Racing, Tabloids, Drugs, Tabloids, Beef

So I’m going to start the day in Denmark, where Matti Breschel became the first Dane to win a stage at the Tour of Denmark in nearly half a decade. No word yet on whether to chalk that winless streak up to bad luck, or an active anti-Danish campaign by embittered Rasmussen teammates.

Speaking of the Chicken who would be king, apparently a hacker broke into his email account, and attempted to sell its contents to a Danish tabloid. The unwritten code of hacking celebrities, however, dictates that all stolen data be openly released, so I in no way feel bad about the hacker’s eventual arrest. At any rate, hacking onto Rasmussen’s eBay account and selling hemapure and Rabobank jerseys would have been a much funnier prank.

Moving on to Spain, we find that a former Vuelta winner has tested positive. Wait – isn’t that old news? Maybe it was a previous winner – no, still no surprise. So who was it? Aitor Gonzalez? But isn’t he already suspended? Oh, wait, this was a real-life drug test – man, DUI and cocaine! Looks like someone’s a bigger LiLo fan than you might think. Still, I don’t think cyclists will be switching from their old standards anytime soon (although blow was once a six-day racer’s favorite). To be completely honest, if it weren’t for the fate of Marco Pantani, I’d almost prefer to see cyclists on more mainstream drugs; I doubt Promises has much experience with the psychological addiction that must form to tracing with your hematocrit up around 54.

Regardless of what riders ingest, though, Stuttgart will be watching – a total of 350 controls will be administered for the one-day World Championship event, which usually sees less than 50 finishers. For those scoring at home, the World Champs are one of only a handful of races run and owned completely by the UCI, which would seem to dent the ASO’s theory that the UCI “never wanted clean cycling”. Maybe that’s why the two bodies are reportedly squashing the beef.