Viva la Vuelta!

The Vuelta's Pyrennean excursion has shown some exciting racing. Aberto Contador, the best tour rider in the sport at the moment, battling his compatriot, friend and most watchable rider in the peloton, Alejandro Valverde for psychological advantage over the second half of the race. Call me a bicycle racing coverage deprived American, but buy me a sympathetic tinto afterwards. The United States is transitioning into the most tedious of seasons. While cycling winds down its beautiful carnival, American football has opened its preseason. Any coverage will be directed at the sidelines, viewing cheerleaders obstructed by fat guys yelling at fat guys.

For now, tifosi focus on Spain for this final month of daily racing. It brings out the best, worst and the worst of the best, like Manolo Saiz. Despite the rumor, innuendo and eye witnesses to his malefic temper, the former director of ONCE maintained a headlock on the UCI number one team and individual positions for most of the nineties.

In his most recent interview, Saiz talks about staying involved from afar. He is concerned that cycling is 'dirtying itself too much.' It could sound like sour grapes from the Jim Jones of cycling caught with the Kool Aid in his briefcase, but when watching the mutant, athletic incarnations of American football players, or the elitist tirelessness of tennis and soccer players, I wonder why Operation Puerto findings were so secret, but for the few, nailed cyclists.

Of course, American football is not an Olympic sport and it would probably bankrupt the NFL to bribe through any drug testing. FIFA is the only Olympic organization to not have signed on to WADA's anti-doping Federation Agreement- a cagey move. Cycling is now on the black list of sports because of multiple positives, while the IOC doesn't threaten FIFA with exclusion because soccer players are not accountable for using drugs. FIFA has decided not to risk sullying themselves with pesky, dawn raids of WADA officials armed with pee cups and lifetime bans.

American football certainly acclimatized me to the fact that athletes do drugs. For Saiz to imply that the embarassed UCI, blushing ASO and teams like T-Mobile who dropped out of the sport over this should instead demand tabular scrutiny is a great application of the furious arrogance that drove Saiz to take his stack of victories. 

Maybe he's been working that out in therapy, but for it, I would like to award him with the Unlikely Savant/Pariah Channel Surfing Spaniard of the Week crystal globe. There's a little bit of Saiz in all cyclists, if not more harmless than an inner, red-faced,  directeur sportif threatening to kill your rivals and giving them the finger. More likely, tifosi worldwide channel the part that's unable to go to the races, but catching coverage wherever we can.