I like Todd Gogulski—really. Cycling commentary needs more ex-pros and fewer NCAA place kickers (in case you’d been wondering where VeloCenter’s Scott Kaplan came from) hurling fairly obvious questions at them.

But after a surprising finish at the Vuelta today, GoGo really missed the move on sorting things out. The audio is a follows is from Universal Sports’ efforts at “breaking down” the Stage 2 finish—and unless they were making an untoward implication about Hutarovich’s mother, it’s “Minsk“, not “minx“.

So according to Gogulski, Hutarovich won because:

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Oh yes. This is totally the direction I want to see the sport going in. Take the sponsor who’s pleased enough with a gutsy third-place finish to put the bike in their museum, then dissolve their team. Follow that up by reintroducing the guy who was caught in a police sting at an illicit blood bank with 50,000 euros in cash. 2011 looks like it’s going to be a great year.

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Do my eyes deceive me? Is there a piece critical of Lance Armstrong up on Versus.com? If it weren’t comparing him to Mel Gibson (hard to imagine the phone calls curiously absent from Armstrong’s emails with Floyd and Dr. Kay were anywhere near that bad) or erroneously claiming that Armstrong smashed Floyd’s (or Armstrong’s own non-existant) 2006 trophy, I might actually be impressed about the fact that it’s there.

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Even stepping outside myself and imagining the Tour through the eyes of a sunburnt American diletante, I think I still would have seen the inherent flaw in the way Versus and USA Today and even Bicycling Magazine tried to sell the 2010 Tour: what happens to “Lance vs. Contador” if either of them falls out of contention?

I’ve heard all the excuses—we have to sell papers. We’re building the audience. It’s what people want. I even got the press release about the record viewership in the first week. But as Lance shuffled meekly through the little door today with a torn jersey and shattered expectations, I think many purveyors of coverage in this sport will see exactly how poorly they’ve accomplished these things. You don’t develop someone’s taste for brie by deep-frying it.

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There’s been a lot of criticism about this year’s Tour de France being “Le Tour Feminine” coming into today’s anticipated “regular” flat stage. Riders have have expressed frustration and even anger over the atypical courses used early on in this year’s race.

[if you're having trouble viewing this, maybe try right-click/save file as... - if it still doesn't work, direct you complaints to Eurosport, who filmed the interview, didn't put it online, and then decided to pull it from YouTube]

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That’s what today’s stage—at least from the recaps, reports and clips through which I experienced it—seemed like to me.

In the rain, many contenders couldn’t take risks. With no time bonuses in the coming days, sprinters couldn’t really justify a run for yellow. Over a pancake-flat parcours, climbers couldn’t make any statements. And with all the variables in the equation, a suddenly fourth-placed Lance Armstrong couldn’t make any assessments of the day’s implications for the rest of the Tour.

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Versus hosted its media call for the 2010 Tour de France today, with Phil Liggett, Paul Sherwen, Tyler Farrar, Christian VandeVelde and Levi Leipheimer all on the line at one point or another.

Highlights for me were Tyler saying the exposure to Dutch roads at the Giro will probably make things worse for the Tour, Phil saying the Schlecks “don’t have the brains” of Greg LeMond or Stephen Roche, and VandeVelde telling Phil not to drink too much while watching the race.

[Flash 9 is required to listen to audio.]
The whole call runs 41:15. Here’s an mp3 version; notes on where to find what are below.

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Bah. You know, back in the day, this sort of thing required at least a modicum of skill. You’d look at the calendar, notice the week-and-a-half that had passed without any real news, see the Tour was about to start and you’d write something like “I sense a dope story is near”. People were once very impressed by that.

But no. Now you’ve got your rumors and your blogs and people just up and posting it and suggestive no-details Tweets that blossom out into a variety of @-replies and “what’s-that-supposed-to-means” until absolutely everyone already knows and the NYT has to print a story early.

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I realize I burn off a lot of text trying to drive the point home. This screenshot probably does a better job:

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When I began following this sport, one of the first things that struck me were riders’ reactions to anti-doping efforts. Granted, no one likes being woken up early—all the more so if the early wake-up comes with a blood test. But I’d imagine getting smeared across the Pyrenees by 25 guys cranking oxygen to their muscles through erythrocyte smoothies is an infinitely less pleasant experience. So why the resistance?

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