground for every non-Spaniard deemed unfit to play with the big boys in Paris, a monstrous diss to a magnificent race.) Anyhow, not to doubt your brilliance here Bjarne, but you blow!
Le Teams: and, while Discovery belatedly throws a party for the wholly deserving Levi Leipheimer after 9 consecutive months of kicking him right in the nuts, Saunier Duval has, I note happily, thrown its weight (but not so hard as to scare him) behind we love Iban Mayo in the mountains, with, sadly, a concurrent vote of confidence for St. David Millar in the London opener. Y'know, I hardly ever wish anyone ill results, even if, like with the tiresome Millar, my baser instincts might lean that way. So am I still going straight to Hades if I sincerely wish Millar the race of his life in the time trial, and that everyone else in the peloton including the hopeless Euskaltel utterly crushes him?
CSC You In Hell, Bjarne!: so at the same moment that Zabriskie is expressing optimism that he'll hit the start line in London, cyclingnews is paradoxically reporting that the boy is not only not on the confirmed CSC start list, he's not even on the roster of 4 slugging it out for the last two spots, which raises the questions, (1) what (or--no, I better not go there) the hell *do* you have to do to get a gig besides taking stages in each Grand Tour, wearing and defending the maillot jaune, and building power and showing good current form in the mountains and (2) why the @#$% are Zabriskie and Bobby Julich of all people having to compete with Lars freakin' Bak (no offense) for a slot at all? (And if you're going to come up with some bull@#$$ about saving them for the Vuelta, you can doubly bite me--I'm tired of every goddamn team using it as a dumping ground for every non-Spaniard deemed unfit to play with the big boys in Paris, a monstrous diss to a magnificent race.) Anyhow, not to doubt your brilliance here Bjarne, but you blow!
Le Teams: and, while Discovery belatedly throws a party for the wholly deserving Levi Leipheimer after 9 consecutive months of kicking him right in the nuts, Saunier Duval has, I note happily, thrown its weight (but not so hard as to scare him) behind we love Iban Mayo in the mountains, with, sadly, a concurrent vote of confidence for St. David Millar in the London opener. Y'know, I hardly ever wish anyone ill results, even if, like with the tiresome Millar, my baser instincts might lean that way. So am I still going straight to Hades if I sincerely wish Millar the race of his life in the time trial, and that everyone else in the peloton including the hopeless Euskaltel utterly crushes him?
Monday, June 25, 2007
Things that Make You Go Hmm...and, the Tour Teams
Nice Timing!: So, Gazzetta dello Sport is just reporting that Gilberto Simoni has become the first Italian to sign UCI's ludicrous antidoping pledge--given the known annoyance of your countrymen, watch your back from now on, Gibo!--totally coincidentally I'm sure right as the news broke that he, DiLuca, Ricco' and Mazzoleni have freakish testosterone irregularities, which also rather begs the question of how UCI actually expects to get a year's salary out Simoni if he's only busted once he quits the ProTour later this season and heads off to the hills on his mountain bike. Between that and blowing his Saunier Duval bucks on an attorney to break that meaningless promise, good luck getting any money out of him UCI! Meantime, I remain deeply fond of Simoni, not only because it's theoretically possible he actually hasn't cheated (shut up! is too), but because even if he did, he both verbally abused Ivan Basso in the face of massive swooning fan madness despite the serious threat to his life and limb, and kicked ass at this year's Giro, thereby putting him up on, say, Roberto Heras' quieter, but equally beloved, pedestal. Do what you gotta do to appease these two-faced moronothons over at UCI, Gilberto--we love you anyway!
Le Teams, Le Tour: so, I'm sorting out my faves for the Tour, assuming half of them aren't gone next week (and I'm frankly assuming the Tour won't have the !@#$s to do it), and my thoughts have lightly turned from the individual boys to the teams. Who's the one to beat? Assuming for the moment that Astana, objectively the best ship in the fleet, will indeed sink under the weight of its Battle of the Egos, for my money, it's still CSC, despite the unfortunate fact that possibly alone among the ProTour their riders' blood profiles are apparently all within normal human parameters (particularly given that dear Sastre's Tour de Suisse time trial wasn't the hideous disaster it might've been), because T-Mobile's still reeling from their damn stupid, if morally superior, jettisoning of Jan Ullrich and Andreas Kloden, Caisse d'Epargne's been too busy trying to rein in presumptive '06 king (sorry, Floyd--I do still think it *should* be you) Oscar Pereiro's cycle of celebration and Tour-stolen misery to help Valverde fend off the press vultures, Cunego's still a bit sleepy from the Giro, Saunier Duval can't afford to put any GC pressure on psychologically fragile flower we love Iban Mayo, the sprint teams are universally useless for anything else, and Discovery's been smacked by Lance's diss and Ivan Basso's loss (redeemed leader Levi likely excepted, despite the endless good sport that he is) into total demoralized submission. Pull it together Thor, and give me a reason to at least watch the flats, and please, someone from Euskaltel keep me guessing in the mountains!
Amuse Bouche of the Day: was anyone else cracking up when Oscar Sevilla won in Relax colors over at Ruta del Sud, only to be egregiously dope-slapped by the petty whining of the other riders that they had lost to someone 'tainted' by Op Puerto? Who the hell else do you think you're gonna be riding with in two weeks, you babies, and how many of you wah-wahing hypocrites are on the damn list yourself if UCI would only bestir themselves to read it?
Finally: I must say my heart rather goes out to fellow race fanatics like racer blue squirrel, who've sworn, from sheer love of the sport, not to mention doping ever again. (Much as I admire it, I cannot emulate it, sworn to both sleaze and glory as I am.) Hell, are any pro cycling newbies even aware the Tour de France is a bike race, vs. a series of pit stops for dope-pumped blood transfusions in a series of attractive French villages?
And a Post-Finally "You Suck!": to the German cycling fed for booting we love Erik Zabel out of the Worlds under pressure by some wanky Ministry of Total Unmitigated Toolishness, on the grounds that he, alone among the German riders (the rest of whom, as we know, are busy doping right n...oh, forget it, why ask for trouble?), doped for a week 10 freakin' years ago. Let's face it guys, Zabel's the *least* of your problems--can we land on Planet Reality here and aim for some targets really worth taking out?
Le Teams, Le Tour: so, I'm sorting out my faves for the Tour, assuming half of them aren't gone next week (and I'm frankly assuming the Tour won't have the !@#$s to do it), and my thoughts have lightly turned from the individual boys to the teams. Who's the one to beat? Assuming for the moment that Astana, objectively the best ship in the fleet, will indeed sink under the weight of its Battle of the Egos, for my money, it's still CSC, despite the unfortunate fact that possibly alone among the ProTour their riders' blood profiles are apparently all within normal human parameters (particularly given that dear Sastre's Tour de Suisse time trial wasn't the hideous disaster it might've been), because T-Mobile's still reeling from their damn stupid, if morally superior, jettisoning of Jan Ullrich and Andreas Kloden, Caisse d'Epargne's been too busy trying to rein in presumptive '06 king (sorry, Floyd--I do still think it *should* be you) Oscar Pereiro's cycle of celebration and Tour-stolen misery to help Valverde fend off the press vultures, Cunego's still a bit sleepy from the Giro, Saunier Duval can't afford to put any GC pressure on psychologically fragile flower we love Iban Mayo, the sprint teams are universally useless for anything else, and Discovery's been smacked by Lance's diss and Ivan Basso's loss (redeemed leader Levi likely excepted, despite the endless good sport that he is) into total demoralized submission. Pull it together Thor, and give me a reason to at least watch the flats, and please, someone from Euskaltel keep me guessing in the mountains!
Amuse Bouche of the Day: was anyone else cracking up when Oscar Sevilla won in Relax colors over at Ruta del Sud, only to be egregiously dope-slapped by the petty whining of the other riders that they had lost to someone 'tainted' by Op Puerto? Who the hell else do you think you're gonna be riding with in two weeks, you babies, and how many of you wah-wahing hypocrites are on the damn list yourself if UCI would only bestir themselves to read it?
Finally: I must say my heart rather goes out to fellow race fanatics like racer blue squirrel, who've sworn, from sheer love of the sport, not to mention doping ever again. (Much as I admire it, I cannot emulate it, sworn to both sleaze and glory as I am.) Hell, are any pro cycling newbies even aware the Tour de France is a bike race, vs. a series of pit stops for dope-pumped blood transfusions in a series of attractive French villages?
And a Post-Finally "You Suck!": to the German cycling fed for booting we love Erik Zabel out of the Worlds under pressure by some wanky Ministry of Total Unmitigated Toolishness, on the grounds that he, alone among the German riders (the rest of whom, as we know, are busy doping right n...oh, forget it, why ask for trouble?), doped for a week 10 freakin' years ago. Let's face it guys, Zabel's the *least* of your problems--can we land on Planet Reality here and aim for some targets really worth taking out?
Le Tour, Mon Amour; and, Dammit Gibo!
Simoni Non E Uomo, E' Ragazzo: just when I thought I could relax and enjoy my relatively untainted Giro, comes the deep consternation of the Italian cycling fed on the "extremely bizarre" results of Danilo Di Luca, Eddy Mazzoleni, Ricardo Ricco' and Gilberto Simoni, who apparently showed levels of testosterone akin to those of "prepubescent boys" on the stage to Zoncolan, a day when one might reasonably conclude they actually needed some, and the concurrent demand that UCI turn over their blood profiles. The concern? Not for their manhood--for the presence of masking agents such levels typically indicate. Dammit, can't any of you clowns give me *one* day's rest from this crap? And while we're at it Simoni--your time trialing *still* sucked--if you're going to dope, can't you at least improve enough to justify it? Luckily, on the eve of a Tour that UCI and the race organizers are desperate to let the contenders in, the same policy of disgusting avoidance will likely apply to the Giro as well, as there seems to be a study about showing that riders' testosterone levels routinely drop like rocks for no reason. @#$%^%!
Le Tour, I Swear: so after Andreas Kloden completely smoked the time trial at Tour de Suisse, my question is, does Vino really mean it when he claims "there won't be any problems" and he'll "work for whoever's stronger on the road" at the Tour? After all, we're talking a guy who (1) got jacked out of the Tour last year and (2) is getting a little long in the tooth in Grand Tour years, and (3) *two* guys with a truly impressive history of bushwhacking their own team leader at the Tour (hi Jan!). My guess is that a paranoid desperate Vinokorouv, especially with a Kazakh consortium backing him, absolutely won't let Kloden off the leash except for a non-GC-threatening stage win, to both reward a proven podium finisher so he doesn't look too scrimy about it (and, to be fair, as a generally just Vinokorouv is typically wont to do) and to keep Kloden from open rebellion in the mountains. Y'know, I'm sorry Vino took the hit for Liberty Seguros (particularly since he probably oughta be taking the hit for T-Mobile), but despite his clear superiority in almost everything and the almost embarassing way he took the Vuelta, I'm rooting for Kloden on this one--plus, let's face it, this coming Tour could already use some excitement. You've got Matthias Kessler with your back--a worthy foil to Vino's Kashechkin--don't take any crap Andreas!
Bite me, Bjarne!: While we're on the subject of the Tour, is anyone else surprised as I am that we love Dave Zabriskie is still in limbo regarding his place on CSC's Tour squad? Fine, Riis needs some firepower in the mountains (where Zabriskie performed surprisingly well of late), and Cancellara has, and deserves, his backing in the time trials (where Zabriskie hasn't exactly bitten Bjarne!). But he's had a decent season, and he's won stages in the Tour and worn the maillot jaune for heck's sake--free Zabriskie!
A Last Lament: finally, with Valverde's status in some doubt, nearly every other rider worth watching retired or banned for doping, and Thor Hushovd in crap form and barring some miraculous reversal no contester for any of the sprints, I'm fearing that this is going to be one major snoozer of a Tour. Anyone else thinking we oughta just let Ullrich Basso Mancebo and Landis in, maybe at the base of a few climbs and Ullrich again at the time trials, just to shake up the peloton a bit?
Le Tour, I Swear: so after Andreas Kloden completely smoked the time trial at Tour de Suisse, my question is, does Vino really mean it when he claims "there won't be any problems" and he'll "work for whoever's stronger on the road" at the Tour? After all, we're talking a guy who (1) got jacked out of the Tour last year and (2) is getting a little long in the tooth in Grand Tour years, and (3) *two* guys with a truly impressive history of bushwhacking their own team leader at the Tour (hi Jan!). My guess is that a paranoid desperate Vinokorouv, especially with a Kazakh consortium backing him, absolutely won't let Kloden off the leash except for a non-GC-threatening stage win, to both reward a proven podium finisher so he doesn't look too scrimy about it (and, to be fair, as a generally just Vinokorouv is typically wont to do) and to keep Kloden from open rebellion in the mountains. Y'know, I'm sorry Vino took the hit for Liberty Seguros (particularly since he probably oughta be taking the hit for T-Mobile), but despite his clear superiority in almost everything and the almost embarassing way he took the Vuelta, I'm rooting for Kloden on this one--plus, let's face it, this coming Tour could already use some excitement. You've got Matthias Kessler with your back--a worthy foil to Vino's Kashechkin--don't take any crap Andreas!
Bite me, Bjarne!: While we're on the subject of the Tour, is anyone else surprised as I am that we love Dave Zabriskie is still in limbo regarding his place on CSC's Tour squad? Fine, Riis needs some firepower in the mountains (where Zabriskie performed surprisingly well of late), and Cancellara has, and deserves, his backing in the time trials (where Zabriskie hasn't exactly bitten Bjarne!). But he's had a decent season, and he's won stages in the Tour and worn the maillot jaune for heck's sake--free Zabriskie!
A Last Lament: finally, with Valverde's status in some doubt, nearly every other rider worth watching retired or banned for doping, and Thor Hushovd in crap form and barring some miraculous reversal no contester for any of the sprints, I'm fearing that this is going to be one major snoozer of a Tour. Anyone else thinking we oughta just let Ullrich Basso Mancebo and Landis in, maybe at the base of a few climbs and Ullrich again at the time trials, just to shake up the peloton a bit?
Saturday, June 23, 2007
Abandon Ship!
Captain My @#$!: boy, could Lance Armstrong, in between bouts of decrying his own innocence yet again now that the same French book from last year's been recycled into English, have bailed on the sinking ship (the day's events at Suisse excepted) that is Discovery any faster? First, he slags their crap performance in the Dauphine (even after Levi's late pre-crash resurgence); then, he says he's only going to show at the Tour for the Prologue, in favor of an immediate US return for a more-exciting celebrity golf tourney, and he'll come back for the rest of it only if it looks like The Team that Lance Built won't totally humiliate him, I mean, itself. Way to motivate the troops there Lance!
Now, my take is that this is just Lance being Lance--bad enough he's not riding himself for the cameras, but if Discovery can't stuff his voracious ego by making him look like a producer of superstars, as usual with anyone who betrays him, like Heras, Hamilton, or Landis, he's got no use whatsoever for their sorry !@#es. Man, no wonder dog-loyal lieutenant Hincapie is rumored to be talking to T-Mobile! But it's been suggested to me that Lance is simply dropping the team because of his personal golden-boy Basso's debacle--that Bruyneel actually might not've ever wanted Basso over Leipheimer due to Op Puerto, though I'm inclined to doubt that simply for the cash-cow factor in Lance's dreamboat poster boy, and he didn't for example have any problem signing tainted baby prodigy Alberto Contador and sprint hope Allan Davis from Liberty Seguros--and, if my notoriously lame Italian is correct, Basso sez he's actually never lost touch with Lance, that they're texting, which, without being privy to the messages of course, seems a lot nicer than Lance usually is to his exes, in that at least he's not openly gesturing to Basso to shove it a la Landis at the Tour de Georgia. Anyhow, is anyone else thinking that Lance's "Doping is the Tool of Pathetic Satan-Slurped Weaklings" routine is the slightest bit undercut by his continued support of an admitted 'attempted' doper?
Rider Revolt: meantime, the snarking over UCI's Virginity Pledge continues, with first the Italian cyclists' fed, and now the entire riders' group, ripping into the meaningless pre-Tour show-pony for the farce that it is, particularly since, as usual, the same fakers who organize races that encourage them to dope are now demanding that they forfeit their salaries if they essentially do what they're told, and more, that the camera-glomming publicity sluts in spandex who coincidentally parked themselves at the press conference with pen, paper and smug grins in hand completely jacked and betrayed their brethren. And the haunted (and hunted) among them? Well, Alejandro Valverde is particularly irked at any suggestion he's been linked to Op Puerto (unsurprisingly, given the lengths the Spaniards have gone to to reassure their top Tour GC contender that he won't be), and even more annoyed by the idea that anyone should have to give up money in the unlikely event they actually test positive for anything. Somehow I wouldn't actually worry too much about that happening, Alejandro--at least not to you! While we're at it, Jorg Jaksche, lately fired along with Hamilton and Hondo by a bizarrely outraged Oleg "How Many Dopers Can You Fit Into a Single Team Bus" Tinkov but still mysteriously continuing to compete and win in Tinkoff team kit (and now under investigation for contract fraud, just like Jan), has no intention of signing on to UCI's idiot invitation-to-perjury purity promise, and I gotta say, guilty as he probably is, I'm with Jorg on this one--why not just lie yourself to WADA directly, and avoid the tiresome middleman entirely?
Now, my take is that this is just Lance being Lance--bad enough he's not riding himself for the cameras, but if Discovery can't stuff his voracious ego by making him look like a producer of superstars, as usual with anyone who betrays him, like Heras, Hamilton, or Landis, he's got no use whatsoever for their sorry !@#es. Man, no wonder dog-loyal lieutenant Hincapie is rumored to be talking to T-Mobile! But it's been suggested to me that Lance is simply dropping the team because of his personal golden-boy Basso's debacle--that Bruyneel actually might not've ever wanted Basso over Leipheimer due to Op Puerto, though I'm inclined to doubt that simply for the cash-cow factor in Lance's dreamboat poster boy, and he didn't for example have any problem signing tainted baby prodigy Alberto Contador and sprint hope Allan Davis from Liberty Seguros--and, if my notoriously lame Italian is correct, Basso sez he's actually never lost touch with Lance, that they're texting, which, without being privy to the messages of course, seems a lot nicer than Lance usually is to his exes, in that at least he's not openly gesturing to Basso to shove it a la Landis at the Tour de Georgia. Anyhow, is anyone else thinking that Lance's "Doping is the Tool of Pathetic Satan-Slurped Weaklings" routine is the slightest bit undercut by his continued support of an admitted 'attempted' doper?
Rider Revolt: meantime, the snarking over UCI's Virginity Pledge continues, with first the Italian cyclists' fed, and now the entire riders' group, ripping into the meaningless pre-Tour show-pony for the farce that it is, particularly since, as usual, the same fakers who organize races that encourage them to dope are now demanding that they forfeit their salaries if they essentially do what they're told, and more, that the camera-glomming publicity sluts in spandex who coincidentally parked themselves at the press conference with pen, paper and smug grins in hand completely jacked and betrayed their brethren. And the haunted (and hunted) among them? Well, Alejandro Valverde is particularly irked at any suggestion he's been linked to Op Puerto (unsurprisingly, given the lengths the Spaniards have gone to to reassure their top Tour GC contender that he won't be), and even more annoyed by the idea that anyone should have to give up money in the unlikely event they actually test positive for anything. Somehow I wouldn't actually worry too much about that happening, Alejandro--at least not to you! While we're at it, Jorg Jaksche, lately fired along with Hamilton and Hondo by a bizarrely outraged Oleg "How Many Dopers Can You Fit Into a Single Team Bus" Tinkov but still mysteriously continuing to compete and win in Tinkoff team kit (and now under investigation for contract fraud, just like Jan), has no intention of signing on to UCI's idiot invitation-to-perjury purity promise, and I gotta say, guilty as he probably is, I'm with Jorg on this one--why not just lie yourself to WADA directly, and avoid the tiresome middleman entirely?
Friday, June 22, 2007
Here Come the Men In Black
The Pink Panther Strikes Again: In an astonishing reversal of their determination not to nail anyone for doping pre-Tour, UCI has announced that they've been tailing an incredible 6 or 7 "well-known riders", brought under suspicion by the nefarious act of...training in the high passes without their team kits, in an obvious and wily (but not wily enough, you fools!) attempt to draw suspicion away from their open and notorious doping practices. Well, that's "6 or 7" out of 107 implicated in Op Puerto who're gonna be barred from the Tour--let's forget about everyone else in Quick Step and, frankly, most of the rest of the peloton--a fine and comprehensive job by UCI, I must say! Does *anyone* see the sense or justice in excluding 6 or 7 riders who are actually entertaining to watch in favor of keeping 100 completely stoked second-tier contenders and guys whose main job is schlepping back to the team car to stuff their jerseys full of water bottles for their team like some ignominious camel?
The Reaction: interestingly, and having nothing to fear I'm sure, the boys in baby blue over at Astana, led natch by clean freak Alexander "oops, I better ditch Godefroot...oops, I better ditch my personal doctor..." Vinokorouv, immediately flipped out out of nowhere and having been actually accused of nothing, issuing a frantic press release that if their riders ever trained out of team kit it was to avoid the stalking fanatic tifosi who haunted them by car inch-by-inch as they trained up the Cote d'Azur. Feeling twitchy, are we? I'm certain it's just the normal pre-Tour nerves. Just move along now--nothing to see here, you Looky Lous!
Spanish Fly: Meantime, the Germans, French, and Belgians, none of whose riders have ever doped, went ballistic over at the UCI/ProTour meeting at the suggestion that Alejandro Valverde was clean enough to ride, at least if no-one got around to reading the Op Puerto file, which resulted in UCI's brave reversal and decision to...let Alejandro ride anyway, plus most everybody else from Liberty Seguros, including Discovery's Allan Davis and Alberto Contador, which begs the question (or just the rant), you completely screwed we love Joseba Beloki you repulsive cowardly clowns, now go find him a contract and the suitcase full of cash he deserves, you !@#$%#s! Naturally, unemployed sad-sack/media whore Jesus Manzano immediately went on the attack, saying that in 2002 Alejandro meandered into dinner with a testosterone patch brazenly displayed on his arm, and while we're at, his many current friends in the peloton, apparently eager to get their own !@#es investigated by UCI, are constantly complaining to Manzano that while of course they are all still doping, they are cruelly and unjustly obliged to be more discreet now. Cry me a river, boys! And Jesus--doped or not, he's still better than you ever were--accept the cold hard truth and just let it rest now, willya?
While we're at it, if all these dope-snarfing skeezbags are really gonna be allowed to ride the Tour unquestioned so long as they have a team doc or soigneur with the savvy to beat the tests-- unless they're one of the newly-tracked "6 or 7" that UCI suddenly has some petty targeted grudge against, thereby showing even their latest antidoping crusade to be a total farce--I'm wondering why, in the interests of fair play, they oughtn't *all* just be allowed to play in Paris. Hell, let's bring Floyd, Jan, and Basso back in, too! Sure, they lack contracts and a team--but that's again the injustice of selective enforcement--so why not just hand 'em over to the still-unemployed boys from Liberty and let 'em all wild-card in as a supergroup? Don't give me this "but we promise to bar *somebody* from the Prologue" crap, UCI--fair is fair!
The Reaction: interestingly, and having nothing to fear I'm sure, the boys in baby blue over at Astana, led natch by clean freak Alexander "oops, I better ditch Godefroot...oops, I better ditch my personal doctor..." Vinokorouv, immediately flipped out out of nowhere and having been actually accused of nothing, issuing a frantic press release that if their riders ever trained out of team kit it was to avoid the stalking fanatic tifosi who haunted them by car inch-by-inch as they trained up the Cote d'Azur. Feeling twitchy, are we? I'm certain it's just the normal pre-Tour nerves. Just move along now--nothing to see here, you Looky Lous!
Spanish Fly: Meantime, the Germans, French, and Belgians, none of whose riders have ever doped, went ballistic over at the UCI/ProTour meeting at the suggestion that Alejandro Valverde was clean enough to ride, at least if no-one got around to reading the Op Puerto file, which resulted in UCI's brave reversal and decision to...let Alejandro ride anyway, plus most everybody else from Liberty Seguros, including Discovery's Allan Davis and Alberto Contador, which begs the question (or just the rant), you completely screwed we love Joseba Beloki you repulsive cowardly clowns, now go find him a contract and the suitcase full of cash he deserves, you !@#$%#s! Naturally, unemployed sad-sack/media whore Jesus Manzano immediately went on the attack, saying that in 2002 Alejandro meandered into dinner with a testosterone patch brazenly displayed on his arm, and while we're at, his many current friends in the peloton, apparently eager to get their own !@#es investigated by UCI, are constantly complaining to Manzano that while of course they are all still doping, they are cruelly and unjustly obliged to be more discreet now. Cry me a river, boys! And Jesus--doped or not, he's still better than you ever were--accept the cold hard truth and just let it rest now, willya?
While we're at it, if all these dope-snarfing skeezbags are really gonna be allowed to ride the Tour unquestioned so long as they have a team doc or soigneur with the savvy to beat the tests-- unless they're one of the newly-tracked "6 or 7" that UCI suddenly has some petty targeted grudge against, thereby showing even their latest antidoping crusade to be a total farce--I'm wondering why, in the interests of fair play, they oughtn't *all* just be allowed to play in Paris. Hell, let's bring Floyd, Jan, and Basso back in, too! Sure, they lack contracts and a team--but that's again the injustice of selective enforcement--so why not just hand 'em over to the still-unemployed boys from Liberty and let 'em all wild-card in as a supergroup? Don't give me this "but we promise to bar *somebody* from the Prologue" crap, UCI--fair is fair!
Tuesday, June 19, 2007
Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf?
Not Any of the Cyclists, I Imagine: as UCI strikes a staggering blow for impotence, irrelevance and self-interest, and against concrete action over any rider who matters, by...oooooooh, making the riders sign a statement saying they're not doping ahead of the Tour de France! And of course, to add to the pain, they're also gonna publish a list on the UCI website of who's signed and who hasn't. I don't know about you, but I were an amoral stoked cheat in the peloton paying thousands of euros to scarf stuff I know is banned, the shame of a lie-by-dotted-line and publication on a list on a website even the hard-care cycling fanatics don't read, plus the highly limited likelihood of testing poz for anything barring a grievous miscalculation by any given rider's Dr. Feelgood, will sure scare me off practices that could net me millions of euros in contracts and endorsements!
On the plus side, UCI's also asking signatories to "agree" to forfeit a year's salary if they're later busted--leading natch to the ridiculous possibility that one of my amnesty-post suggestions might actually unknowingly be adopted--though how that provides an incentive to sign without it simply being a mandatory penalty for everyone caught doping is a mystery to me. Frankly, could the pro-cheating (or at least willfully blind) among the ProTour teams have dreamed of a better deal than this?
So, between this exceedingly lame project, and UCI's outright acknowledgement that no-one much is gonna be barred from the start line no matter who from Op Puerto or Quick Step deserves to be, it looks like, Basso and Ullrich (and now Serguei Gonchar) excepted of course, we're gonna have a hell of a competitive lineup for the Tour, and if we're very, very lucky, maybe 1 of 100 users will actually get caught during the post-stage doping controls. Heck, why not just pick a solo scapegoat randomly this year, instead of going through all the potentially embarrassing lab-screwup hoo-ha a la Landis you might encounter during an actual test?
On the plus side, UCI's also asking signatories to "agree" to forfeit a year's salary if they're later busted--leading natch to the ridiculous possibility that one of my amnesty-post suggestions might actually unknowingly be adopted--though how that provides an incentive to sign without it simply being a mandatory penalty for everyone caught doping is a mystery to me. Frankly, could the pro-cheating (or at least willfully blind) among the ProTour teams have dreamed of a better deal than this?
So, between this exceedingly lame project, and UCI's outright acknowledgement that no-one much is gonna be barred from the start line no matter who from Op Puerto or Quick Step deserves to be, it looks like, Basso and Ullrich (and now Serguei Gonchar) excepted of course, we're gonna have a hell of a competitive lineup for the Tour, and if we're very, very lucky, maybe 1 of 100 users will actually get caught during the post-stage doping controls. Heck, why not just pick a solo scapegoat randomly this year, instead of going through all the potentially embarrassing lab-screwup hoo-ha a la Landis you might encounter during an actual test?
Monday, June 18, 2007
UCI Can't Believe What Simps They Are
Spanish Punks On Dope: yes, UCI, in its fearless crusade against the evil that is illicit performance enhancement, has managed to provide a free ride for every doper scum-cheat who might possibly have a good shot at the podium at the Tour de France, except Ivan Basso, the ever-dope-slapped Jan Ullrich, and of course the possibly-not-even-guilty-and-already-disproportionately-punished Floyd Landis, cheerfully reassuring the skittish ProTour DSes that they "don't have time" to read all the Op Puerto documents before the Tour, so besides the aforementioned scapegoats and the incredibly yanked Saiz-pimped elder statesmen from Liberty Seguros (free Joseba!), everyone else is off the hook at least til after the finish line in Paris. Your 'stomach problems' can all improve now, boys!
Frankly, the blustering skanks at UCI make me sick, and for any of these mudsucking snakes to claim they really care about eliminating doping is a farce beyond belief. I'm no Einstein--hell, I'm hardly the Count from Sesame Street--but it seems to me that if you hire 60 quasi-literate Neanderthals and sit 'em down in a reasonably well-lit room with a cooler of Red Bull, they can each be handed 100 documents, a yellow highlighter, and a list of rider names for comparison, and blow through 6000 pages of Op Puerto file in no time. And you've had the docs for a month already, you clowns--that forces your lackeys to a Dr. Seuss-reader rate of only a little more than 3 freakin' pages a day. You don't have 'time'?--you don't have the desire, suck it up and admit it!
Gone But Not Forgotten: speaking of Prince Charming--and conceding that, while he certainly did deserve what he got, he certainly didn't deserve it any more than all the other riders who aren't getting it--the always-tranquillo Basso's sworn to come back big in an interview with Gazzetta dello Sport, and, with the support of his loving wife and friends in the peloton who shall remain nameless, has promised his little bambina that he will return to win the Giro yet again. What's more, he did so tell the Italian cycling fed everything he knew, and, in response to a surprising question from the wisenheimers at Gazzetta, amiably agreed that his beloved dog Birillo is always with him. A small but promising start to repairing the damage you've done to his blameless puppy name, Ivan--now if you'll only cop to what everything thinks you ought to cop to!
Frankly, the blustering skanks at UCI make me sick, and for any of these mudsucking snakes to claim they really care about eliminating doping is a farce beyond belief. I'm no Einstein--hell, I'm hardly the Count from Sesame Street--but it seems to me that if you hire 60 quasi-literate Neanderthals and sit 'em down in a reasonably well-lit room with a cooler of Red Bull, they can each be handed 100 documents, a yellow highlighter, and a list of rider names for comparison, and blow through 6000 pages of Op Puerto file in no time. And you've had the docs for a month already, you clowns--that forces your lackeys to a Dr. Seuss-reader rate of only a little more than 3 freakin' pages a day. You don't have 'time'?--you don't have the desire, suck it up and admit it!
Gone But Not Forgotten: speaking of Prince Charming--and conceding that, while he certainly did deserve what he got, he certainly didn't deserve it any more than all the other riders who aren't getting it--the always-tranquillo Basso's sworn to come back big in an interview with Gazzetta dello Sport, and, with the support of his loving wife and friends in the peloton who shall remain nameless, has promised his little bambina that he will return to win the Giro yet again. What's more, he did so tell the Italian cycling fed everything he knew, and, in response to a surprising question from the wisenheimers at Gazzetta, amiably agreed that his beloved dog Birillo is always with him. A small but promising start to repairing the damage you've done to his blameless puppy name, Ivan--now if you'll only cop to what everything thinks you ought to cop to!
Sunday, June 17, 2007
Amnesty International
The Elephant In the Room: so I've been agonizing for weeks over where I come down on the whole punishment for doping thing, particularly after Shameless St. Millar Defender's thoughtful comments on amnesty, except for my obvious belief that everyone who constantly whores themselves for the cameras post-wah-wah-I'm-busted-Oprah-confessional should fry in the seventh circle of hell and everyone who shuts up and does their job, by contrast, should get off scot-free, and my frankly lowlife belief that everyone I just don't like is fit to hit the flames and everyone I like, shouldn't. But even leaving aside my more barbarian instincts, it seems to me we can't even begin to frame this discussion realistically unless we deal with a fundamental, and highly uncomfortable, truth: if we're really gonna ban everyone who's currently guilty of doping from riding, we're not gonna have a single damn race worth racing for at least 10 years, because the entire current generation of setting, shining, and rising stars is going to have to be flat @#$%^%$ banned from the peloton, and we're all gonna be stuck watching two bonking neo-pros from some half-@#$ed incompetent day-old continental squad desperately sucking the wheels of the team cars in the hope of even making the first 100 meters of the Alpe d'Huez without dropping dead of exhaustion. So the question is, if we're not willing to show the spine and true love for fair sport to do that, exactly how far are we really willing to go?
Thus, a humble proposal, which I'll surely start disagreeing with myself before I'm even halfway done with it:
1. 1990s and before: from catching trains during stages to smoking cigarettes to increase oxygen consumption to the greats' recent revelations of popping amphetamines like Skittles, cheating has a long, storied, if occasionally fatal history in this sport, and everyone's always been looking for an edge, particularly one the medieval testing protocols are far too stupid to catch. Amnesty for everyone, including those insufferable hypocrites Bjarne Riis and Patrick "Dick" Lefevere, from 1999 on back. On a purely selfish note, this also has the convenient side effect of completely exonerating we love Erik Zabel, who proved just today in the Tour de Suisse that it doesn't matter what the hell Daniele Bennati's snarfing on the team bus, experience still counts for something. Can we all let Pantani rest in peace now?
2. 2000-2005: You've got one year, count 'em, one, to come forward and mug for the press corps right now. That includes you Armstrong. Anyone else busted after that--and I don't mean by Jesus Manzano or some broke-ass soigneur with a grudge to get off his chest and a family to support by whining about people who can actually ride--gets a two-year ban. This will ensure that it doesn't matter much to those in the twilight of their careers, the youngsters will still have time for some late-career wins on their return, and those at the peak of their powers will still be able to put in some good results as they move up a generation.
3. 2006-2007: Let's face it, between Quick Step, Op Puerto, and rumors of a sexy new lab in Valencia, everyone remotely worth watching right now (fine, except Millar, Jesus!) is either stoked to the gills, or being led by someone who spent his entire career stoked to the gills and is also a helpless victim of mass amnesia regarding the doping totally coincidentally going on by the riders right in front of them. Therefore, since justice in terms of substantive bans is frankly out of the question at this point, I propose a nice clean penalty that everyone can understand: money:
--Race Organizers: yeah, that's right, you, Grand Tours, and the rest of you disingenuous weasels. Apropos of nothing, anyone else watch the Dauphine this week--7 categorized climbs in one stage, which you apparently expect to be completed at a pace somewhere above a stoned crawl, and you lying sacks of @#$% who organize all these races are still trying to claim you don't want people doping? Please. You get *one* queen stage, and you don't get to try to snake out of it with 3k of flat after a giant number of mountains and call it a "sprint." More'n that, the whining riders association gets to go on strike and fix the stage, and you forfeit 50% of revenue that year.
--Sponsors: forfeit of one year's cycling revenue, and no advertising--banners, flags, giant inflatable arches, names plastered on rider's garish spandex bodies--at any cycling events for two years, so even after everyone's moved on to the next dirty scandal and forgotten you, you've still got a year to feel the hurt.
--Directeur Sportifs and General Managers: any one of your boys turns up positive, you automatically forfeit a year's salary. What's more, you're banned from earning a similar salary at any other management capacity for a year, and any money you try to make pimping your own proteges in a book deal automatically goes to the current ProTour leader's team, second place if it's yours. I'd also, as a perpetual proletarian rabble-rouser, like to see you demoted to being one of the brilliant mechanics or degraded soigneurs you constantly @#$! on, but in the spirit of conciliation, and the knowledge that you're all telling the truth when you've never noticed or encouraged anyone doping anytime anywhere ever, I'll settle for cold hard cash.
--Riders: any of you turns up positive, or is definitively linked to doping despite your suppliers' canny ability to keep you safe, you forfeit a year's salary, all endorsements deals are cancelled, and after you retire or otherwise suddenly suffer an incurable career-ending ailment in humiliation, you can't be a full-fledged DS for a year. Enjoy your 12 months of towel duty, boys--you earned it! Bonus penalty: any jerkface who let that oily tool Fuentes slander their innocent dogs by using them as code names forfeits an extra 6 months' pay.
--Soigneurs, Couriers, and Assorted Hangers-On: no book deals. Othern' that, you're probably the most sympathetic out of this entire tainted bunch, but given the likelihood you'll get fired anyway, you might polish up your resumes preemptively.
4. 2008 on: one strike and you're out. I've had it.
5. UCI and WADA: no coddling your own. First xenophobic son-of-a-!@#$% to make a nationalistic slur against another rider, team or their governing body while protecting their own under the exact same circumstances wears the rival team kit and/or national flag apparel for 12 months at all public appearances.
Now, of course this won't ever stop doping, and of course it's not fair that some guilty saps will continue to get caught and some will, well, win the Grand Tours and other races without ever being held to account. That's justice for you, striving yet ever-imperfect. But with any luck, we can keep on with this pleasant trend of late of fewer healthy 23-year-old newbies dropping dead of undiagnosed "heart problems", and, if not clean up the show, at least keep the infestation under some control. Now it's time for the Tour--allez!
Thus, a humble proposal, which I'll surely start disagreeing with myself before I'm even halfway done with it:
1. 1990s and before: from catching trains during stages to smoking cigarettes to increase oxygen consumption to the greats' recent revelations of popping amphetamines like Skittles, cheating has a long, storied, if occasionally fatal history in this sport, and everyone's always been looking for an edge, particularly one the medieval testing protocols are far too stupid to catch. Amnesty for everyone, including those insufferable hypocrites Bjarne Riis and Patrick "Dick" Lefevere, from 1999 on back. On a purely selfish note, this also has the convenient side effect of completely exonerating we love Erik Zabel, who proved just today in the Tour de Suisse that it doesn't matter what the hell Daniele Bennati's snarfing on the team bus, experience still counts for something. Can we all let Pantani rest in peace now?
2. 2000-2005: You've got one year, count 'em, one, to come forward and mug for the press corps right now. That includes you Armstrong. Anyone else busted after that--and I don't mean by Jesus Manzano or some broke-ass soigneur with a grudge to get off his chest and a family to support by whining about people who can actually ride--gets a two-year ban. This will ensure that it doesn't matter much to those in the twilight of their careers, the youngsters will still have time for some late-career wins on their return, and those at the peak of their powers will still be able to put in some good results as they move up a generation.
3. 2006-2007: Let's face it, between Quick Step, Op Puerto, and rumors of a sexy new lab in Valencia, everyone remotely worth watching right now (fine, except Millar, Jesus!) is either stoked to the gills, or being led by someone who spent his entire career stoked to the gills and is also a helpless victim of mass amnesia regarding the doping totally coincidentally going on by the riders right in front of them. Therefore, since justice in terms of substantive bans is frankly out of the question at this point, I propose a nice clean penalty that everyone can understand: money:
--Race Organizers: yeah, that's right, you, Grand Tours, and the rest of you disingenuous weasels. Apropos of nothing, anyone else watch the Dauphine this week--7 categorized climbs in one stage, which you apparently expect to be completed at a pace somewhere above a stoned crawl, and you lying sacks of @#$% who organize all these races are still trying to claim you don't want people doping? Please. You get *one* queen stage, and you don't get to try to snake out of it with 3k of flat after a giant number of mountains and call it a "sprint." More'n that, the whining riders association gets to go on strike and fix the stage, and you forfeit 50% of revenue that year.
--Sponsors: forfeit of one year's cycling revenue, and no advertising--banners, flags, giant inflatable arches, names plastered on rider's garish spandex bodies--at any cycling events for two years, so even after everyone's moved on to the next dirty scandal and forgotten you, you've still got a year to feel the hurt.
--Directeur Sportifs and General Managers: any one of your boys turns up positive, you automatically forfeit a year's salary. What's more, you're banned from earning a similar salary at any other management capacity for a year, and any money you try to make pimping your own proteges in a book deal automatically goes to the current ProTour leader's team, second place if it's yours. I'd also, as a perpetual proletarian rabble-rouser, like to see you demoted to being one of the brilliant mechanics or degraded soigneurs you constantly @#$! on, but in the spirit of conciliation, and the knowledge that you're all telling the truth when you've never noticed or encouraged anyone doping anytime anywhere ever, I'll settle for cold hard cash.
--Riders: any of you turns up positive, or is definitively linked to doping despite your suppliers' canny ability to keep you safe, you forfeit a year's salary, all endorsements deals are cancelled, and after you retire or otherwise suddenly suffer an incurable career-ending ailment in humiliation, you can't be a full-fledged DS for a year. Enjoy your 12 months of towel duty, boys--you earned it! Bonus penalty: any jerkface who let that oily tool Fuentes slander their innocent dogs by using them as code names forfeits an extra 6 months' pay.
--Soigneurs, Couriers, and Assorted Hangers-On: no book deals. Othern' that, you're probably the most sympathetic out of this entire tainted bunch, but given the likelihood you'll get fired anyway, you might polish up your resumes preemptively.
4. 2008 on: one strike and you're out. I've had it.
5. UCI and WADA: no coddling your own. First xenophobic son-of-a-!@#$% to make a nationalistic slur against another rider, team or their governing body while protecting their own under the exact same circumstances wears the rival team kit and/or national flag apparel for 12 months at all public appearances.
Now, of course this won't ever stop doping, and of course it's not fair that some guilty saps will continue to get caught and some will, well, win the Grand Tours and other races without ever being held to account. That's justice for you, striving yet ever-imperfect. But with any luck, we can keep on with this pleasant trend of late of fewer healthy 23-year-old newbies dropping dead of undiagnosed "heart problems", and, if not clean up the show, at least keep the infestation under some control. Now it's time for the Tour--allez!
Friday, June 15, 2007
The Quick and the Dead
The Hunt for Red October: yep, as everyone now knows, 10/24/08 is the date of Ivan Basso's return to the peloton, at least to some crap Continental squad that can't do him justice 'til he's too creaky and bloated to be a serious ProTour threat, despite lawyer Massimo Martelli's impassioned plea that, between losing his Tour with CSC and his subsequent contract with Discovery, the boy's already served 7 months of his sentence anyway, upon which Basso was duly given credit for 236 days served--pretty sweet, but not enough. Oh Massimo. Even you, in your brilliance, could only do so much. Hell, even Einstein couldn't solve *all* the mysteries of the universe! Anyway, the reason for the supermax penalty, according to the Italian cycling fed? Classic snake oil--Basso promised to take down everyone with him in exchange for a deal, and only turned over some inconsequential half-assed hanger-on Fuentes courier instead. Right, that's exactly who they were looking for, you weaselly nit! That, and his regoddamndiculous "I smoked, but I didn't inhale" defense couldn't have helped either. Sorry Ivan--as fellow pretty-boy strongman Jan Ullrich can tell you, pouting your comely lips for the cameras can only get you so far--and you still got a hell of a lot farther than Jan did!
As for the Basso tifosi loyalists, still clinging to the sheer walls of the Dolomites in the hope their hero will ride by once more with the clearly inferior and equally culpable Simoni gasping on his wheel? Well, skimming Gazzetta dello Sport's comments pages, it looks about 10-to-1 strongly in favor of beating the crap out of anyone who dares to question his rightful supremacy and demanding his immediate return to the road, with so far only one lone, heartbroken "biggest fan" meekly conceding, "giusto." You need money, Ivan? I think you've got a "Fairness Fund" for the taking right here! Still and all, besides being obliged to rather admire Ivan for his (public) grace and humility in defeat, I've gotta say, his knee-jerk defenders have a point that he's not the only Italian who oughta be taking the fall for this filth-ridden crackhouse of a sport, and for my money, the whole leadership's arbitrary scattershot approach to crime and punishment is total bull!@#$. I mean, Francisco freakin' Mancebo might get to ride the !@#$%&* Tour, but Basso and Ullrich do not?
Sue 'em all, Iban!!: Meantime, I'm delighted to note that as quickly as he was named, we love-and-fully-expect-to-take-another-mountain-stage-in-the-Tour this year Iban Mayo was officially cleared of doping related to his fluctuating testosterone levels at the Giro, and, in a double shocker, thereby proving that (1) in a rare situation with a rider they don't have a petty vicious schoolyard vendetta against (cough! Landis! cough!), UCI can actually show some fairness and (2) we now have incontrovertible proof that at least one cyclist in the pro peloton isn't doping (yeah, I know, you cynics, at least not with testosterone). Now crush those slandering scumsucking hack newspaper bastards Iban, and if you need an English-speaking lawyer, you know who to call!
The Puerto-nic Plague: yes, after a three-hour bloodbath of a meeting, and with the UCI blessedly clearly determined not to read the incriminating Op Puerto documents for cash-cow riders' names ahead of the Tour, the ProTour teams have disingenuously pledged to take down the "under investigation" among them, if for no other reason than to desperately contain the spate of sponsorship bailouts that are leaving the Directeur Sportifs' wallets feeling, well, threatened, with righteous crusader Patrick "Do As I Say, Not As I Do" Lefevere leading the charge against the two sap domestiques that'll actually end up getting kicked out ahead of the start line in London. I'm welling up with the beauty of this scam, truly! Meantime, anyone else notice the rising tide of key Op Puerto (and other scandal)-linked riders suddenly coming down with vague-yet-body-crushing intestinal ailments right before the final rosters, and any riders under suspicion, are announced for the Tour?
Oprah's Book Club: speaking (somewhere in here) of Floyd Landis, keep an eye out for an appearance near you, as Floyd hits the circuit in support of his new tome/revenue source, which apparently rather apologizes for the Therapeutic Use Exemption he snagged for a desperately-needed cortisone shot to his agonized and deteriorating hip socket. Floyd, I don't know what you did and didn't do on Morzine, though I'm inclined to think you didn't do anything. But to even think you need to justify taking a hit for that hip when something like 80% of your compatriots are claiming some kind of total @#$%!(* inability to breathe in and out? Whatever toll the rest of this mess has taken on you, cut yourself some slack already!
As for the Basso tifosi loyalists, still clinging to the sheer walls of the Dolomites in the hope their hero will ride by once more with the clearly inferior and equally culpable Simoni gasping on his wheel? Well, skimming Gazzetta dello Sport's comments pages, it looks about 10-to-1 strongly in favor of beating the crap out of anyone who dares to question his rightful supremacy and demanding his immediate return to the road, with so far only one lone, heartbroken "biggest fan" meekly conceding, "giusto." You need money, Ivan? I think you've got a "Fairness Fund" for the taking right here! Still and all, besides being obliged to rather admire Ivan for his (public) grace and humility in defeat, I've gotta say, his knee-jerk defenders have a point that he's not the only Italian who oughta be taking the fall for this filth-ridden crackhouse of a sport, and for my money, the whole leadership's arbitrary scattershot approach to crime and punishment is total bull!@#$. I mean, Francisco freakin' Mancebo might get to ride the !@#$%&* Tour, but Basso and Ullrich do not?
Sue 'em all, Iban!!: Meantime, I'm delighted to note that as quickly as he was named, we love-and-fully-expect-to-take-another-mountain-stage-in-the-Tour this year Iban Mayo was officially cleared of doping related to his fluctuating testosterone levels at the Giro, and, in a double shocker, thereby proving that (1) in a rare situation with a rider they don't have a petty vicious schoolyard vendetta against (cough! Landis! cough!), UCI can actually show some fairness and (2) we now have incontrovertible proof that at least one cyclist in the pro peloton isn't doping (yeah, I know, you cynics, at least not with testosterone). Now crush those slandering scumsucking hack newspaper bastards Iban, and if you need an English-speaking lawyer, you know who to call!
The Puerto-nic Plague: yes, after a three-hour bloodbath of a meeting, and with the UCI blessedly clearly determined not to read the incriminating Op Puerto documents for cash-cow riders' names ahead of the Tour, the ProTour teams have disingenuously pledged to take down the "under investigation" among them, if for no other reason than to desperately contain the spate of sponsorship bailouts that are leaving the Directeur Sportifs' wallets feeling, well, threatened, with righteous crusader Patrick "Do As I Say, Not As I Do" Lefevere leading the charge against the two sap domestiques that'll actually end up getting kicked out ahead of the start line in London. I'm welling up with the beauty of this scam, truly! Meantime, anyone else notice the rising tide of key Op Puerto (and other scandal)-linked riders suddenly coming down with vague-yet-body-crushing intestinal ailments right before the final rosters, and any riders under suspicion, are announced for the Tour?
Oprah's Book Club: speaking (somewhere in here) of Floyd Landis, keep an eye out for an appearance near you, as Floyd hits the circuit in support of his new tome/revenue source, which apparently rather apologizes for the Therapeutic Use Exemption he snagged for a desperately-needed cortisone shot to his agonized and deteriorating hip socket. Floyd, I don't know what you did and didn't do on Morzine, though I'm inclined to think you didn't do anything. But to even think you need to justify taking a hit for that hip when something like 80% of your compatriots are claiming some kind of total @#$%!(* inability to breathe in and out? Whatever toll the rest of this mess has taken on you, cut yourself some slack already!
Wednesday, June 13, 2007
Freaks O' Nature
As I Said Yesterday, I Don't Give a Rat's @#$ if Iban Mayo is Doping: yet I still feel like I'm absolutely gonna yack, so apparently I'm not only a hypocrite, but a total failure at shedding the presumed-dead remnants of my pathetic naivete, tho' Iban's spankin' new poz test for elevated testosterone at the Giro is already being blamed (not only by his own hacks, even) on his long-established, UCI-approved wildly swinging hormone levels. Which isn't stopping anyone from checking for exogenous testosterone a la' Floyd, but hey--can't a guy have a little male PMS without everyone treating him like a criminal? As for well-known chronic asthmatics Alessandro Petacchi and Leonardo "Thank God It's Not Simoni" Piepoli, newly poz for salbutamol? Luckily for the boys, (1) they've got the same handy Therapeutic Use Exemption as 90% of the rest of the sickly peloton, including virtuous Tour runner-up Oscar Pereiro and (2) thanks to the total lack of WADA limits on what constitutes unacceptable amounts of asthma drugs, you can apparently take enough of this crap to blast a Chunnel through your chest at the base of any given decisive climb without arousing suspicion. So with virtually every damn rider in the ProTour either a genetic freak, a speed-snarfer, or the sort of delicate gasping flower who can still somehow ride 150 miles a day uphill for 3 weeks without bonking, can anyone explain to me why Landis should get nailed for anything even if he were to slap a thousand testosterone patches on his works right in front of Pat "Dick" McQuaid and Dick "Dick" Pound and a thousand assembled press corps? Anyway, free Iban, and bite me, Euskaltel, you still @#$%ed up firing him!
Dauphine'! Libere'! Fraternite'!: indeed, it's downright dandy to see defending Dauphine champ (considered a climber apparently, though I tend to think of him as more of a time-trialist lately) we love Levi Leipheimer doing so well in the GC, right? Wrong!, according to Johan "Basso Who?" Bruyneel, who's said Levi blew himself for the Tour de France last year actually working hard enough to win the Dauphine and, since he's absolutely always been their solo GC conteder for the Tour, with no-one else ever even considered for the post, he's not gonna let that happen again. Right, because Disco coughed up 6 million euros for Ivan Basso to be some low-rent twink daily schlepping bottles of Gatorade up from the ass-end of the peloton at the team car to the real riders on the team! Y'know, it's great to see Levi not getting completely screwed by Discovery for the first time since Prince Charming bailed out of CSC, and even being supported in his desire for the maillot jaune this year, but aren't you insulting his dignity just a little bit more by your over-pious--and ridiculous--revisionist history spouting every two seconds for the cameras? Keep yappin', Johan!
Dauphine'! Libere'! Fraternite'!: indeed, it's downright dandy to see defending Dauphine champ (considered a climber apparently, though I tend to think of him as more of a time-trialist lately) we love Levi Leipheimer doing so well in the GC, right? Wrong!, according to Johan "Basso Who?" Bruyneel, who's said Levi blew himself for the Tour de France last year actually working hard enough to win the Dauphine and, since he's absolutely always been their solo GC conteder for the Tour, with no-one else ever even considered for the post, he's not gonna let that happen again. Right, because Disco coughed up 6 million euros for Ivan Basso to be some low-rent twink daily schlepping bottles of Gatorade up from the ass-end of the peloton at the team car to the real riders on the team! Y'know, it's great to see Levi not getting completely screwed by Discovery for the first time since Prince Charming bailed out of CSC, and even being supported in his desire for the maillot jaune this year, but aren't you insulting his dignity just a little bit more by your over-pious--and ridiculous--revisionist history spouting every two seconds for the cameras? Keep yappin', Johan!
Tuesday, June 12, 2007
Dope On Wheels
Friday the 13th (well, 15th): it's only a hop-skip-and-a-jump to the surely-productive meeting between UCI and the ProTour teams, designed to reassure the Directeurs Sportif that their GC contenders and higher-level domestiques won't be openly matched to the Op Puerto blood bags til well after the Tour start in Paris, I mean, to join together in valiant combat against the shameful scourge that is doping in time to obliterate it all before the first Maillot Jaune is worn this year. The guarantor of its success? Why, Quick Step Grand Poobah Patrick "Needles? I Thought They Were for Acupuncture" Lefevere, who immediately crowed his delight and dedication at the noble task ahead. I'm reassured, aren't you?
It Ain't Just Cycling Anymore: top Canadian wheelchair marathoner/Sydney multi-medalist Jeff Adams has been busted and banned for 2 years for doping after testing poz for cocaine. Smashing lawyer defense: coke "is not a performance-enhancing drug." So what about the ever- beloved blow-and-heroin cocktail "Pot Belge," back in the news just the other day as the syringe-du-jour of the Quick Step raids? Well, I'm sure it's the heroin that perks you up and propels you over Mont Ventoux at a thousand k an hour...
Le Tour: yes, VeloNews' fine preview issue is out, and big love to legend Bernard Hinault for (1) giving we love Iban Mayo the credit and props he so deserves and (2) pointing out that Euskaltel's flat-out sucked since he left. While my own jury's still out on that for the long haul, given that I fully expect an Haimar Zubeldia-fueled Sammy Sanchez to take to the podium at the Vuelta in August, I'm delighted to see the team smacked nonetheless after their vicious treatment of Iban, particularly considering the beleaguered boy's spiffy late-season-06 results. And speaking of the VeloNews coverage, did anyone on Caisse d'Epargne even bother to give presumptive 06 TdF king (sorry Floyd, even if you're innocent, I still think you're hosed) Oscar "Before Valverde Can Win the Tour, First He's Got to Finish a Tour" Pereiro a heads-up before straight-on announcing Valverde--not Oscar, alone or in combination--as the sole team leader for the Tour, despite the ambitious Pereiro's coy suggestions to the contrary? Okay, he was competing against a bit of a half-assed tier of GC contenders with Basso, Vino and the rest of the Brady Bunch mired in the Op Puerto gulag...still, ouch!
Roberto Heras Suspension Countdown: yep, it's only a few short months til disgraced Vuelta god we love Roberto Heras is back on the market, and he's "confident" (and I'm falling over with desperation) that he'll find a team for 2008. Hell, Jorg Jaksche had no problem getting a job and a pretty sweet salary, and his results were crap in comparison--venga Heras! Now, I realize I'm a completely disgusting hypocrite--like the ones I exceedingly slap around on an average day--for slagging boys like Ivan "Man Candy" Basso for doping when actually I don't give a rat's @#$ if Roberto Heras, plus, say, Gilberto Simoni, Paolo Bettini, Iban Mayo or even we love Thor Hushovd are passed out daily in their team kit in some skank doctor's opium den, but frankly, I like them better. However, I assure you all I feel very guilty and conflicted about that. Truly. Am I absolved yet?
It Ain't Just Cycling Anymore: top Canadian wheelchair marathoner/Sydney multi-medalist Jeff Adams has been busted and banned for 2 years for doping after testing poz for cocaine. Smashing lawyer defense: coke "is not a performance-enhancing drug." So what about the ever- beloved blow-and-heroin cocktail "Pot Belge," back in the news just the other day as the syringe-du-jour of the Quick Step raids? Well, I'm sure it's the heroin that perks you up and propels you over Mont Ventoux at a thousand k an hour...
Le Tour: yes, VeloNews' fine preview issue is out, and big love to legend Bernard Hinault for (1) giving we love Iban Mayo the credit and props he so deserves and (2) pointing out that Euskaltel's flat-out sucked since he left. While my own jury's still out on that for the long haul, given that I fully expect an Haimar Zubeldia-fueled Sammy Sanchez to take to the podium at the Vuelta in August, I'm delighted to see the team smacked nonetheless after their vicious treatment of Iban, particularly considering the beleaguered boy's spiffy late-season-06 results. And speaking of the VeloNews coverage, did anyone on Caisse d'Epargne even bother to give presumptive 06 TdF king (sorry Floyd, even if you're innocent, I still think you're hosed) Oscar "Before Valverde Can Win the Tour, First He's Got to Finish a Tour" Pereiro a heads-up before straight-on announcing Valverde--not Oscar, alone or in combination--as the sole team leader for the Tour, despite the ambitious Pereiro's coy suggestions to the contrary? Okay, he was competing against a bit of a half-assed tier of GC contenders with Basso, Vino and the rest of the Brady Bunch mired in the Op Puerto gulag...still, ouch!
Roberto Heras Suspension Countdown: yep, it's only a few short months til disgraced Vuelta god we love Roberto Heras is back on the market, and he's "confident" (and I'm falling over with desperation) that he'll find a team for 2008. Hell, Jorg Jaksche had no problem getting a job and a pretty sweet salary, and his results were crap in comparison--venga Heras! Now, I realize I'm a completely disgusting hypocrite--like the ones I exceedingly slap around on an average day--for slagging boys like Ivan "Man Candy" Basso for doping when actually I don't give a rat's @#$ if Roberto Heras, plus, say, Gilberto Simoni, Paolo Bettini, Iban Mayo or even we love Thor Hushovd are passed out daily in their team kit in some skank doctor's opium den, but frankly, I like them better. However, I assure you all I feel very guilty and conflicted about that. Truly. Am I absolved yet?
Sunday, June 10, 2007
While the Cat's Away...
...Quick Step Won't Be Nailed for Systemic Doping, *Again*: well, the hoo-ha over the drug-ensnaring Quick Step raids has already died down, mere moments after the festering scandal erupted, as Patrick "Belgians Good!" Lefevere blasts the shocking assumption that anyone (else) on his team might be doping, the nervous prosecutors rush to reassure the (potentially violent) fans that no riders will ever be held accountable as all they're interested in is the dealers, and the only guy on the team busted so far is a--you guessed it--soigneur-to-the-stars. Who exactly the !@#$ do they think is using this #$%!, the hapless minion who's forced into superhuman feats of strength to scrub the sweat off Tom Boonen's chamois every evening? So anyhoo, with the Spaniards clearly the only boys in the peloton doping--and let's face it, even half of them are off the hook just in time for the start line in July--we can all rest assured that a resurgent Captain Dreamboat will be free to contest the sprint into Paris along with Alessandro, Thor, and Robbie the Ego, and that the TV ratings, ad revenue, "Young Tom Boonen--The Comic Book" (you can't make this stuff up) sales, and, most of all, the sponsors' take will remain resolutely astronomical. Nice work there, Keystone Kops!
Jesus H...um, Manzano: yep, the unemployable camera whore is at it once more, groveling for money, I mean, earnestly pleading for truth and justice in the sport, by accusing an irked Alejandro "I Don't Even Have a Dog, I Swear!" Valverde yet again of snarfing drugs in astonishing quantities not only while at Kelme along with Jesus and the rest of the early-retired crap-results crybabies, but also undoubtedly while at Caisse d'Epargne, and that if we think the "only thing he was racing on is lettuce," he can guarantee that Alejandro is "up to his neck" in the Fuentes affair right now. More, he's happily yapping to the Italian authorities for as long as he can milk this cow, which I'm sure after all is a welcome diversion for CONI from the pressing question of how to score Ivan Basso a get-out-of-jail-free card without looking like swooning starstruck teenage simps and raising the ire and incessant hypocritical press-whining of the completely and sincerely anti-doping German squads like, say, T-Mobile. Y'know, I sympathize with Manzano saying he and everyone else at Kelme had to pop 8 Prozac a day just to get over the fear of jamming a needle in their rears (which still doesn't excuse the fact he just plain sucked, nice try Jesus), but is anyone else wishing he were even more sedated right now? And, in response to this latest round of accusations against the Next Indurain, the Spanish cycling fed has bravely stood forth and...yep, for no reason whatsoever politely asked UCI if it might get back to them soon on the question of whether the Op Puerto riders, none of whom are threats for the Tour GC I'm certain, might arrange for a bit of, well, total unquestioned amnesty, not that anyone even would need it except possibly a couple of nobody domestiques from the late Comunidad Valenciana, preferably again coincidentally before, oh, July 7 2007 or so. Boy, I think we're really on the road to cleaning up the sport here, don't you?
Man on the Run: and, it was a pleasure to see (well, almost, having been sidetracked by an afternoon by the pool) Floyd Landis on his bike again in Colorado, though you wouldn't know that from the local press, which was full of quotes by less-heralded riders on the scene who clearly felt that the presence of an obviously-guilty Floyd's was an embarassment to honest riders everywhere and, wholly tangentially I'm sure, a hindrance to their own infrequent chances for press coverage. Oh Floyd, we still want to believe!
Giro Roundup: finally, if only because I can't take any more of this idiocy tonight, I note the supreme crappiness of Gilberto Simoni's loss of the podium due to his consistently heinous time-trialing, which nonetheless gives a sort of soothing credence to the idea he's the only clean guy in the peloton, not the least because his time-trialing hasn't ever freakishly improved in a few short months like, oh--hell, why set myself up for a lawsuit?--and, most happily, the smashing win on a miserably cold Basque-unfriendly day by we love Iban Mayo, lauded by his own team as a triumph over Euskaltel's brutal psychological pressure machine and, dandily, ensuring Saunier-Duval's service at his command in the upcoming Tour de France. Venga Iban!
Jesus H...um, Manzano: yep, the unemployable camera whore is at it once more, groveling for money, I mean, earnestly pleading for truth and justice in the sport, by accusing an irked Alejandro "I Don't Even Have a Dog, I Swear!" Valverde yet again of snarfing drugs in astonishing quantities not only while at Kelme along with Jesus and the rest of the early-retired crap-results crybabies, but also undoubtedly while at Caisse d'Epargne, and that if we think the "only thing he was racing on is lettuce," he can guarantee that Alejandro is "up to his neck" in the Fuentes affair right now. More, he's happily yapping to the Italian authorities for as long as he can milk this cow, which I'm sure after all is a welcome diversion for CONI from the pressing question of how to score Ivan Basso a get-out-of-jail-free card without looking like swooning starstruck teenage simps and raising the ire and incessant hypocritical press-whining of the completely and sincerely anti-doping German squads like, say, T-Mobile. Y'know, I sympathize with Manzano saying he and everyone else at Kelme had to pop 8 Prozac a day just to get over the fear of jamming a needle in their rears (which still doesn't excuse the fact he just plain sucked, nice try Jesus), but is anyone else wishing he were even more sedated right now? And, in response to this latest round of accusations against the Next Indurain, the Spanish cycling fed has bravely stood forth and...yep, for no reason whatsoever politely asked UCI if it might get back to them soon on the question of whether the Op Puerto riders, none of whom are threats for the Tour GC I'm certain, might arrange for a bit of, well, total unquestioned amnesty, not that anyone even would need it except possibly a couple of nobody domestiques from the late Comunidad Valenciana, preferably again coincidentally before, oh, July 7 2007 or so. Boy, I think we're really on the road to cleaning up the sport here, don't you?
Man on the Run: and, it was a pleasure to see (well, almost, having been sidetracked by an afternoon by the pool) Floyd Landis on his bike again in Colorado, though you wouldn't know that from the local press, which was full of quotes by less-heralded riders on the scene who clearly felt that the presence of an obviously-guilty Floyd's was an embarassment to honest riders everywhere and, wholly tangentially I'm sure, a hindrance to their own infrequent chances for press coverage. Oh Floyd, we still want to believe!
Giro Roundup: finally, if only because I can't take any more of this idiocy tonight, I note the supreme crappiness of Gilberto Simoni's loss of the podium due to his consistently heinous time-trialing, which nonetheless gives a sort of soothing credence to the idea he's the only clean guy in the peloton, not the least because his time-trialing hasn't ever freakishly improved in a few short months like, oh--hell, why set myself up for a lawsuit?--and, most happily, the smashing win on a miserably cold Basque-unfriendly day by we love Iban Mayo, lauded by his own team as a triumph over Euskaltel's brutal psychological pressure machine and, dandily, ensuring Saunier-Duval's service at his command in the upcoming Tour de France. Venga Iban!
Friday, June 01, 2007
To Both My Faithful Readers
Buona vacanza!: alright, with the Giro nearly over, DiLuca imminently festooned with champagne and podium babes in Milano, and Gibo Simoni with both my stage win and a fabulously gracious set of press quotes for DiLuca in a great (if inadvertent--or is it?) smack to Ivan Basso, I'm off on vacation, and I humbly leave you with this to ponder for the week:
Dopers: Amnesty, or Iron Maiden?
Dopers: Amnesty, or Iron Maiden?
Thursday, May 31, 2007
When the Moon Hits Your Eye...
Like a Big Pizza Pie, That's Simoni!: well, he didn't leave DiLuca or Cunego quite in the dust (for long, anyway), but we love Iban Mayo did blow Liquigas neatly apart at the base of the climb and faithful KOM Piepoli did manage to just barely break the legs of a phenomenally resurgent baby Schleck, and while DiLuca's still got his Giro and his champagne and podium babes in Milan, Gilberto Simoni gorgeously attacked an at-last cracking Il Killer to take his final Giro stage win and even a temporary 3d place on the podium on the fearsome Zoncolan. You can go ahead and hit the mountain bike from now on if you want, you gave up that one last stage for me baby--woo-hoo!
Tour de Petty Bull!@#$: yep, endless sad-sacks Unibet have been formally dissed out of the Tour de France in favor of wildcard freakin' Barloworld, and even Unibet was finally forced to concede that the team had been forced into a "coma." Y'know, could UCI have shown some !@#damn spine and backed them for once instead of pimping them to their PR repair after taking their money and getting the innocent boys on the team into this hideous mess? Meantime, who else is wildcarding into this Tour determined to purge "every" doper from its ranks (except all 107 riders from Op Puerto, Quick Step, T-Mobile, and any and all stoked French riders) ahead of the start line? Why, natch, it's Guardians of Riderly Purity Astana, with Walter "Doping? On Telekom?" Godefroot conveniently being dropped from the pre-Tour prep right as soigneur-from-Satan Jeff d'Hont's book comes out, and Alexander "I'm Not Vino" Vinokorouv and Andreas Kloden (along with pal Jan Ullrich) all now under investigation by the IOC over their threesome of road-race medals at the 2000 Olympics while they were all cavorting on T-Mobile together. Well, CSC's in hot water over Bjarne Riis' presumptive coddling of a doping Basso at least, right? Wrong! Christian "Holy Crap, I Need Riders in This Tour" Prudhomme has backed off his (admittedly stupid) holy vow to kick CSC out of the Tour, merely pulling the rug out from under Bjarne Riis in a shocking reversal of his general policy of coddling doping-ignorant management like the fragile flowers they clearly are. But what of Gerolsteiner and T-Mobile? Well, Christian Henn and Rolf Aldag have everyone's confidence of course, so paradoxically from Riis' perspective his own wah-wah confessional was for naught, while Patrick "Nyah-Nyah!" Lefevere's smug prediction that the Tour can't afford to lose its tainted management (not riderly) talent is coming quite true for everyone but Bjarne. And, Erik Zabel finally won his reprieve from a clearly relieved Milram, at least til he's done leading out Petacchi in the Tour this year, giving them several months to revise Ale-Jet's pale-blue train before they have to make a decision on breaking Zabel's 2008-season contract. Can someone please take a consistent stance on *something* for five minutes, so at least my head doesn't explode?
Tour de Petty Bull!@#$: yep, endless sad-sacks Unibet have been formally dissed out of the Tour de France in favor of wildcard freakin' Barloworld, and even Unibet was finally forced to concede that the team had been forced into a "coma." Y'know, could UCI have shown some !@#damn spine and backed them for once instead of pimping them to their PR repair after taking their money and getting the innocent boys on the team into this hideous mess? Meantime, who else is wildcarding into this Tour determined to purge "every" doper from its ranks (except all 107 riders from Op Puerto, Quick Step, T-Mobile, and any and all stoked French riders) ahead of the start line? Why, natch, it's Guardians of Riderly Purity Astana, with Walter "Doping? On Telekom?" Godefroot conveniently being dropped from the pre-Tour prep right as soigneur-from-Satan Jeff d'Hont's book comes out, and Alexander "I'm Not Vino" Vinokorouv and Andreas Kloden (along with pal Jan Ullrich) all now under investigation by the IOC over their threesome of road-race medals at the 2000 Olympics while they were all cavorting on T-Mobile together. Well, CSC's in hot water over Bjarne Riis' presumptive coddling of a doping Basso at least, right? Wrong! Christian "Holy Crap, I Need Riders in This Tour" Prudhomme has backed off his (admittedly stupid) holy vow to kick CSC out of the Tour, merely pulling the rug out from under Bjarne Riis in a shocking reversal of his general policy of coddling doping-ignorant management like the fragile flowers they clearly are. But what of Gerolsteiner and T-Mobile? Well, Christian Henn and Rolf Aldag have everyone's confidence of course, so paradoxically from Riis' perspective his own wah-wah confessional was for naught, while Patrick "Nyah-Nyah!" Lefevere's smug prediction that the Tour can't afford to lose its tainted management (not riderly) talent is coming quite true for everyone but Bjarne. And, Erik Zabel finally won his reprieve from a clearly relieved Milram, at least til he's done leading out Petacchi in the Tour this year, giving them several months to revise Ale-Jet's pale-blue train before they have to make a decision on breaking Zabel's 2008-season contract. Can someone please take a consistent stance on *something* for five minutes, so at least my head doesn't explode?
Monday, May 28, 2007
Baby, It Ain't Over Til It's...Oh Wait, It *Is* Over
Il Assessino Strikes: Clearly, I'm a complete nit, because I just wasn't pegging Danilo DiLuca as the Maglia Rosa in Milan, but if Simoni and Cunego still didn't have the legs to take DiLuca on Tre Cime after an afternoon of merrily making him wear himself out pacesetting the chase with no teammates in sight, and DiLuca still had the power to take off unchallenged after that, Simoni in particular is flat-out hosed and the Giro is over right now. I was actually thinking DiLuca was going to crack yesterday--since when did DiLuca become such a Euskaltelish mountain goat?--but if he doesn't blow tomorrow on Zoncolan, and Simoni doesn't also leave Cunego in the dust while we're at it--unlikely, the way Lampre's been performing--I think they can pretty much just skip the entire last week, except the question remains who baby Schleck is going to ignominiously knock off the podium. Crap, I still want Simoni to take it! I'm particularly interested, though, to see how sudden-Cancellara DiLuca does in the flat stage 20 time trial--anyone else getting especially twitchy Heras- and Basso-vibes after this season's sudden improvement in the field? Oh, Gibo, at least take a final stage win...
Volta a Op Puerto: well, Sammy Sanchez seems to be back on form over at the Volta a Catalunya, but then, so are Oscar "I'm not Sevillano" Sevilla and Francisco Mancebo, while Denis "You Still Don't Deserve Heras' Vuelta" Menchov shockingly took a stage win. And Jorg Jaksche, suspended by Tinkoff and knocked out of the Giro? Why, he's off winning Circuit de Lorraine in Tinkoff team kit, which leaves me utterly befuddled as to why St. Oleg still has it in for the similarly-stoked Tyler Hamilton, unless he somehow missed that Tyler was actually out for 2 years over a positive test before Tinkoff hired him, which seems to be the only real difference between him and Jaksche. Meantime, Milram continues their moral conundrum over Erik Zabel's mea culpa, failing to come to terms on firing or not firing him after a 7-hour argument the other day, presumably because they really, really want him to lead out Petacchi in the Tour, I mean, because they're having a serious ethical debate over whether his voluntary confession on EPO cancels the horror of his long-ago week of sin in the 90s. And speaking of the Tour, Christian Prudhomme is having a mighty struggle over whether to kick CSC out of the Tour--yeah, right!--because (1) Riis sets a very, very naughty example for the cleanmeisters over at, say, T-Mobile, and (2) L'Equipe is loudly proclaiming that there's no way Bjarne didn't know Basso was working with Fuentes, and who wants those muckrakers on your @#$ in Paris? Then again, he could always boot them because Carlos Sastre openly backed Riis on his website, and if you're never going to hold management actually responsible for doping there's a rider you can comfortably take out your vendetta on...
Volta a Op Puerto: well, Sammy Sanchez seems to be back on form over at the Volta a Catalunya, but then, so are Oscar "I'm not Sevillano" Sevilla and Francisco Mancebo, while Denis "You Still Don't Deserve Heras' Vuelta" Menchov shockingly took a stage win. And Jorg Jaksche, suspended by Tinkoff and knocked out of the Giro? Why, he's off winning Circuit de Lorraine in Tinkoff team kit, which leaves me utterly befuddled as to why St. Oleg still has it in for the similarly-stoked Tyler Hamilton, unless he somehow missed that Tyler was actually out for 2 years over a positive test before Tinkoff hired him, which seems to be the only real difference between him and Jaksche. Meantime, Milram continues their moral conundrum over Erik Zabel's mea culpa, failing to come to terms on firing or not firing him after a 7-hour argument the other day, presumably because they really, really want him to lead out Petacchi in the Tour, I mean, because they're having a serious ethical debate over whether his voluntary confession on EPO cancels the horror of his long-ago week of sin in the 90s. And speaking of the Tour, Christian Prudhomme is having a mighty struggle over whether to kick CSC out of the Tour--yeah, right!--because (1) Riis sets a very, very naughty example for the cleanmeisters over at, say, T-Mobile, and (2) L'Equipe is loudly proclaiming that there's no way Bjarne didn't know Basso was working with Fuentes, and who wants those muckrakers on your @#$ in Paris? Then again, he could always boot them because Carlos Sastre openly backed Riis on his website, and if you're never going to hold management actually responsible for doping there's a rider you can comfortably take out your vendetta on...
Sunday, May 27, 2007
Il Grande Gibo
That's Right, Gibo: Fine, today's the queen stage of the Giro d'Italia, with a brutal series of climbs up from Trento, and everything I'm about to say is going to be proven egregiously wrong in about the next two hours, not the least of which that Gazzetto dello Sport's poll saying Cunego is the best climber in this Giro is absolute crap, which means he'll probably take the stage and make me look like a total moron today, like I can't dig my own grave without help. So I'm going to focus on what I really love--and is concurrently most exasperating--about Gilberto Simoni: his utter lack of verbal self control. Sure, he's easily the greatest whiner in all the peloton; but can anyone not adore him for his viciously self-excusing--and of course, perfectly prescient--attack on Ivan Basso at last year's Giro for being an "extraterresti"? (Bonus points for playing cyclist etiquette police and knee-capping Basso for bailing on a verbal agreement over a stage finish by cheerfully going for the jugular [actually, rather lower] and proclaiming "he is not a man.") But I gotta say, Gilberto, you flat-out blew it yesterday by lighting into the hapless RAI motos for allowing Garzelli to draft off 'em like a cheating lazy-ass and thereby steal the stage from you, the rightful winner. With all due respect, quit being such a baby! It's the second stage this Giro you got pipped at the line, are they both everyone else's fault? And even if it's true, Garzelli's 5:26 back and in no danger of taking your spot on the podium unless you completely blow up the next two days or the group is stupid enough to let him off the leash on an attack or breakaway which they won't be, why look like a sore loser *again*? You can match your earlier slanderous heights and still take the Giro as well if Di Luca bonks even with Liquigas' astonishing (and dare I suggest, otherwordly--did anyone really expect them to take the team time trial?) performance--hold it together, and choose your targets wisely!
The Danish Inquisition: so yawn, Bjarne Riis confessed to doping throughout the 90s and during his Tour, and with Christian Prudhomme merely suggesting it would be nice of him to hand his actual yellow jersey back (as he already offered) but also acknowledging the futility of finding anyone halfway high in GC that year who wasn't also stoked to award it to, it seems clear that nothing's gonna happen to the puppetmasters as usual, and every rider is, as always, a rare rogue acting in utter isolation from the guidance and leadership of the sponsors, the soigneurs, the doctors, and, most of all, the directeurs sportif. Is it me, or is it rather unjust that it's the poor SOB slogging up the endless Cat 1 climbs in a sleetstorm instead of the overstuffed ex-pro scarfing pastries in the team car who's always made the scapegoat in this? Indeed, Patrick "Everyone Else Who Dopes But Me Should Burn in Hell" Lefevere smirked as much, noting that if Prudhomme is really planning to hold management accountable for their riders, there's only gonna be two crap continental squads led by talentless Boy Scouts left to drive the Tour de France's ratings and revenues completely into the tank, so we can all guess where Captain Morality over at ASO is going to come out on that one. Which really makes me confident you're gonna rush to read the 6000 pages of Op Puerto docs you just got whose names you don't want to surface, you hypocrites! What's really tragic about this whole situation is that one can't help but wonder if Marco Pantani's disastrous implosion would really have played out as it did if he hadn't been, by sheer bad luck, the lone fall guy for every cowardly bastard-on-a-bike during that time who hit the GC without him, happily secure in the knowledge that they had a team doctor who made sure they didn't have the crap isolated luck to test positive. I can only imagine that 10 years from now, the same cynical remorseless stupidity is going to play out again--hell, can there be a grander scale than Op Puerto? and that's ridiculously assuming riders not implicated there aren't getting their own drugs in Belgium or France--and Jan Ullrich's going to be completely redeemed after a decade of hitting the bottle while his competitors tearfully admit that Fuentes got their dog's names right, just as another Festina makes its filthy degraded way into the headlines and the revisionist history lesson predictably draws attention from the new doping scandal then actually at hand. Spare me, everybody--can't any of you overpaid prima donnas draw a lesson from the dedicated amateurs stuck in a cubicle all week at a real job and just race?!
The Danish Inquisition: so yawn, Bjarne Riis confessed to doping throughout the 90s and during his Tour, and with Christian Prudhomme merely suggesting it would be nice of him to hand his actual yellow jersey back (as he already offered) but also acknowledging the futility of finding anyone halfway high in GC that year who wasn't also stoked to award it to, it seems clear that nothing's gonna happen to the puppetmasters as usual, and every rider is, as always, a rare rogue acting in utter isolation from the guidance and leadership of the sponsors, the soigneurs, the doctors, and, most of all, the directeurs sportif. Is it me, or is it rather unjust that it's the poor SOB slogging up the endless Cat 1 climbs in a sleetstorm instead of the overstuffed ex-pro scarfing pastries in the team car who's always made the scapegoat in this? Indeed, Patrick "Everyone Else Who Dopes But Me Should Burn in Hell" Lefevere smirked as much, noting that if Prudhomme is really planning to hold management accountable for their riders, there's only gonna be two crap continental squads led by talentless Boy Scouts left to drive the Tour de France's ratings and revenues completely into the tank, so we can all guess where Captain Morality over at ASO is going to come out on that one. Which really makes me confident you're gonna rush to read the 6000 pages of Op Puerto docs you just got whose names you don't want to surface, you hypocrites! What's really tragic about this whole situation is that one can't help but wonder if Marco Pantani's disastrous implosion would really have played out as it did if he hadn't been, by sheer bad luck, the lone fall guy for every cowardly bastard-on-a-bike during that time who hit the GC without him, happily secure in the knowledge that they had a team doctor who made sure they didn't have the crap isolated luck to test positive. I can only imagine that 10 years from now, the same cynical remorseless stupidity is going to play out again--hell, can there be a grander scale than Op Puerto? and that's ridiculously assuming riders not implicated there aren't getting their own drugs in Belgium or France--and Jan Ullrich's going to be completely redeemed after a decade of hitting the bottle while his competitors tearfully admit that Fuentes got their dog's names right, just as another Festina makes its filthy degraded way into the headlines and the revisionist history lesson predictably draws attention from the new doping scandal then actually at hand. Spare me, everybody--can't any of you overpaid prima donnas draw a lesson from the dedicated amateurs stuck in a cubicle all week at a real job and just race?!
Friday, May 25, 2007
What Else? Il Doping, and Il Grande Giro
What Becomes of the Broken-Hearted? And, an Explanation: Well, I thought I'd successfully made the transition from naive ditzbag idealist to jaded cigar-chomping curmudgeon since my eye-opening experience at the Giro last year, but apparently not, because my guts absolutely dropped to the floor when I read that we love Erik Zabel admitted to taking EPO "for a week" in the 90s, but stopped because of the side effects (right, Aldag I wasn't surprised was lying). Dammit, dammit, crap! Let's leave aside the peculiarity of how the Op Puerto judges weren't able to nail anyone on, say, Liberty Seguros, much less human vending machine Dr. Fuentes, for the negative health effects of doping which then were the only violations covered under Spanish law, since Zabel is making it clear that at least EPO has some negative side effects. I'm going to defend Erik against the distinct possibility this is merely a lame extension of the clear bull@#$% Ivan Basso "I smoked but I didn't inhale" defense, if only to make a last-ditch effort at preserving my innocence, but I gotta say, Milram's goddamn stupid if they fire him over this as Zabel was sobbingly afraid they'll do. After all, with virtually all the powerhouse that was Telekom in the 90s now retired and dominating the ever-unpunished management ranks, is it really fair to take it out on a Telekom rider in the last season or so of his career? And while we're at it, I haven't noticed Christian "Doping Bad, Unless We Need the Riders" Prudhomme expelling the 3/4 of the peloton that by his own roaring demands ought to be ejected from the Tour de France over the Op Puerto scandal, so until the money-grubbing hypocrites at the top are willing to put their dough, and the speed of the races, where their mouths are, it seems damned unfair to nail the riders they're clearly pressuring to do it. Either purge from the top down, or admit you want these boys stoked to up the TV ratings on Alpe d'Huez, you skeezbags!
Incidentally, I've now been very amiably dope-slapped twice over my disgust
with St. David Millar, so I just want to make the source of my vexation clear. It's not that he doped--fine, it's Cofidis, who didn't? It's not even that he's now an advocate for clean sport, which is honestly really nice and all. It's that he's a goddamn sanctimonious hypocrite about it. He didn't confess out of the goodness of his heart; he was sitting in his freakin' hotel room practically with a needle in his !@# for heck's sake! So to shove your face in the TV cameras bawling about how reformed you are compared to all the filthy unrepentant cheats you voluntarily left behind and how very, very bad you really feel is just beyond irritating. If Carlos Sastre's not doping, for example--and for all I know Millar still is--he's not making out with his own reflection over it and whoring himself everytime a RAI crew comes into sight; he puts on his team kit, climbs onto the saddle, keeps his mouth shut and does his goddamn job without expecting fireworks and a parade every morning. Learn it, Millar, and live it!
Le Montagne, Baby!: The sprinters having frolicked for several days, Petacchi recovering his strength dignity and supremacy, McEwen getting satisfying smacked around and Hushovd having crushed my soul for the 4th straight sprint in a row, it's time for the mountains, baby, and holy crap is DiLuca absolutely wailing in the high passes far better than I ever thought he could. Simoni, I know you've got far more domestique firepower in the big mountains than liquigas (vai Iban!), but watch out in the Dolomites!
Incidentally, I've now been very amiably dope-slapped twice over my disgust
with St. David Millar, so I just want to make the source of my vexation clear. It's not that he doped--fine, it's Cofidis, who didn't? It's not even that he's now an advocate for clean sport, which is honestly really nice and all. It's that he's a goddamn sanctimonious hypocrite about it. He didn't confess out of the goodness of his heart; he was sitting in his freakin' hotel room practically with a needle in his !@# for heck's sake! So to shove your face in the TV cameras bawling about how reformed you are compared to all the filthy unrepentant cheats you voluntarily left behind and how very, very bad you really feel is just beyond irritating. If Carlos Sastre's not doping, for example--and for all I know Millar still is--he's not making out with his own reflection over it and whoring himself everytime a RAI crew comes into sight; he puts on his team kit, climbs onto the saddle, keeps his mouth shut and does his goddamn job without expecting fireworks and a parade every morning. Learn it, Millar, and live it!
Le Montagne, Baby!: The sprinters having frolicked for several days, Petacchi recovering his strength dignity and supremacy, McEwen getting satisfying smacked around and Hushovd having crushed my soul for the 4th straight sprint in a row, it's time for the mountains, baby, and holy crap is DiLuca absolutely wailing in the high passes far better than I ever thought he could. Simoni, I know you've got far more domestique firepower in the big mountains than liquigas (vai Iban!), but watch out in the Dolomites!
Wednesday, May 23, 2007
Barrell o' Monkeys
I Fought the Law, And...You Know How That Goes: well, USADA miraculously managed to hold an entire cross-exam of Floyd Landis without once questioning him about actual doping, predictably playing instead to the nimrod soundbite-sucking press by slamming Landis on the colossal irrelevancies of (1) his manager's scumly stupidity; (2) Landis' alleged attempt to brush it under the rug and (3) Landis' trying to intimidate Greg LeMond by deliberately wearing a dark suit and tie. Gimme a break, you freaks--not only should Landis be outright congratulated for improving his sartorial sense from his backwards-baseball-cap 7-11 hangout wear, but does USADA's lawyer really think LeMond is such a candy-ass? Landis' camp, meantime, sensibly struck back with an expert who demolished the French lab chimps for their impressive inability to conduct testing, or, for that matter, even operate and understand the applicable software. God, could anyone even trust these nits with an eighth-grade science-class worm dissection? The closing arguments, meanwhile, slammed Landis yet again for being a real, real meanie, and on Landis' side, still remained focused on the science. Even if Landis is a doping testosterone-inhaling weasel--and it's USADA's job to prove that he is, which they seem sorely to have botched--at least I can halfway respect his legal team! Ah well, on to appeals....
8675309: no, not the Tommy TuTone one-hit wonder--it's the total number of longtime T-Mobile, I mean Telekom, riders who've now copped to long-term systematic doping in the 90s! And now that these boys are all the guardians of the vestal virgins over at T-Mobile Gerolsteiner and Astana, among others, they're all going to be thrown to the lions in light of the teams' zero-tolerance policy and the need to set a good example to the current riders, right? Wrong! T-Mobile's Bob Stapleton, for one, is just swooning over Rolf "I Never Took Anything" Aldag now that he's confessed he actually did, and in fact, it's indicative of just how forthright, honest, and worthy of leading the team's current crop of squeaky-clean racers he truly is, at least while the team's inconveniently between dope-providing team doctors while their old ones clean up their little mess in Freiburg. And Gerolsteiner? Well, they're not quite so happy, but they, too, cherish anyone with the guts and longtime guilty conscience to confess a day after they're already exposed in the newspapers, so it looks like pretty much every DS in the ProTour can hit the stage with Dr. Phil tomorrow for a St. Millar after-the-fact wah-wah confessional and still keep the paychecks a-rollin'. If there's anything I respect, it's that sort of dedication to clean sport that these teams all embody!
Buon Anniversario!: To Manolo "Briefcase? What Briefcase?" Saiz and & Dr. Eufemiano "It's Just Vitamins! I Swear!" Fuentes on the 1 year celebration of the Op Puerto bust. Y'know, in retrospect, I still feel entirely justified, if mortifying naive, in yelling "Liberty Seguros, how could you?" into the team car at last year's Giro after the scandal broke (and if I'd known then that that cowardly troll Saiz was going to simperingly blame everything on the insatiable drug-bloated appetites of we-still-love-Roberto-Heras-anyway, I'd've yelled in a few choice other things, too.) Oh, those halcyon youthful days when I didn't yet realize that most everyone in the peloton is a drug-snarfing amoral cheat....
8675309: no, not the Tommy TuTone one-hit wonder--it's the total number of longtime T-Mobile, I mean Telekom, riders who've now copped to long-term systematic doping in the 90s! And now that these boys are all the guardians of the vestal virgins over at T-Mobile Gerolsteiner and Astana, among others, they're all going to be thrown to the lions in light of the teams' zero-tolerance policy and the need to set a good example to the current riders, right? Wrong! T-Mobile's Bob Stapleton, for one, is just swooning over Rolf "I Never Took Anything" Aldag now that he's confessed he actually did, and in fact, it's indicative of just how forthright, honest, and worthy of leading the team's current crop of squeaky-clean racers he truly is, at least while the team's inconveniently between dope-providing team doctors while their old ones clean up their little mess in Freiburg. And Gerolsteiner? Well, they're not quite so happy, but they, too, cherish anyone with the guts and longtime guilty conscience to confess a day after they're already exposed in the newspapers, so it looks like pretty much every DS in the ProTour can hit the stage with Dr. Phil tomorrow for a St. Millar after-the-fact wah-wah confessional and still keep the paychecks a-rollin'. If there's anything I respect, it's that sort of dedication to clean sport that these teams all embody!
Buon Anniversario!: To Manolo "Briefcase? What Briefcase?" Saiz and & Dr. Eufemiano "It's Just Vitamins! I Swear!" Fuentes on the 1 year celebration of the Op Puerto bust. Y'know, in retrospect, I still feel entirely justified, if mortifying naive, in yelling "Liberty Seguros, how could you?" into the team car at last year's Giro after the scandal broke (and if I'd known then that that cowardly troll Saiz was going to simperingly blame everything on the insatiable drug-bloated appetites of we-still-love-Roberto-Heras-anyway, I'd've yelled in a few choice other things, too.) Oh, those halcyon youthful days when I didn't yet realize that most everyone in the peloton is a drug-snarfing amoral cheat....
Monday, May 21, 2007
It's (Almost) The Mountains, Baby!
Andiamo!: So potential Gibo GC threat/star ascendant Ricardo Ricco' has diminished his team-leadership overthrow chances by sending both his DS and Gilberto Simoni into a rage by falling out of the giant (and successful) breakaway including every other team but theirs yesterday, thereby bagging any reason the Liquigas boys might have had to bring it back without the high-placed Ricco' in the mix, and forcing Saunier Duval to bust their own nuts, which they sorely needed to preserve for the critical stage 10 mountains, in the last 20k chasing it down to prevent any serious threats to Simoni's overall aspirations. The Italian press, of course, leapt onto the disaster, claiming (if my abysmal Italian is any guide, and I caution it may well not be), over the horrified protestations of poor Ricco', that he and world champ/apparent muscle Paolo Bettini made a deal that Ricco' would bail and leave the break to the big boys. Hell, with Basso and Simoni no longer available to dope-slap each other for the press each night a la' 2006, why not set up Saunier Duval for morale-destroying fireworks on the team bus?
The Drunken !@#hole Defense, Part Deux: yep, Landis' ex-manager has now hit the Celebrity Slur Trifecta, first aced by guys like Mel Gibson and what's-his-name-from-that-medical-drama-I've-never-watched, having (1) made a repugnant, explicit (and in this case, openly threatening) remark to an innocent party; (2) blaming it all on the booze; and (3) heading straight to rehab. Well, that clearly means you're really a very, very nice guy after all, champ, and not the sort of general !@# who taunts (and extorts) someone about their childhood sex abuse--I can't wait to tell you my deep, dark secrets now that I know you're sober! Meantime, the complex chromatography evidence, as well as USADA's own witnesses, continues to seem to support Floyd Landis, and with Landis' case already in the tank thanks to that idiot and damn near everyone else in cycling hell-bent on nailing him anyway, it's just a low-down shame. Forza Floyd--I'm not optimistic, but perhaps there's still hope!
Apropos of nothing, am I the only one surprised to read that we love Gilberto Simoni tested poz for coke back in the day? Hell, put him, Ullrich, and the speed-and-heroin-scarfing 'Pot Belge 'crowd together in a room, and I imagine you've got quite the party!
The Drunken !@#hole Defense, Part Deux: yep, Landis' ex-manager has now hit the Celebrity Slur Trifecta, first aced by guys like Mel Gibson and what's-his-name-from-that-medical-drama-I've-never-watched, having (1) made a repugnant, explicit (and in this case, openly threatening) remark to an innocent party; (2) blaming it all on the booze; and (3) heading straight to rehab. Well, that clearly means you're really a very, very nice guy after all, champ, and not the sort of general !@# who taunts (and extorts) someone about their childhood sex abuse--I can't wait to tell you my deep, dark secrets now that I know you're sober! Meantime, the complex chromatography evidence, as well as USADA's own witnesses, continues to seem to support Floyd Landis, and with Landis' case already in the tank thanks to that idiot and damn near everyone else in cycling hell-bent on nailing him anyway, it's just a low-down shame. Forza Floyd--I'm not optimistic, but perhaps there's still hope!
Apropos of nothing, am I the only one surprised to read that we love Gilberto Simoni tested poz for coke back in the day? Hell, put him, Ullrich, and the speed-and-heroin-scarfing 'Pot Belge 'crowd together in a room, and I imagine you've got quite the party!
Landis and Butthead
You Said "Butt": so Landis finally takes the stand, and actually makes a pretty well-said case that no, he didn't take a damn thing, and, more usefully for the moronothon non-cycling press if they bothered to listen, explained the actual strategy and mass peloton missteps that were the real cause of his spectacular rebound on the stage to Morzine. My issue? Damn, Floyd, you knew about your idiot manager's juvenile extortionate phone call, and you actively decided not to call your lawyers because it was LATE? What the possible crackheaded brain-frozen @#$% were you thinking? I know you're not a lawyer or anything, but even to a layperson--particularly one who's been welded to a giant pack of them every waking moment since July of last year--it ought to occur that that, say, blackmail against a witness over his childhood sexual abuse is something it's nice for your defense team to, well, know, especially since most of us do NOT begin our trial prep with tips along the lines of "please let me know if you try to intimidate a witness like some third-rate knee-capping goon" mixed in with the "tell the truth" and "answer the question you're asked" routine. Next time, Captain Blockhead, don't worry about interrupting our beauty sleep--if you decide to freak out Greg LeMond at 2 am in a drunken rampage, just give us a little ringy-ding, all right?
Speaking of Floyd, there was all sorts of other technical stuff about how the lab results are crap, but I'm utterly incapable of explaining them coherently, so I would honestly head over to Trust But Verify (trustbut.blogspot.com I think), a pro-Floyd site, for anything approaching thorough analysis. But please--there are comments opportunities--be kind to him will you? I suspect he's rather heartbroken at the moment. Grazie!
At the Volta a Catalunya: yep, it's a star-studded gallery of the Most Likely (Or Ought) to Be Evicted From the Tour de France This Year lined up at the beautiful Volta, including Oscar Pereiro, Alejandro Valverde, Vinokorouv, Francisco Mancebo and Oscar Sevilla, with impending Vuelta podium finisher Sammy Sanchez and we love Erik Zabel stretching their gams as well. Venga Sammy!
The Commentators Are Getting Restless: indeed, cycling.tv still relentlessly sucks for jacking me out of my Giro, but luckily it was Cyclysm Sunday over at Vs., and Phil Liggett and Bob Roll were on quite the ungenteel rampage, mostly at Ivan Basso's helpless expense. First, the ever-amiable Phil stopped to admire the passing-by of the hometown of Ferrari, pleasantly noting that many of the Italian riders of course own Ferraris and would enjoy the opportunity to meander about were they not otherwise occupied in the peloton, but that "some, like Ivan Basso, will probably have to sell them now." Sweet! Meanwhile, the cheerful Bob Roll unabashedly pimped Johan Bruyneel's utter bull@#$% line about how the evil Basso completely duped the naive and innocent Bruyneel into genuinely thinking he had no involvement whatsoever in doping or Op Puerto when they signed him, which rather passes the smell test with the same efficacy as a pile of vulture-engulfed road carrion--Bob, if you're gonna shill that ridiculous line for that PR-sucking revisionist weasel Bruyneel, oughtn't you disclose your own personal ties to and particular affinity for Discovery at least? I call bull@#$%! And, back to the actual Giro, it's one more sprint chance today for always-a-bridesmaid we love Thor Hushovd before we hit the high passes, so pull it together Thor!
Speaking of Floyd, there was all sorts of other technical stuff about how the lab results are crap, but I'm utterly incapable of explaining them coherently, so I would honestly head over to Trust But Verify (trustbut.blogspot.com I think), a pro-Floyd site, for anything approaching thorough analysis. But please--there are comments opportunities--be kind to him will you? I suspect he's rather heartbroken at the moment. Grazie!
At the Volta a Catalunya: yep, it's a star-studded gallery of the Most Likely (Or Ought) to Be Evicted From the Tour de France This Year lined up at the beautiful Volta, including Oscar Pereiro, Alejandro Valverde, Vinokorouv, Francisco Mancebo and Oscar Sevilla, with impending Vuelta podium finisher Sammy Sanchez and we love Erik Zabel stretching their gams as well. Venga Sammy!
The Commentators Are Getting Restless: indeed, cycling.tv still relentlessly sucks for jacking me out of my Giro, but luckily it was Cyclysm Sunday over at Vs., and Phil Liggett and Bob Roll were on quite the ungenteel rampage, mostly at Ivan Basso's helpless expense. First, the ever-amiable Phil stopped to admire the passing-by of the hometown of Ferrari, pleasantly noting that many of the Italian riders of course own Ferraris and would enjoy the opportunity to meander about were they not otherwise occupied in the peloton, but that "some, like Ivan Basso, will probably have to sell them now." Sweet! Meanwhile, the cheerful Bob Roll unabashedly pimped Johan Bruyneel's utter bull@#$% line about how the evil Basso completely duped the naive and innocent Bruyneel into genuinely thinking he had no involvement whatsoever in doping or Op Puerto when they signed him, which rather passes the smell test with the same efficacy as a pile of vulture-engulfed road carrion--Bob, if you're gonna shill that ridiculous line for that PR-sucking revisionist weasel Bruyneel, oughtn't you disclose your own personal ties to and particular affinity for Discovery at least? I call bull@#$%! And, back to the actual Giro, it's one more sprint chance today for always-a-bridesmaid we love Thor Hushovd before we hit the high passes, so pull it together Thor!
Saturday, May 19, 2007
Il Grande Giro, and the '06 Tour, Again
The Tour Can Blow: Well, not only is Alejandro Valverde not his dog "Piti" in the small matter of the Eufemiano Fuentes blood-bag code-names, just like Basso's not his dog "Birillo" though actually he is, but Galician Oscar Pereiro--who veers disconcertingly (in the sense of, is he going to hold it together, or ought a veterinarian be on standby with a tranquilizer dart) on the subject of the Tour de France from humble deference to Landis to discreet hope it may yet be his to slavish dedication to Valverde's interests to the outright assertion that Valverde's too weak to take it to total screaming rage if he's questioned while not in the mood--is apparently not his dog, "Urko," either, because as any idiot knows "Urko" is a hill in the Basque country, while it is the far different "Urco" that is actually a mythological Galician dog, so it is clearly impossible that he could be a Fuentes client, presumably because Fuentes, besides being the Most Meticulous Record Keeper Ever, is not only a great speller generally but also a noted expert in Spanish regional fairy tales. What's more, if Pereiro's gonna be asked to submit a damn DNA sample to match against "Urko's" blood, the Tour de France, which is a meaningless minor ride after all anyway, can completely screw, 'cause Pereiro, as a matter of honor and not avoidance of doping charges, will simply ride the far more prestigious and well-known Vuelta instead, as any rider with half an eye towards eternal glory would prefer. Forget the 'roid-rage mood swings, Oscar, that DNA stance makes you look just great! (And while we're at it, your freakin' Therapeutic Use Exemption didn't give you enough gas, you had to scarf a pile of crapola on top of that? ugh) Anyhoo, by my reckoning, if Floyd gets stripped, but Oscar then makes Tour king Christian Prudhomme twitchy, I believe this puts Andreas Kloden in the '06 maillot jaune (and we love Carlos Sastre on the podium at last, in 2nd, woo-hoo!), which then puts Kloden in the interesting position of being the winner of the '06 Tour but forced to go solely to support Alexander "I'm Not Vino" Vinokorouv--unless of course *he's* barred again--as his domestique for '07, and I absolutely have no recollection of who that sets up for last year's podium in 3rd. I don't know about you, but my head's starting to ache--can we just give this thing to some half-@#$sed French neo-pro from F. de Jeux and call the matter settled once and for all?
My Hero, Giro: well, I imagine the boys in Pepto-Bismol pink can let go of the breaths they've been holding for a second at least, as T-Mobile might keep their sponsorship after all with the glory of the Maglia Rosa in hand for the moment. But the real news for me--besides the fact that boy, has Petacchi come back out of nowhere--is the classifica generale, with Di Luca suddenly looking like the man to beat but, with the mountains hard by after a couple more sprint stages, the rest of the GC contenders all within shouting distance of each other, with blonde bambino Cunego just shy of a minute back of him, Savoldelli an additional 13 seconds back, Garzelli--and man, is A&S looking suprisingly strong!--another 20-odd behind and Gibo Simoni in slightly more, but certainly not insurmountable, trouble, a further minute-plus in arrears. My question? Riccardo Ricco', still ahead of Simoni in GC and looking rather stronger so far, is playing modest second-banana to Simoni as he should at the moment, but then so did Cunego in '04 as I recall and we all know how that turned out, so is Ricco going to show some loyalty to his mentor or stab him in his yellow-clad back the second Simoni starts to bonk on a Dolomite? Me, I'm rooting for Simoni for the overall, which actually, if Basso and Guitierrez both get it stripped from last year, could suddenly make the two-time champ a four-fer. Vai Gilberto!
Oh, Yeah, *That* Guy: y'know, tired as I am by the ubiquitous "Drunken @#$hole" defense, now whined forth by Landis' ex-manager over the Greg LeMond witness-intimidation hoo-ha (does anyone else know people who call other people when they're loaded and taunt them about their childhood sex abuse? 'cause everyone I know who "cells drunk" at 2 in the morning just blubbers disastrously to an ex's answering machine or something), I have to say it's a damn shame, because to my confused and scientifically talentless eyes, it seems like USADA's expert conceded that the testing methodology relied upon by the French lab actually uses a less accurate evaluation method than is currently the standard, leaving the true testosterone/epitestosterone ratio in some doubt, plus that the chain of procedural disasters does tend to speak to the general competence and ability of the lab itself, thus leaving Floyd with some fairly colorable arguments on his behalf. Or does this not matter at all now that Landis, thanks to his moron manager, has been utterly flambeed in the press?
My Hero, Giro: well, I imagine the boys in Pepto-Bismol pink can let go of the breaths they've been holding for a second at least, as T-Mobile might keep their sponsorship after all with the glory of the Maglia Rosa in hand for the moment. But the real news for me--besides the fact that boy, has Petacchi come back out of nowhere--is the classifica generale, with Di Luca suddenly looking like the man to beat but, with the mountains hard by after a couple more sprint stages, the rest of the GC contenders all within shouting distance of each other, with blonde bambino Cunego just shy of a minute back of him, Savoldelli an additional 13 seconds back, Garzelli--and man, is A&S looking suprisingly strong!--another 20-odd behind and Gibo Simoni in slightly more, but certainly not insurmountable, trouble, a further minute-plus in arrears. My question? Riccardo Ricco', still ahead of Simoni in GC and looking rather stronger so far, is playing modest second-banana to Simoni as he should at the moment, but then so did Cunego in '04 as I recall and we all know how that turned out, so is Ricco going to show some loyalty to his mentor or stab him in his yellow-clad back the second Simoni starts to bonk on a Dolomite? Me, I'm rooting for Simoni for the overall, which actually, if Basso and Guitierrez both get it stripped from last year, could suddenly make the two-time champ a four-fer. Vai Gilberto!
Oh, Yeah, *That* Guy: y'know, tired as I am by the ubiquitous "Drunken @#$hole" defense, now whined forth by Landis' ex-manager over the Greg LeMond witness-intimidation hoo-ha (does anyone else know people who call other people when they're loaded and taunt them about their childhood sex abuse? 'cause everyone I know who "cells drunk" at 2 in the morning just blubbers disastrously to an ex's answering machine or something), I have to say it's a damn shame, because to my confused and scientifically talentless eyes, it seems like USADA's expert conceded that the testing methodology relied upon by the French lab actually uses a less accurate evaluation method than is currently the standard, leaving the true testosterone/epitestosterone ratio in some doubt, plus that the chain of procedural disasters does tend to speak to the general competence and ability of the lab itself, thus leaving Floyd with some fairly colorable arguments on his behalf. Or does this not matter at all now that Landis, thanks to his moron manager, has been utterly flambeed in the press?
Thursday, May 17, 2007
Bite Me, Cycling.tv! (Part II)
Giro? What Giro?: well, it was apparently a pretty rip-roaring finish up stage 4 to Montevirgine with the GC contenders all hot on each others' wheels and we love Iban Mayo making a very fine ride of it, and also quite the lively sprint today (with we love Thor Hushovd right in there) considering half the peloton was sore from a nasty array of crashes on wet pave' yesterday--not that I'd !@#damned know it with the cycling.tv coverage I paid for completely unable to function! Here I am, finally making peace with the concept that I have to gack up extra dough for the Giro and Vuelta above my general cycling.tv subscrip, and even psyching myself into feeling rather grateful for the opportunity given that I quite enjoyed the Classics beyond a few irksome snafus and that lame US television can only be bothered to show about 2 hours' worth of Giro coverage a week, and even accepting the problems I've been having since the new website came up--like I have to kill my computer's firewall to get it to come on at all and the extra-bitchin' bit rate I paid for comes in with the approximate clarity of one-bit-per-computer-screen and there's no sound at all--since I've already sent friendly emails alerting tech support to the problem and certainly even the finest site ought to be given a fair and reasonable time for technical tweaks, when voila'--a particularly unpleasing midweek stomach bug legitimately buys me two days at home from work with nothing to do but lump miserably on the couch clutching my guts and watch...nothin'! Nothin'! Bring me back my !@#damned Giro you hacks!!
National Lampoon's Vacation: so in the wake of Ivan Basso and Michele Scarponi's suspension from the Italian cycling fed, and the interesting revelation from the prosecutors that Basso has mysteriously backtracked from his earlier promise to be open about the nature and extent of his doping activity and overall knowledge (you weren't tipped off to that when all he'd cop to was "trying" to dope for the '06 Tour?), it turns out that Ivan Basso, Jan Ullrich and Dr. Eufemiano Fuentes were all totally coincidentally vacationing at the exact same German hotel at the exact same time just before the start of the '06 Giro, which is really nice that the teams gave the boys some completely unquestioned time off right then considering I'm sure neither Jan nor Ivan had anything else they were supposed to be doing for their teams, like, um, training, at the time. Speaking of CSC and T-Mobile, T-Mobile is now apparently questioning its sponsorship because since they pushed the riders to actually stop doping their results have been in the tank and they realize the extent to which they've screwed themselves with their hypocrisy, I mean, they've just got too many commitments elsewhere to be bothered, and CSC kindly reassures us all that the two riders who were nailed for blood 'irregularities' were really within normal limits after all, and would you please ignore the man behind the curtain? Finally, Caisse d'Epargne has seemingly come to the conclusion that they can't rely on Pereiro for the maillot jaune in the Tour even with half the field theoretically disqualified by Op Puerto, because they've decided to back Alejandro "I'm Not Valv" Valverde after all, noting a la' that oily wank Bruyneel that the boy promised to give DNA if asked, which they've got a hell of a better reason to think won't happen in Spain than it did to Basso in Italy, so see, we've proved he's clean you rumormongering naysayers!
Y'know, I'm so touched by the teams' genuine pursuit of clean sport I'm welling up. Truly. Now, could you goons over at cycling.tv please fix my freakin' Giro, so I can go back to watching the actual sport?
National Lampoon's Vacation: so in the wake of Ivan Basso and Michele Scarponi's suspension from the Italian cycling fed, and the interesting revelation from the prosecutors that Basso has mysteriously backtracked from his earlier promise to be open about the nature and extent of his doping activity and overall knowledge (you weren't tipped off to that when all he'd cop to was "trying" to dope for the '06 Tour?), it turns out that Ivan Basso, Jan Ullrich and Dr. Eufemiano Fuentes were all totally coincidentally vacationing at the exact same German hotel at the exact same time just before the start of the '06 Giro, which is really nice that the teams gave the boys some completely unquestioned time off right then considering I'm sure neither Jan nor Ivan had anything else they were supposed to be doing for their teams, like, um, training, at the time. Speaking of CSC and T-Mobile, T-Mobile is now apparently questioning its sponsorship because since they pushed the riders to actually stop doping their results have been in the tank and they realize the extent to which they've screwed themselves with their hypocrisy, I mean, they've just got too many commitments elsewhere to be bothered, and CSC kindly reassures us all that the two riders who were nailed for blood 'irregularities' were really within normal limits after all, and would you please ignore the man behind the curtain? Finally, Caisse d'Epargne has seemingly come to the conclusion that they can't rely on Pereiro for the maillot jaune in the Tour even with half the field theoretically disqualified by Op Puerto, because they've decided to back Alejandro "I'm Not Valv" Valverde after all, noting a la' that oily wank Bruyneel that the boy promised to give DNA if asked, which they've got a hell of a better reason to think won't happen in Spain than it did to Basso in Italy, so see, we've proved he's clean you rumormongering naysayers!
Y'know, I'm so touched by the teams' genuine pursuit of clean sport I'm welling up. Truly. Now, could you goons over at cycling.tv please fix my freakin' Giro, so I can go back to watching the actual sport?
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