By Sunday, Alberto Contador, the Discovery Channel phenom and the future of cycling may well be wearing 2 jerseys. Best Young Rider and the GC yellow.
It may also turn out to be a big week for the dopers. French custom agents today pulled over the team buses of Astana, Discovery Channel, Robobank, and CSC looking for, well... dope. Michael Rassmussen, the Dane, who has sheepishly held the maillot jaune for the last week of Le Tour, but couldn't find his way to 2 drug tests (3 gets you a yellow warning card) has been dogged by allegations of doping including my favorite where he tried to get a teamate to carry over a box of cow-blood hidden in a cycling shoe box. Apparently the man known at the Chicken still has a thing for the Runes. All you have to do is watch one of the press conferences and it's obvious that the fidgety, unable-to-look-a-reporter-in-the-eye Rassmussen has something to hide. If he wins, and the doping allegations stick, that'll make it 2 in a row and cycling won't recover for many years to come.
And then there's Mr. Clean himself, Barry Bonds, who arguably has been subjected to much racism in the career and is definitely a helluva ballplayer, but has never helped himself by being an asshole to fans and the press alike. Barry Bonds returns today to where he left his heart and where San Francisco will surely open up it's Golden Gate to welcome him for an 8-game homestand and the opportunity to catch a baseball that might be worth a million dollars. As Hall-of-Famer Frank Robinson recently stated, professional atheletes don't getter better when they turn 40, but somehow the BB did.
m.o.i.: white hat, black hat, yellow jersey
elsewhere:
m.o.i.: maillot jaune
m.o.i.: corporate money
m.o.i.: flance to wear zero for prologue
m.o.i.: you've lost that lovin' feeling
m.o.i.: give it up