Man, can I call it or what? Not even a day after the big “confession” and the claim of “complete collaboration”, we have nothing but a little omerta and some “attempted doping”. “Attempted” doping! LMAO!! Ah, when any chump 16 year old in East Bumble, MO, can dose up on designer ‘roids, one of the best paid, most successful cyclists in the world just can’t seem to connect syringe to asscheek. Oh, and – best part – Basso says all his attempts at doping came in the negative-three day window between his nine-minute Giro win (over another Puerto doper) and the Operacion Puerto revelation. Cyclingnews clearly blew the caption on this one – it’s not “my lips are sealed” but “I’m having trouble saying this with a straight face”.
Ah – woo, seriously folks, I’m gonna be laughing about this one for a while. Bravo to Massimo Martelli for conjuring up this one – even Howard Jacobs couldn’t concoct something so ridiculous. I’m surprised Basso didn’t add that the doping attempts were for his dog or sick mother-in-law. And while Pat McQuaid refuses any notion of a sentence reduction, Basso was thanked for his honesty by authorities nonetheless – only in Italy, folks. Anyway, I’m sure all this hubbub will drop a fistful of sand into Bradley Wiggins’ chamois – he just took the field at the increasingly-misnamed Four Days of Dunkirk to task in the opening TT, and the news is all “Basso, Basso, Basso”. Keep in mind that Wiggy already has a chip on his shoulder about media coverage.