The Farce Comes Full Circle

Eurosport reports that Ivan Basso has been officially cleared to race. Note how they’ve sloppily insisted that Basso “served out a four-month suspension having been linked with the Operation Puerto doping probe”. That’s the biggest syntactic dry-hump since Super Bowl XXXVIII’s “wardrobe malfunction”. Using the verb “served” would imply that Basso’s suspension was a predetermined sentence, handed down by some sort judicial body after a legitimate trial. And it was nothing of the kind.

Like Jan Ullrich, Joseba Beloki, Allen Davis and lord knows how many other riders, Basso has been penned up indefinitely in the cycling world’s equivalent of Gitmo since Operacion Puerto broke in late May. Accusations flew fast and heavy, and like a self-conscious fat chick scrambling to fit a Size 4, the pro cycling world starved out and vomited away its best assets, coming to the big dance with rotted teeth and withered bosoms. And it still wasn’t enough to avoid busting the damn dress open.

When cycling’s most feared and respected rider gets suspended – that is, demonized, scapegoated, robbed of work, etc. – without charge, and now, it seems, without even any good evidence, you might expect that a cycling’s allegedly free press would be standing for accountability as strongly as they clamored for justice. You’d be wrong. Sure, a few voices peeped defiantly along with me, but how many times can you shout yourself hoarse against the mob before you start to sound crazy.

So, yeah. If you work for a major media outlet and you read this (hell, I’d be surprised if anyone still reads this), I defy you to present a good explanation of how you still deserve your occupation. My guess is you’re too busy knbbing off the bike pornographers that actually pay your salary to inform the readers you pretend to serve that their cycling heros have been on the thread-end of the worst screw job since Samuel Tilden. It’s just a shame the fringe sports get stuck with journalists who are too piss poor to get a job anywhere else.