Contador goes Jerry Maguire: “show me the money.”
Gimme, gimme, gimme.
Yo, da man is making his needs clear. On vacation in Curacao, two-time Tour de France winner Alberto Contador left no doubt what’s on his mind. “Show me the money,” said El Pistelero. “Yvon Sanquer, Patrick Lefevere, Jonathan Vaughters, Caisse d’Epargne, show me the money.”
Making repeated “hands out” gestures stolen from Cuba Gooding in the famous sports agent morality tale Jerry Maguire, Alberto is all about the benjamins. Brother and manager Fran, playing the Tom Cruise character to perfection, said “alright, I get it, I get it.”
The normally soft spoken Contador had apparently watched the Jerry Maguire movie a dozen times while on his island holiday.
“I wanna see that 8 million. Show me that 8 million. Put it in my hand, I gots to touch that shit, right here, right now,” said Contador, showing off a suprisingly good gangsta impression.
Word to the Kazakh Cycling Federation president: do not mess with this man. He’s on a Jerry Maguire riff and Scarface could be next. Go to the bank, get the money and pay the man.
La Ruta De Los Conquistadores. Skip the winners check, take the Rolls Royce.
Where's the bike rack?
What’s the winners prize for the La Ruta de los Conquistadores mountain bike stage race? Is a nice check really enough after this grueling 4 day stage race across Costa Rica? There are viper snakes and jaguars, crocodiles, bats, army ants and poison dart frogs. Not to mention a few drug dealers in the jungle with machetes and machine guns. This is a hazardous pay situation. Twisted Spoke says the winner of the Conquistadores gets a brand spanking new million dollar Rolls Royce Phantom Conquistador. Have them throw in a bike rack and you are set.
Lampre signs 35 year old Honda and Hondo.
Sprinter Honda
The Italian ProTour team Lampre announced yesterday that they had signed Honda for one year. The 35 year old motorcycle is expected to help Lampre in all the big races. Lampre had also signed sprinter Danilo Hondo the previous day.
Management was quoted as saying “they’re both pretty fast. Hondo has some mileage on him but so does the Honda. We just wanted some insurance in case one of them breaks down mid-season. Besides, the Honda was less than 600 bucks on ebay.”
The Honda model CB360 has 7953 miles, some light rust and is all original except for the mufflers. Hondo is German, also with some rust and a drug suspension.
Honda and Hondo will join teammates Alessandro Petacchi and Damiano Cunego.
Alberto Contador, 8 Million Dollar Man, meet Steve Austin, 6 Million Dollar Man.
But could he beat Armstrong?
Before Alberto, there was Steve Austin, the hero of the seventies TV show The 6 Million Dollar Man. A quick plot summary to develop our thesis and dramatic contrast:
“Steve Austin, an astronaut who had walked on the moon, is almost fatally injured in a plane crash. Many of his damaged parts are replaced by bionic limbs, including his right arm, his left eye, and both legs.”
These bionics give him superpower strength and speed and of course the U.S. Government paid 6 million for him. As you can see, Alberto and Steve have a lot in common, salary-wise and leg-wise.
The 6 Million Dollar Man series ran for five exciting seasons and was nominated for a Golden Golden award. The bankers and managers at Team Astana are hoping their deal will bring Contador on for four thrilling seasons. Not to mention a few Tour de France trophies.
The hit TV show always opened with the same voice-over: “We can rebuild him. We have the technology. Better, stronger, faster. And in Alberto’s case, way richer.
Of course, the Kazak offer did say something about also replacing an arm and eyeball. Yikes.
Astana offers Alberto Contador 12 million a year. In Monopoly money.
Look, Alberto! Real money! We're rich.
Alberto is in the big money now. Funny money, too.
Velonews reports that the latest contract offer to Alberto Contador was in the range of 8 to 12 million a year. That was the good news.
The bad news was that the money is minted by the Parker Brothers company for their popular board game Monopoly. And it is therefore essentially useless and without value — even if it’s “Kapitalpolitik,” the Russian version of Monopoly.
Kazak banker?
But maybe not. Contador’s brother, advisor and bike mechanic Fran and his lawyers are examining the offer closely. “It may be that we can convert the Monopoly money into euros somehow through a Kazak bank,” said Fran. “It is a generous offer and we will evaluate it thoroughly.”
While cautious about the paper money, Contador remained optimistic. “Monopoly is still my favorite game. I like the idea of having hotels on Park Place or Marvin Gardens,” he said, citing two popular pieces of real estate in the famous game.
Meanwhile Nikolai Proskurin, head of the Kazak Cycling Federation, insisted the money is real, saying “the Monopoly rumors are false. Just because we couldn’t pay our rider salaries last year people laugh at us. This is not paper money. It exists,” said Proskurin.
Yes, it’s a big, big offer — enought to buy all the little red hotels. But legal tender?
Contador and Shleck in Tour battle of words: “No, you da man.”
Contador is "da man." I'm the alternate.
Alberto Contador and Andy Schleck went head to head Saturday in a hard-core game of “no, you da man.”
The hard fought match to determine who is the favorite for the 2010 Tour de France was fast and furious. “You da man,” said Alberto of his chief rival Schleck. The Saxo bank rider quickly countered with “No, you da man.”
The match went on for an hour and the final tally, scored by independent judges, reads as follows: Contador, 13 You Da Mans and Schleck 15 You Da Mans. Dutch newspaper De Telegraaf declared Alberto the provisional winner.
Reached for comment, Lance Armstrong fired back a series of tweets such as “I’m 7 times da man,” “Kid Contador ain’t the man,” and “Yo, man up, 2010 tdf. Radio ready.”
Cadel Evans weighed in from Australian, saying, “what do you think the M in team BMC stands for? I’m world champion which pretty much makes me “da man” until further notice.”
Twisted Spoke says we got some cyclists talkin’ some serious smack. As rapper Naz says in his justly under-rated song You’re Da Man, “Uh uh, yo, the plan was to knock me out the top of the game. But I understand they truth is all lame. I hold cannons that shoot balls of flames.”
No matter. The high mountains will decide, as they always do, the answer to the eternal question: Who is da man?
Asterix, Obelix and Ullrich. The cartoon doping affair.
Asterix & Obelix
Respect style. Respect a sense of flair, humor, symbolism and history.
Because whatever ever else you can say about Dope Doc #1, Eufemiano Fuentes, he’s got his whimsical side. Sure, call him dirty, a slime-ball, liar and cheat. He’s all those things and more, probably a bad dresser and a cheap tipper. But never question his sense of humor.
Here’s a man who sets up secret code names for himself and faithful servant Merino Batres using the character names of the most famous cartoon in French history. Asterix, the smart one, and Obelix, the bumbling hulk. The Adventures of Asterix began in 1959 and to date has 34 books in the series. No French boy grows up without these two.
Yes, Operacion Puerto was just such an adventure, a wild and secret ride around the world of doping. What else would you call a man with 100 bags of blood in the fridge? A man coding the bags by naming them after the name of the rider’s pet. Stop and appreciate the style, the irreverence and playfulness. Yes, drugs are bad but the sly humor cannot be beat.
And while you’re at it, consider that Mr. Ullrich was swinging by Eufemiano’s place to get ready for the biggest bike race in the world: The Tour de France. He was visiting a French cartoon character to prepare for the French race. How amusing symbolic is that?
Our hats are off the Mr. Fuentes. The man has some ethical issues he needs to resolve. But there’s no denying we need his style and humor.
Cocktails with Jonathan Vaughters at NorCal Cycle Fest.
Yes, he likes asparagus.
It was my pleasure to attend the NorCal Cycle Fest 2009 cocktail party fundraiser that featured Garmin chief Jonathan Vaughters.
First, I’m a huge fan of Vaughters who is without question one of the sharpest, most articulate and forward thinking men in cycling. His Garmin team leads the high speed charge for clean cycling. Which means nobody running around with satchels of syringes and bags of blood.
A few observations from the evening. Vaughters still looks like the climber he used to be only with a snazzy vest, jacket, jeans and boots. The trademark sideburns were in effect. His girlfriend is super cute and charming. He took it easy on the buffet and was in fact the only person to eat the asparagus. Okay, that was the People Magazine part of the evening.
Vaughters gave a 15 minute speech and I didn’t have a recording device but I did have four glasses of wine. This means there are no direct quotes. But probably the the most memorable thing he said was when discussing his efforts to create a new atmosphere for his riders. One that didn’t require doping. If recall serves, he didn’t want them forced into this situation: ” Can I accept mediocrity (as a rider) and can I look my mother in the eye?”
He went on to explain how he convinces riders they can win clean. Yes, there’s maybe a 10% performance gain from EPO but he tells his riders “we can claw that difference back” with better technology, fabrics, training, nutrition and things he wasn’t prepared to reveal since they’re proprietary.
Many of the questions from the audience concerned doping and whether the battle could be won. Vaughters used this as a way to explain the oft-times misunderstood biological passport. The new learning for us was that sure, you can’t always pinpoint or test for a particular doping product but that whatever the illegal additive is, it always changes the same blood values in the profile. You’ll know if a rider is up to something — then you can target. There are many ways to catch a rider who dopes.
Another subject he touched on was not only the intense pressure to dope but also intense pressure from sponsors to sign a particular rider even if he’s questionable. Vaughters admitted that Bernard Kohl and Stefan Schumacher were riders his sponsor pushed hard for based on their own business objective in the German market. It ain’t easy staying clean.
Finally, Twisted Spoke asked which Garmin rider was funnier: Zabriskie or Wiggins. It wasn’t even close for Vaughters who voted for Wiggins. Apparently, Z is big on that “that’s what she said…” joke, which if you have a teen boy, gets old fast.
Amazing but true: Michael Rasmussen dissolves non-existent contract.
Where is my pre-pen? I want to sign my contract.
Here is another classic in the strange world of cycling contracts. Michael Rasmussen has dissolved what he called the “pre-contract” with the CDC-Cavaliere team. I suppose we can officially call it a post-contract. Pre-signatures mean nothing — especially when you sign with those gimmicky pre-pens with the invisible ink.
He supposedly has signed a genuine contract, with no pre-contract and that team will have a post comment soon. Such is the state of professional cycling contracts. Alberto Contador has one with Astana but the UCI claims he is free to go but privately says he isn’t free to go. Meanwhile he’s stuffing it with every protective clause and loophole he can think off.
Bradley Wiggins has a contract with Garmin but team Sky is ready to buy him out. They have a pre-offer on the table but Garmin boss Jonathan Vaughters says that’s pre-mature. Sometimes these pre-nuptials don’t’ work out.
Cloudy, mystifying and strange. But we leave the final explanation to Mr. Rasmussen, who offered this classic Kafka meets George Orwell bit of nonsense-speak: “The two parties have commenced the liquidation of the cooperation that has never existed,” said the doping Dane.
Is that brilliant? Or maybe just pre-brilliant.
News from the year 2055. CAS delays Valverde ruling again.
Alejandro Valverde, age 75
Alejandro Valverde, the famous and long retired Spanish cyclist, expressed surprise today that The Court for Arbitration in Sport had delayed his CONI hearing yet again. The latest delay, the 178th, was issued without explanation.
The court is still trying to resolve the issue surrounding Valverde’s alleged involvement in the Operacion Puerto doping scandal that occurred back in May, 2006.
“I’ve been retired for 40 years. What’s the point? I haven’t raced in eons,” said Valverde. Several judges and attorneys have died waiting to rule on the long-delayed case. Efforts to reach a conclusion have also be stymied by the evidence drying up. Blood bags believed to be from Valverde have crusted over and the blood has mostly evaporated.
When reached for comment, Patrick McQuaid, the UCI president at the time, had no recollection of the once high profile case that was the source of much embarrassment for professional cycling. “I don’t remember a thing. I do remember CAS. Worthless people,” he said.
A spokesman for CAS declined to offer any explanation for the 45 years of delays, saying only that “we’re moving as fast as we can and hope to have this settled soon.”
