The Killer strikes

Danilo "the killer" DiLuca won Liege-Bastogne-Liege today. He pipped a huge field with a late surge to catch, and subsequently drop, Frank Schleck like a bad habit. This rounds out the true spring classics and now all eyes will turn to il Giro.

One guy who probably won't be toeing the line will be defending champ, Ivan Basso. I'm thinking that the poo poo is about to hit the fan since he is now going to have to submit a blood sample to satisfy the CONI investigation into the operacion puerto debacle. Remember the little spat between Basso and Simoni last year? Simoni described Basso as an "extra-terrestrial" with his riding...

I'm frankly getting fed up with the whole mess. Floyd is now in the process of being screwed by USADA as they barred his representative from witnessing the retest of his B samples from last years Tour. This is in direct violation of their own rules and procedures! That coupled with the fact that the lab that tested everything at the Tour is the same one doing the retests! So the scenario is this: "did the Amaury lab make a mistake? I don't know... Why don't we let the Amaury lab retest the B samples and see if they screwed up." Wow, that is some logic (not). Why don't we just skip all of the formalities and directly ask the Amaury lab if they made a mistake with Landis' sample testing. Then, they can tell us no, we can take their word on it and then we can get down to the business of disqualifying the first Tour de France winner since 1904. That seems much more practical and civilized.

The silver lining to this whole black cloud is that now Levi won't have to play second fiddle to Basso. Leipheimer could be the first american Giro winner since Andy Hampsten. Not that I'm down with Disco' or anything, but I would love to see Levi get a little vindication out of this whole mess. They signed him as a captain for the grand tours and then shanked him by signing Basso when CSC let him go for his puerto implication.

Enough ranting. Went for a hike to Lower Harper Creek Falls with Owen and Golden, today. It was nice getting out into the woods. It feels a little strange trying to make good impressions on a baby; trying to share the things you love in an effort to (hopefully) get them to love them, too. I'll post some pics tomorrow.