Bravo, this is fantastic. I salute you sir. 

posted by natedogg at 12:45AM CST on June 30

Please note that the link is, surprisingly from Ziggy and the post title, entirely SFW. 

posted by mrflip at 12:46AM CST on June 30

Not goatse, but SFW -- SCANDAL hits le tour! 

posted by pablo at 08:39AM CST on June 30

Tyler Hamilton is on the implied-doper shit list. Could this mean that his former USA teammates are all a bunch of dopers to? Like Lance... Clearly, he is a doper. And he has poor taste in women. 

posted by javelina at 10:04AM CST on June 30

Do I smell a troll??? 

posted by biggun at 10:33AM CST on June 30

Saying there's a scandal about doping on the Tour is like saying there's steroids in baseball: everybody knows it's all over the damn place. However, now they're banning the top riders from last year. That's what I likes to see! If only MLB or Congress or whoever finally stood up and gave a rat's ass.

Trying to start a flame war about whether Lance doped is tired; let's move on to pointing out that even though mrflip hates on soccer for having "bad officiating" which "ruins his enjoyment of the game", his two favorite sports in the whole world seem to be some of the most corrupt when it comes to artificial enhancement. 

posted by natedogg at 11:14AM CST on June 30

Not to mention that the umpiring in MLB as absolutely horrendous and gets worse every year, and inexplicibly, seems far worse in the playoffs. 

posted by Valatan at 12:19PM CST on June 30

Troll? Little ole' me? Well, maybe. I will neither confirm nor deny anything, except that I think my splatnik released a big wad of troll-juice at the base of my brain this morning.

posted by javelina at 02:28PM CST on June 30

A pearl necklace? 

posted by zieglerfe at 03:03PM CST on June 30

I think they're two sports that left the problem for too long and are confronting it late, and it certainly robs allure from each sport. None of them -- football, soccer, baseball, basketball, cycling -- are clean of HGH. 

posted by mrflip at 04:45PM CST on June 30

So, who am I supposed to be rooting for this year anyway? I've got a lot of time with a satellite dish planned next week and not many plans about what to do with it (after the world cup is done). Without Lance, I feel like there's a lot less news all over the place about it. For instance, Deadspin's last story was right at the beginning ("Cycling to Kill Time Between Doping Scandals"). 

posted by natedogg at 07:19PM CST on July 03

It's always anyone's guess - and I'm sure flip will have some wise words here. The green (points - or sprinters) jersey is always a great part of the tour for the flat stages - the battles always come down to monsterous sprints at the end of the stage (and sometimes dramatic crashes including half the peloton).

For the GC or yellow jersey (individual with the lowest overall time) - really is anyone's guess this year.

If you want to go american - go Levi Leipheimer (on Grolsteiner - not going to apologize for any misspellings) - who got sixth last year behind: Armstrong, Basso, Ullrich, Mancebo, and Vinokourov - all of which are out this year from drugs or retirement. Other american contenders: Floyd Landis on Phonak, Bobby Julich on CSC and George Hincapie on Discovery.

International notables: Cadel Evans, Alejandro Valverde, Andres Kloden, Paulo Salvodelli - but really, it's anyones game. Americans have a great chance this year, maybe even two or as Bob Roll predicted - all three of the podium spots will be USA, and the french will love that.

World what? What cup? What what?
 

posted by pablo at 09:19PM CST on July 03