This Athletic, Sport-Like Event Blows

Contrary to popular opinion, there are many of us who were thrilled to see Lance Armstrong retire. If nothing else, Le Tour was too boring with him around. With the winner of the Maillot jaune decided before July for seven straight years, what was I supposed to get excited about? Erik Zabel? Please. Lance's last Tour was only exciting because we were able to imagine him gone and pretend that all the other exciting riders were racing for first instead of second ... exciting riders like Jan Ullrich, Ivan Basso, and Tyler Hamilton. Well, that fantasy was doomed before it could get out the gates as the top contenders were all disqualified for illegal doping. In fact so many people were disqualified, that Alexander Vinokourov, the most exciting man in cycling (after The Jan, of course) didn't have enough teammates left to compete at all. Then, the teeny, teeny, tiny (well, really he's 5' 10"), mighty Alejandro Valverde crashed and we were left with such sparkling personalities as Iban Mayo and Andreas Klöden. So, what better way for last year's Tour to end, than the revelation that Floyd Landis, the thrilling story of 2006, too was on the juice.

And, that brings us to 2007. Even though we see the yellow jersey worn by the impressively uninspiring Michael Rasmussen, we have had some exciting moments. Mostly, those have been provided by the intrepid Vinokourov, who has two stage victories. But not any more. As of today, the world of cycling has lost yet another exciting rider to drugs. In fact, his entire team is out of the TDF. Nice work, Alex.

In sum, they're all doping. Alexander, Jan, Ivan, Tyler, Lance, and all the rest. Oh, and I haven't forgotten you Richard Virenque, you punk.

-Seth