"Hello, Bjarne."
The house of cards is really starting to tumble. With today's confession, the press can no longer say that Landis will be the first Tour winner to have doped. I guess that's a bright spot in all of this mess. There are still some major player that we have yet to hear from: Walter Godefroot (former Telekom DS) and Jan Ullrich (2nd in the '96 TdF and Riis' Telekom teammate). Officially, Riis cannot be disqualified due to WADA's 8 year statute of limitations, but there are some serious calls for him to symbolically give up his yellow jersey.
The bigger questions still remain. Like: what knowledge does Riis have of Basso's confessed doping plan for last year's TdF, while he was a member of Riis' Team CSC? That is a big head scratcher. Can Riis legitimately stay at the helm of a ProTour team given his confession of extensive doping? Lastly, is anyone clean? If everybody keeps popping up and confessing, where will it stop? Should I be seriously considering Thomas Voeckler as a GC threat for the Tour? It is all very distracting, but it's like a needed thing at this point. It's like the mafia war in The Godfather;
Every few years, we need this sort of thing. It clears out all the bad blood.
I remember the shock that everyone felt during the Festina Affair. Operacion Puerto was just so bungled at the beginning that nobody could view it as legitimate at the outset. But now, all of these guys purging their consciences, excorcising closeted demons from the past, it is mind boggling. I'm just afraid of the bureaucrats feeling a resurgence of hot air and a new to spew forth whatever drivel pops into their half-cocked minds. Ultimately, this will be a good episode in the quest for a clean sport, but I don't know that any sport can ever be truly clean. I mean, come on, they drug test curlers at the winter olympics! As long as there is money tied into competition, there will always be a pressure to seek any competitive advantage.
Each day, DiLuca is looking like he could win this year's Giro. This last week, however, could see Gibo put in some serious digs to knock The Killer from his perch. We'll just have to wait and see...
Went to the 8th grade dance this evening. Ugh, I think I have gotten my yearly quota of crappy pop rap music. The kids enjoyed it, everybody was dressed well, and the PTA really put in a lot of effort to make it a memorable evening for the kids.
See you on the ride tomorrow morning at 9!
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